Home Improvement, Baywatch, V.I.P.
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$12 Million
All it takes is one big break to find yourself thrust into the spotlight and becoming a celebrity seemingly overnight. One of the people that’s achieved just that is Pamela Anderson, who was basically discovered at random and parlayed it into a long acting and modeling career. Over the course of the 1990s and into the current millennium, Anderson has become one of the most recognizable names in entertainment. Not only that, but the 51 year old is still landing regular work in both film and television that’s keeping her name fresh on everybody’s mind.
Anderson hails from Canada, having been born on July 1, 1967 in Ladysmith, British Columbia. Her parents had been working normal jobs while she was growing up, coming from a pretty run of the mill family. That first brief taste of fame came just moments after Anderson was born, though, as she was the first child to be born after Canada celebrated its 100th year of signing the Constitution. Once she was finished with high school, Anderson left her hometown but stayed in the province, heading to Vancouver.
It was there that Anderson had been working as a fitness instructor, but it didn’t take long for her to get noticed once again. This time around, Anderson was attending a football game and the camera operators featured her on the big screen to a lot of fan reaction. Because she was wearing a shirt for a beer company, it helped Anderson land her first modeling gig as she started working with Labatt’s and getting her career off the ground.
Shortly after she received that modeling gig, Anderson got another call that would bring her even more exposure, to say the least. That call came from Playboy magazine, which featured Anderson on the cover, turning a lot of heads. That magazine appearance in 1989 wouldn’t be her last one, as Anderson appeared in Playboy on multiple occasions for many years. In fact, nobody has graced the magazine’s cover as much as Anderson has.
Anderson then had ambitions of becoming an actress and headed to California where she’d receive plenty of offers. That first television appearance for Anderson came in 1990 when she appeared in an episode of “Married with Children” and later that year had a guest spot in “Charles in Charge”. The next year, Anderson made her film debut by appearing in a brief role in “The Taking of Beverly Hills” and made a couple more guest appearances on TV before landing her first recurring role.
“Home Improvement” is where a lot of people became introduced to Anderson as she played the role of Lisa, the assistant on the fictional TV show hosted by Tim Allen’s character. The role offers came in hot and heavy for Anderson after she had the role, with “Days of Our Lives” calling from the soap opera circuit. Also, perhaps her most famous role would kick off in 1992 when she became C.J. Parker on “Baywatch”, starring in the series up until 1997. The show had already been popular at the time, but Anderson’s role only made the show more talked about.
Keeping herself busy with appearances in television and the two series that are still watched to this day, Anderson was also able to add more film roles throughout the 1990s. There were a pair of “Baywatch” films in which Anderson starred. Some of the other notable films from the decade that Anderson starred in included “Barb Wire” and “Naked Souls” with Anderson taking the top billing in both.
Toward the end of the 1990s, Anderson landed herself another series when she became the star of “V.I.P.” as Vallery Irons. The series lasted for nearly 90 episodes, coming to a close in 2002. The next project on her mind was an animated series called “Stripperella”, though it would last for just 13 episodes. In the early 2000s, Anderson added more film cameos that included “Borat” and “Pauly Shore is Dead”. Another series was on the horizon, and Anderson starred in the short-lived Fox series “Stacked”.
One of the more common infections with hundreds of thousands of people having it, Anderson has hepatitis C that can affect the liver by creating inflammation. “They said I would die in 10 years,” Anderson said. “When someone tells you something like that you kind of act differently subconsciously.” After experimenting with a new drug called Sovaldi, however, Anderson’s 12 week treatment was able to get her cured of the virus. It wasn’t cheap, though, as the drug cost around $100,000.
Being able to recover from the virus that could’ve been lethal, Anderson has continued to be very busy so far in the 2010s. Reality shows have been more frequent for her in recent years, popping up in shows such as “RuPaul’s Drag Race”, “Celebrity Juice” and “VIP Big Brother” in Bulgaria. She’s even been in three different seasons of “Dancing with the Stars”, making it seven weeks deep in Season 10 and eliminated in the first week of Season 15, as well as the seventh week of the French version of the show.
Of course, away from the cameras, Anderson has had a lot of exposure for her private life. With marriages to rockers like Tommy Lee and Kid Rock, Anderson is very much talked about. It’s hard to think that her career might not have ever happened had she not been featured on a video board at a football game. “I thought it was funny,” she said of her rise to stardom.
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