It’s evident within minutes of Pamela, a Love Story, the new Netflix documentary on arguably the most recognizable blonde bombshell of the last 30 years, that Pamela Anderson is a stellar archivist of herself. Understated in a white T-shirt, sans makeup, typically bleach-blond hair loose and unstyled, Anderson leads the camera through trove after trove of records – VHS tapes, Hi8 footage, DVDs, dozens of notebooks marked by distinctively large, bubbled handwriting. Boxes of home videos and memorabilia, saved at her childhood home on Vancouver Island, all provided unrestricted to film-makers.
Pamela, a Love Story covers the full sweep of Anderson’s 55 years, from her turbulent childhood in the small island town of Ladysmith to her discovery by a Labatt beer scout at a Canadian football game, to her transformation into a Playboy cover girl and Baywatch babe, to the public fascination with her whirlwind marriage to rocker Tommy Lee. There’s the devastation of her intimate tape’s theft and distribution, later career stalls and hiccups, life with her two sons Brandon and Dylan, several marriages and few regrets.
