Pamela Anderson dazzles in ‘The Last Showgirl’

If Pamela Anderson has managed to leave behind Baywatch, 13 Playboy covers and the sex tape with her ex, Tommy Lee, it is probably because there was always something else about her. Harnessing that extra something is what makes Gia Coppola’s film The Last Showgirl worth a watch. It premieres on June 20 and showcases a dazzling Anderson in the twilight of her career.

It can’t have been easy to reinvent herself after being the sex symbol of the 1990s, but Anderson, 57, has managed both on and off screen. The Last Showgirl tells the story of Shelly Gardner, a 50-something erotic dancer who is wrestling with redundancy. The ageing of the female body is central to a film which focuses on fragility. Off-screen, Anderson has also turned a corner, shedding the exaggerated make-up that made her naked face so fascinating. She still has needle-thin eyebrows but no false eyelashes, eyeliner, or smoky eye shadows. Now the talk is of her skin rather than her breasts.

The Last Showgirl could be seen as a remake from a female perspective of Showgirls, the now-vindicated film by Paul Verhoeven. Elizabeth Berkley, the star of Showgirls, is also blonde with a white trash air associated with Las Vegas dancers. Their shows featuring feathers, sequins, and transparent meshes are at the foundation of a city that spits out its muses when their time is up.

If in Showgirls Berkley’s character, Nomi Malone, arrives in Sin City ready to take on the world, in The Last Showgirl, Anderson’s character is working her way out. The show she has been performing for decades, entitled Le Razzle Dazzle, closes due to changing tastes. Anderson is as delicate and vulnerable as she is strong and powerful, a duality evident when she dressed as a vamp for the promotion of Barb Wire — which bombed in 1995 — or with the ubiquitous tops and denim shorts that she helped make fashionable.

In fact, Anderson underwent a transformation back in 2022, when she debuted on Broadway as Roxie Hart in the musical Chicago. Shortly after the Hulu series Pam & Tommy, which the actress considered exploitation, she published her memoir and then came the Netflix documentary on her life. From there, she made the astute decision to debut a natural look in magazines and on red carpets. Some of Marilyn Monroe’s most incredible pictures are of her without makeup, taken in New York where she would go out occasionally make-up free to avoid being recognized. Anderson’s new look brings Monroe’s strangely pure images to mind. It is one of those declarations of intent embraced by the contemporary world of fashion and social networks.

If Anderson initially played the ultimate pin-up, she now presents herself as a quiet activist of animal and plant life, author of a vegan cookbook entitled I Love You: Recipes from the Heart, which is inspired by the farm garden the actress owns in her native Vancouver. As Anderson explained in a recent interview, her transformation began in her garden, among the roses and cherry trees of a Provençal-style estate that belonged to her grandmother. This is where her parents lived after they married and where the two children she had with Tommy Lee, Brandon and Dylan, learned to walk.

Anderson returned to the family farm during the pandemic and decided to stay. She now lives near her parents while she rehearses a role for a new version of Tennessee Williams’ play Camino Real for the Williamstown Theatre Festival, while promoting the remake of the comedy The Naked Gun, also starring Liam Neeson, which premieres on August 1.

It is curious that the release of The Last Showgirl coincides with the documentary miniseries Súper Sara, Valeria Vegas’ examination of Sara Montiel. One of the main themes of Súper Sara is precisely how difficult it is for women in show business to avoid becoming victims of an ageism that even Madonna is not above. But Anderson has found her place away from hairpieces and latex bodices, and has carved a niche for herself that has considerably more depth.

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