Pamela Anderson: Now-Serious Actress

[Pink Freud]

I guess the Pam 'n Tommy Lee boat videos didn't win any Oscars, so it's come to this: She's starring in a new movie whose title says it all: https://leonardmaltin.com/the-last-showgirl/

No doubt some reviewers will completely rave over Anderson's performance since they've set the acting bar so low for her. I give her credit for exposing (this time) her former vanity for today's harsh reality, along with Jamie Lee Curtis in a similar vein. But in reading Leonard Maltin's review, I kept harking back to an afternoon I spent at the historic Aero Theater on Montana Avenue in Santa Monica, a wonderful old neighborhood movie house still screening single films since 1940.

The Aero is also a popular spot for showbiz types to do personal appearances, and it was there I attended a talk by Valerie Perrine, a former Las Vegas showgirl who got her big movie break with Dustin Hoffman in her Best Actress Oscar-nominated turn in "Lenny", then became Lex Luthor's (Gene Hackman) dim-bulb aide de camp "Miss TESCHMACHER!!" in 1978's "Superman". On this day at the Aero, Perrine was 69 years old, and clearly on the decline, both physically and mentally. She was dotty and seemed at times disoriented. But,..she showed up.

Five years later she underwent brain surgery to combat her advancing Parkinson's disease. She's now 81.

She stunned us with her anecdote about dating Jay Sebring, the hairdresser to the stars in the late '60s who was supposed to take her to a party at the Sharon Tate/Roman Polanski house the night the Manson Family arrived uninvited. They missed connections that night, and Sebring arrived solo, and was murdered along with the others when the Manson murderers thought their prey, Doris Day's son Terry Melcher (and his live-in Candice Bergen), still occupied the house after Melcher, a renowned Hollywood music producer, went back on his promise to record Manson's music. Manson remembered the route to the house because he hung around Melcher at the Whisky-a-Go-Go and tagged along when Melcher's group went to his house party months earlier. That was Valerie's version.

However, Perrine did leave us with this timeless reflection on one attendee's question posed to her: "Valerie, how did you feel about going topless onscreen in 'Lenny'?". Her response: "Honey, I'd been showing my t....(ahem, breasts) on Vegas stages for eight years before that." According to IMDb.com, "She became the first woman to display (on purpose) her nipples on American network television during the May 4, 1973, broadcast of Bruce Jay Friedman's play Steambath (1973) shown on Hollywood Television Theater (PBS)."

I'll be reminded of Valerie Perrine if I watch Pamela Anderson portraying....essentially....her.

[fladsteres]

Eh, thanks for the youth) I pictured Pamela in almost every girl) How stunning she was)