A trademark of the show was slow motion shots of the fit and attractive lifeguards running on the beach. It was originally conceived as kids programming, but when adults noticed the sexy women lifeguards wearing revealing red swimsuits, “Baywatch” quickly caught on.
Starring David Hasselhoff as the lead lifeguard, “Baywatch” was canceled by NBC after one season. Hasselhoff and the excutive producers felt the show had potential so they revived it for syndication and Hasselhoff became the executive producer. Except for one season, it ran from 1989-99 and became the most popular TV show in the world.
At the time she joined “Baywatch” Pam was appearing on the Tim Allen sitcom “Home Improvement,” the No, 1 show in America, as Lisa the “Tool Time Girl.”
“I remember having to make a choice between 'Home Improvement' and 'Baywatch,'” she said. “I realized that I'd rather go to the beach all the time, even though they were paying me a lot more [for 'Home Improvement']. It was about quality of life.”
Classic TV Beauties 1990s Countdown
PAMELA ANDERSON as C.J. Parker in "Baywatch" and Vallery Irons in "V.I.P."
Building a career based on big blonde hair and bigger boobs, Pamela transitioned from a Playboy model to an actress to a TV executive producer during the 90s.
Utilizing her curvy body and sex appeal, she played a sexy lifeguard, the owner of a bodyguard agency who spoofs her own image, and even a “Tool Time Girl" during the decade.
And Pam's never pretended that her bodacious body wasn't her ticket to her soaring popularity.
“My breasts have a career, I'm just tagging along,” she once half seriously said.
“I haven't reinvented myself,” she said in an interview with www.marieclare.com in 2009. “It's an honest evolution. I've always been authentic. Except for the boobs.”
“Baywatch” was the perfect vehicle for the five-foot-seven Canadian. Pamela said she was attracted to the role of C.J. because of the “New Age thinking” she shared with the character.
Pamela was the Uber-Babe of the Baywatch babes, a cast of female lifeguards, which, over the course of the show's run, included: Carmen Electra, Donna D'Errico, Traci Bingham, Nicole Eggert and Yasmine Bleeth.
“'Baywatch' was a great show,” Pamela said. “It was completely mindless. You could turn it on in any language and still be entertained. You could turn it on halfway through an episode and still enjoy it. Now that's entertainment.
“'Baywatch' was fantastic, bringing my dog to work every day. I couldn't believe they were paying me to go to work.”
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Pamela left “Baywatch” in 1998 to head her own series as Vallery Irons, the owner of a bodyguard agency, in the syndicated “V.I.P.,” a fast-paced action series in which she often poked fun at her own image. Entertainment Weekly called it “part 'Charlie's Angels, part “A-Team” – a sort of T&A team.”
'We had some studio executives here the other day,'' she said in a 2000 interview with Entertainment Weekly. “And they started saying 'There are three elements to this show....' And I was like, 'Yeah, hair, makeup, and wardrobe.' Which is really sort of true.
“The episode we're doing this week, for instance. I'm wearing these little white gloves and clutching this little purse and then I'm in the middle of a gunfight. It's the same every week. We're playing dress-up and cracking jokes at ourselves. It's silly. It's ridiculous. I love it."
Pam also served as executive producer for “V.I.P” which had a four-year run (1998-2002)
“Pamela's most memorable film was“Barb Wire” (1996), based on the comic book series of the same name, Pam starred in the title role as Barbara “Barb Wire” Kopetski.
She has played herself in numerous films, including “Scooby Doo,” “Pauly Shore Is Dead,” “Costa Rican Summer,” and “Hollywood & Wine.”
Pamela reprised her C.J. Parker role in the 2003 show “Baywatch: Hawaiian Wedding.”
A notorious sex tape with husband Tommy Lee on their honeymoon that was stolen and sold on the black market only enhanced her reputation as a sexpot.
Pamela has stayed active with a variety of projects. She's written two novels, “Star” and “Starstruck,” and she gained attention for her involvement with PETA when she posed naked in the window of Stella McCartney's London store in 2006.
Born in Ladysmith, British Columbia, Pamela was the first Canadian born on Canada's Centennial Day – July 1, 1967. She said her grandfather immigrated from Finland to Canada and changed his last name from Hyytianen to Anderson. After high school Pamela moved to Vancouver and worked as a fitness instructor.
The story of how she was discovered is now legendary. While attending a B.C. Lions football game, she appeared on the Jumbo Tron screen wearing a tight Labatt T-shirt and the crowd roared with approval. Soon she was signed up as a model for Labatt.
It didn't take long for Playboy magazine to come calling.
“I was so confused,” Pamela said of her first Playboy photo shoot in a 2010 interview with the website www.guardian.co.uk. “I told my mom and she said, 'Do it, I'd do it.'
“I was so shy I was sick. They got the cover in the first roll of film because I was in tears thinking, 'Oh my God, this woman, she touched my boob. This is not for me.' And then, after a while shooting, I became so comfortable they had to stop before I walked out of the studio door nude.”
Pamela appeared on the cover of Playboy magazine in October 1989, the first of a record 13 covers she has graced – so far. Several months later, February 1990, she was named Playmate of the Month and the blonde Canadian who's been called the “ultimate California girl” was starting to become famous.
She moved to Hollywood and appeared in TV episodes of “Charles in Charge” (1990) “Married... With Children” (1990-91), and “Days of Our Lives” (1992) before he was hired for “Baywatch” in 1992.
Pamela said when she moved to California as a young twenty-something, she was very innocent.
"I remember being in the gym at Playboy with Kimberly Hefner, and we were looking at all these pictures and I was going, 'My God! Look at their bodies – they're great.' And she said, 'Well, you know, they have fake boobs' and I was, 'What!' I could not believe it. I went, 'Sign me up, this is not fair. This is not an even playing field' and within two weeks I did it. But I don't think I really needed to. And I haven't done anything else, and I don't plan to.”
More recently, she participated in “Dancing With the Stars” and on “Big Brother.”
“I don't know if you can call me an artist or not, but I feel like I've created my life day by day,” she told Esquire magazine in 2004. “It wasn't, like, this whole plan: I'm going to conquer the world.
“I've been blessed with opportunities in Hollywood. I've made a whole career out of it somehow. I don't even really know how I did it.”
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