Pamela Anderson Lee has reinvented herself, but without the clinging swimsuit that shaped her career as an international sex siren on “Baywatch.”
Lee’s new adventure series, “V.I.P.,” is one of the top new syndicated dramas of the year, ahead of such competitors as “Stargate: SG-1,” “Highlander: The Raven” and “Mortal Kombat.” Out of 223 syndicated shows now on the air, the new series ranks No. 35.
The drama, which finds Lee playing the head of an elite bodyguard agency, can be seen on more than 200 stations nationally, including Fox’s KTTV-TV Channel 11 in Los Angeles. The Sony Pictures Entertainment-produced series will soon be broadcast in Europe. Its budget is about $1.3 million per episode.
The success of “V.I.P.” is good news for an actress whose career has slipped since she left “Baywatch” particularly after the flop of her theatrical film “Barb Wire.”
Lee, who is one of three executive producers, helped create her new show and has battled the studio to get what she wants on screen. One issue was the use of 35-millimeter film stock instead of the cheaper 16-millimeter film.
“She knew that it would give you a much more glamorous look, which is important for sales abroad,” said J.F. Lawton, a co-creator of the series and an executive producer. “She’s no dumb blonde.”
Pam McNeely, a media buyer with Los Angeles-based ad agency Dailey & Associates, attributes the success of the show to Lee’s sex appeal.
“It’s probably not her acting ability,” she said, adding, “If she can develop a cult following, like ‘Xena’ or ‘Hercules,’ she can rise.”
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So who is the hottest bio subject in Hollywood? Try Jesse “The Body” Ventura. Only weeks after the former pro wrestler was elected governor of Minnesota, his tale is being hawked throughout Hollywood as a made-for-TV movie.
Would-be producers, according to one network TV movie executive, don’t even have the rights to Ventura’s story, but they are aggressively pursuing the project. Their plan is to rip his tale from the headlines. None of the networks are biting so far, but the executive said the interest is generated by the growing appeal of professional wrestling on cable television networks such as the USA and TNT, where these matches rank among the top 10 cable shows each week. Many of the wrestling shows score higher than network prime-time shows.
Tom Wolfe’s new novel about the high-flying real estate game in Atlanta, “A Man in Full,” is the No. 1 fiction book on The New York Times Best Seller list but Hollywood isn’t rushing to grab the movie rights.
When producer Irwin Winkler, who had 24 hours to make a deal for the film version of the novel six months ago, passed on the project, news quickly spread throughout town, seemingly poisoning the well.
“Nobody wants to touch it as a movie,” said one movie executive. “It’s too tough a book to turn into a film.”
One other reason is that Wolfe’s other books, “The Right Stuff” and “Bonfire of the Vanities,” were not box-office hits, despite being best sellers. The sprawling new novel seemingly might be right for a TV mini-series, but the subject, at least for the networks, is not believed to be broad enough.
That, the producer said, could mean that any movie based on the critically acclaimed book would go to a cable network like HBO, whose audience is more upscale.
Wolfe’s representatives at Creative Artists Agency said the novel’s film rights are still available. Sources familiar with their negotiations said the agency doesn’t feel it will have a problem selling the book to producers.
