© 2000 Ramey Photo Agency
Like many young people, Pamela Anderson dreamed of a bigger life than the one she grew up with. But Pamela didn’t seek out her big break. It just kind of happened to her out of the blue.
In 1989 Pamela Anderson was 22-years-old and trying to make a life for herself in Vancouver, Canada. In the Netflix documentary Pamela, a love story, she recounts the lightning strike moment when she was discovered.
Pamela had some connections with representatives for the Labatt’s beer company and they offered her some free tickets to a B.C. Lions football game. Pamela didn’t really want to go, but she went because her friend wanted to go.
The group were all wearing Labatt’s beer T-shirts, and by chance Pamela got on the Jumbotron. At the behest of one of the Lab reps, she stood up and showed her Labatt’s t-shirt to help showcase the brand.
She was then asked to go down and draw a winner from a contest. “I remember looking up and thinking it looks like a million eraser heads in the stands,” she remembers about seeing the huge football crowd before her.
After that, Pamela became known as the Labatt’s “Blue Zone Girl,” and became a spokesmodel for the brand. She did commercials, posters, and soon became so ubiquitous that Playboy took notice.
They guaranteed her an offer to for Playboy of the Month October 1989.
Getting to the United States from Canada was a problem though. Pamela found that they would not let to fly to the U.S. to work so she had to take a bus to get to Los Angeles.
She shot the October 1989 cover and became Playmate of the Year. Although many young women who made it onto the pages of Playboy hoped to turn this opportunity into something bigger, Pamela Anderson was one of the only women to sky rocket a longtime career in the public spotlight from her moment in the Playboy sun.
