48 pages • 1-hour read
Love, Pamela: A Memoir of Prose, Poetry, and Truth
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Chapters 6-10Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Content Warning: This section of the guide features discussion of substance use, emotional abuse, physical abuse, child abuse, pregnancy loss, addiction, sexual content, and suicidal ideation.
Chapter 6 Summary
Once her Playboy photoshoot came out, Anderson was inundated with calls from casting agents. She was reluctant to meet with the Baywatch producers, solely because she didn’t like driving, and their offices were far from her home. Instead, she auditioned for the role of Lisa on Home Improvement, and got the part. This was a minor but recurring role, and since Home Improvement was the most popular show in the country at the time, she became instantly recognizable to millions of Americans. With no preparation on how to deal with fame, Anderson came to accept that she had lost her anonymity.
While she at first avoided the Baywatch opportunity, Anderson accompanied then-boyfriend David Charvet to his audition for the show. After meeting her, the producers offered her a spot on the show without her auditioning at all. They interviewed her about her personality and background to inform her character C.J. on the show. As Anderson juggled her roles on Home Improvement and Baywatch, she realized that Baywatch offered her much more opportunity to shine as an actor and ended her role on Home Improvement.
Anderson explored theories on acting and was drawn to method acting, which emphasizes using personal experience as a foundation for performance. She had a fascination with revolutionary politics, Beat poets, and artists such as Frida Kahlo and Anaïs Nin. As her fame grew, Anderson found herself misunderstood and wished that people could see through the “superficial, materialistic” public image that was largely based on Playboy and Baywatch (99). She recalls feeling pressured to behave like everyone else. For instance, she wishes that she had given more thought to her breast enhancement surgery, which in hindsight she feels was a mistake. Wanting to use her fame for good, Anderson began a productive partnership with the organization People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), which she remains proud of.
As the success of Baywatch continued, so did Anderson’s fame. She began to promote the show around the world, which brought exciting opportunities to travel and explore. Anderson was filled with curiosity and jumped at the chance to experience other cultures and learn about their history. However, her worldwide fame also complicated these experiences, as she experienced the frightening side of celebrity. In one instance she was rushed out of an appearance when a crowd turned violent, mobbing her and ripping down the stage set up.
Chapter 7 Summary
One New Year’s Eve, while Anderson was celebrating at a bar she co-owned with friends, she met Tommy Lee, and the two had an instant chemistry. She was intrigued by Lee’s wild and playful demeanor, and he asked for her number. Anderson was dating surfer Kelly Slater at the time, but the relationship was casual. She told Lee she was staying at the Chateau, and he called her the next day. While she was flirtatious with him, she did not pursue anything serious and thought he’d forget about her. Months later, Lee tracked her down and insisted on visiting her in Mexico, where she was working. After a night of clubbing, the two spontaneously got married at Lee’s suggestion and flew home to a paparazzi circus in LA.
Anderson called Slater to let him know her big news, and then told her mother and brother, both of whom were hurt and annoyed by her surprise wedding, which they had missed. While Anderson felt bad, she was “lost in a sea of love” with Tommy Lee (111). She recalls their happy early days as newlyweds, emphasizing their infatuation and the joy of sharing a new home together. Anderson wanted to embrace life and share generously with her friends; she fondly recalls her special surprise birthday party for Tommy Lee on a ranch with Cirque de Soleil performers.
Chapter 8 Summary
Anderson’s marriage to Lee quickly spiraled out of control as he became more jealous and controlling, insisting on visiting her on set and even trying to dictate her character’s plot lines. Lee behaved violently with producers and Anderson herself, who was already worn thin from working on Baywatch while also shooting the film Barb Wire. After a terrifying day in which Tommy Lee drove into the makeup trailer and forced Anderson to come home, she attempted suicide. The following day, Lee and Anderson’s brother got into a brawl at the hospital before learning that Anderson was pregnant. This calmed everyone for a time. Weeks later, Anderson lost the pregnancy. The couple tried to be healthier and have a fresh start, and a few months later, were thrilled to learn that Anderson was pregnant again. After a happy pregnancy, Anderson gave birth at home, delivering her son, Brandon. While Anderson loved being a mother, she struggled with the intense scrutiny of being in the public eye. Lee’s intense temper made him easily baited by the photographers, and the couple had to settle multiple lawsuits due to Lee assaulting different paparazzi. After the birth of her second son, Dylan, Anderson left Baywatch to focus on parenting. She relied on the help of her parents, who had moved to her old condo in Malibu, and she was determined to raise her kids herself without the help of nannies.
Chapter 9 Summary
During Anderson’s pregnancy with Dylan, the couple’s challenges worsened when a massive safe was stolen from their home. Anderson suspects that it was an “inside job” by people who had been hired to renovate their house. Inside the safe were home videos made by her and Tommy Lee, including the now infamous “sex tape.” The two were horrified to learn that their keepsakes had been stolen, and things worsened when months later Bob Guccione from Penthouse magazine called them. He revealed that he had the video and offered them $5 million for the rights to it. They refused.
Months passed, and Anderson and Lee were disgusted to learn that a company had edited and sold the video. While they began a lawsuit, Anderson found the depositions too stressful and worried about her unborn son. They stopped the suit and tried to ignore the damage that had been done to Anderson’s reputation and career opportunities (as a male rock star, Lee’s reputation remained unaffected). Anderson reflects on how the scandal around the theft and the release of their tapes caused enormous pain and embarrassment for them and their families, and put a new strain on their marriage. Meanwhile, the people who illegally distributed the video made “hundreds of millions of dollars” (131). Anderson explains that the stress overwhelmed them. One night, when Dylan was seven weeks old, Tommy Lee snapped, grabbing her and the baby and pushing them into the wall. When he ran down the street with Brandon, Anderson called the police, who arrested Lee. He was imprisoned for his abuse, and Anderson divorced him, feeling devastated that he had turned on her so violently. She recalls this period as the “hardest, lowest, most difficult point of my life” (134).
Chapter 10 Summary
After her divorce, Anderson tried to be strong and focused on being a good mother to her boys. She read more about psychology, trying to understand her own concept of “true love” and her attachment to fairy tale-style, infatuated romance. While she began to recognize her inflated expectations of romantic love, she found her infatuation with Lee hard to break. While therapists and lawyers advised her to avoid him, they would still secretly hook up after his release from prison.
Anderson loved living in The Colony, a gated beachfront community in Malibu, but was frightened to learn that a stalker had broken in and secretly inhabited the guest room for days. Meanwhile, she was trying to provide for her parents, whose health was worsening, and she supported her mother through a serious surgery.
Chapters 6-10 Analysis
These chapters reveal Anderson’s tumultuous relationship with her first husband, Tommy Lee, whose wild but occasionally abusive behavior recalls that of her father. Her memories of her early interactions with Tommy Lee, especially how he followed her to Mexico even after she insisted he shouldn’t, are reminiscent of her father’s search for her mother during their separation. Anderson highlights how her wariness about Lee was mixed with curiosity and soon turned into intense infatuation. Anderson does not explain why she agreed to marry Lee so suddenly, only that she was “in heaven” and “genuinely happy,” revealing her spontaneous and romantic approach to relationships (110-11). Their marital breakdown also echoed her parents’ relationship, as Lee’s violent behavior brought the couple to their breaking point. She writes, “I was crushed. I still couldn’t believe that the person I loved the most was capable of what had happened that night. We were both devastated, but I had to protect my babies” (134). While Lee’s abuse of Anderson echoed her mother’s experience of spousal abuse, the author presents herself as determined to stop this cycle of abuse and ensure her children did not experience what she did growing up. Her mother offers both a negative and a positive example to her: She refuses to be trapped in an abusive relationship as her mother was, but at the same time she seeks to emulate her mother’s loving, protective relationship to her children, evidence of The Importance of Female Role Models.
In these passages Anderson also focuses on Fame and the Commodification of the Self, explaining how her rapid ascent to stardom came with serious drawbacks. She portrays herself as a young and naive performer whose fame and public image metastasized out of her control. For instance, her memory of being mobbed at an appearance in South America reveals the darker side of fandom and celebrity. She recalls,
I kept feeling hands touching me, grabbing at me—more and more of them. Six police officers flanked me for protection, but I was being squished on all sides. Rocks and sticks started being thrown—it was turning into mayhem. A rock hit me in the head as the crowd yelled, “We love you, Pamela!” (104).
This frightening experience made Anderson realize that while her celebrity brought her many adoring fans, it also jeopardized her safety. Anderson’s memories of being stalked by the paparazzi at her home and in public reveal her continued fear and frustration with this aspect of her stardom, which soon became a regular aspect of her life. She recalls, “But it was hard to live a normal life—the paparazzi were everywhere, hanging from trees, pointing cameras at our house” (112). Such experiences made her feel that fame “felt like a strange disease you couldn’t wash off” (105). This simile captures fame’s potential toxicity and danger, which Anderson experienced again when her personal tapes were stolen from her home and released to the public. Anderson communicates her sadness and rage in verse, showing the human cost of this crime behind the salacious headlines: “Sinking into despair, at times / it reminded me how I disliked / humans / Dirty money / Unforgivable” (132). By calling this experience “a great cause of pain for all of us” the author emphasizes the ongoing feelings of sadness and violation from this experience (131).
But Anderson was also frustrated by her fame for another, very different, reason. She felt that her public image differed greatly from who she really was, making her feel caricatured and misunderstood. By revealing this frustration, Anderson presents her public image as out of her control, rooted in the sexist commodification of female bodies. Anderson acknowledges that her own personal and professional choices informed this image, but expresses her longing to be seen and understood for who she really was. In one poem she remembers, “I needed someone to see me / Through the fog / How could they? / I was guilty of painting my own self-image. / But nobody knew how far I’d come” (99). By providing this emotional context, Anderson helps the reader understand that her decision to become an activist stemmed from a conscious choice to use her fame constructively as a way to reclaim the agency that she had lost to the entertainment industry.
Anderson’s admission that television career felt vapid reveals her longing to make a more tangible impact in the world, underlining the importance of Forgiveness as a Catalyst for Personal Growth. She admits, “I ached / For a purpose / I had so much to give […] / I felt like I had accomplished nothing” (100). Though her memoir makes clear that she had in fact accomplished a great deal by this point, this feeling arises from her sense that her public image is not her own. In this context, her activism gives her a way to forgive herself for perceived failures. In doing so, she reclaims agency. Though she cannot fully control her image as a celebrity, she can at least control what she does with the cultural and literal capital that image brings her. Anderson’s decision to work with PETA reflects her lifelong empathy for animals, and she presents her activism as being a truer reflection of herself than her professional career. She explains, “This was when I decided to turn my kind of activism into something full-force. I wanted to share the international attention I was getting with something more meaningful” (100). Anderson’s decision to develop another more purposeful facet of her life during this period shows her desire to grow as a person and help others.
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