Behind the Cover: Happy Birthday, Pamela Anderson!

Editor-in-chief Suzanne Boyd with Bryan Adams

In honour of Pamela Anderson’s 49th birthday, we look back at our 2013 cover story with the model-actress.

Having been born on Canada Day, Pamela Anderson is Canada’s Baby—or some might say Babe, for that matter. And as she turns a Zoomerific 46 this July 1, we thought that there was no better occasion to celebrate her. Anderson’s journey from B.C.-based Labatt’s Girl to über-Hollywood blond is a well-told tale, and our nostalgia-inflected cover shoot photographed by Bryan Adams on location in Malibu, Calif., was conceived as a tribute to her unassailable place in the pin-up pantheon of Grable, Monroe and Bardot—a place where the skies are blue, the surf is up and the summer is endless.

The cover profile, “Pamela Anderson Has a Plan,” written by Ken Hegan who, let’s just say, has had a keen interest in our Pam over the years, stays clear of the well-trodden path of sex, scandal and rock ‘n’ roll that has turbo-charged Anderson’s fame through Home Improvement, Baywatch, V.I.P. and Barb Wire but instead heads for the higher ground where the star herself happens to reside. There, Hegan discovers a committed mother to two teenage boys and an indefatigable advocate for a slew of causes including environmentalism, PETA and veganism as well as for HIV-AIDS. A star who is cannily using her notoriety to work the international reality show circuit to offset a few pesky financial issues as she returns to network television. And a star who finds a method in the madness, with a unique way of facing life’s issues, to which we say do try it at home.

To see the spectacular images of Pamela Anderson photographed by Bryan Adams and read more about her road to reinvention, pick up the July/August issue of Zoomer magazine on newsstands.