Director Gia Coppola says the Vancouver Island-based actress is the Marilyn Monroe of our time.
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The drama focuses on Shelly (Anderson), a 57-year-old dancer grappling with the closure of the Le Razzle Dazzle revue show that she has been a part of for three decades. While the Las Vegas show is set to shutter, Shelly is also trying to repair a relationship with the daughter (Billie Lourd) she gave up years ago so she could fulfil her show business dream.
A success on the festival circuit, the film is now in wide release in the U.S. and will hit Canadian theatres on Jan. 17, the same day that the Academy Awards nominations come out.
While this film may reintroduce a whole different side of Anderson to the world, she hasn’t been hiding. In fact, Anderson has never really been out of the public eye since she was first discovered in the stands of a B.C. Lions’ game in August 1989. She has been a Playboy cover model a record 13 times. There have been multiple TV shows, most notably Baywatch and that red bathing suit (Anderson confirmed to Postmedia News she has in a safe). There were movies and magazines, animal rights campaigns and, of course, a turbulent love life that the tabloids dined out on over and over again.
But The Last Showgirl has brought a new kind of attention to the woman who has lived her whole career under the ‘blond bombshell’ banner.
“I really feel like people are looking at me differently for different roles … I’m getting a little bit more … respect in the industry, which is exciting,” said Anderson, who has done two other films this past year including a Naked Gun reboot alongside Liam Neeson and the dark satire Rosebush Pruning from director Karim Aïnouz. Both will be released later this year.
“I’m meeting with people about what to do next. But yes, it’s a very exciting time. And it’s never too late to never give up … I feel like this is the beginning of my career,” said Anderson, who spent the holidays at her Ladysmith property.
The career-changing The Last Showgirl came Anderson’s way after director Coppola watched the Netflix documentary about Anderson.
“I would fantasize about past artists like Marilyn Monroe. And then when I saw Pamela’s documentary, not to embarrass Pamela, but I was like, ‘She is our Marilyn of our time,’ ” said Coppola, who joined Anderson on the Zoom call.
And Coppola doesn’t mean the sex-symbol status that Monroe and Anderson so obviously share.
“Marilyn, too, because of her exterior, she was undervalued for all of that she had within her. And she was very hungry to express herself in other ways. And you see her brilliance in the performances that she had,” said Coppola. “I think with Pamela, and just her documentary, I could see that she was eager to express herself creatively. That she is an artist. She’s a poet. She’s a beautiful writer. She loves cinema and has such a knowledge of all these classical movies.
“Just, as a woman, I was just eager to get to know her. But I could see that she also had attributes that were very similar to our character, Shelly, in that … she always finds a way to have gratitude and optimism. And there were enough dissimilarities that it was going to be intriguing for her as an artist to sort of play with it, as a role.”
Anderson found out about the role of Shelly while she was at home making pickles and jam and puttering in her garden on Vancouver Island. She said that she went home after her successful Broadway run with no expectations of bigger offers. Instead, she was happy to stop worrying about her career path and just enjoy her garden path.
“I was on Broadway. I played Roxie in Chicago. And Baywatch to Broadway, that has a nice ring to it. But I wasn’t ever thinking I was going to be able to get an opportunity in film because it really is a kind of very small club, when you see these same actors always repeating themselves in different films,” said Anderson.
Then she got a call from her son Brandon Lee, a producer in Hollywood, and he explained that he heard about The Last Showgirl script by Kate Gersten and heard that Anderson’s previous agent had passed on it.
“He said, ‘I think you’re really going to like this.’ And so, he sent it to me,” said Anderson. “I had no idea the script was in existence. But then, when I read it, I could hear it. I could see it. I couldn’t wait to get on the phone with Gia, my heart was beating. I thought, ‘I can do this. This is it. This is where I can put all my life experience into something.’ There’s only so many poems you can write, so much therapy you can go to, but to actually have a project like this, to use all of your life experience. It was just very freeing and exciting.”
Anderson said her next move was to contact Coppola.
“I was like, ‘OK, who do I fight to get this one?’ (Gia) goes, ‘No, I want you to do it … that’s what I’m looking for. You,’ ” said Anderson.
Anderson’s much-applauded turn as Shelly has added to the conversation about the disappointing ageism women have forever faced in Hollywood. It’s worth noting that, in 2024, the idea of an actress being sidelined after 40 has also been soundly challenged by the likes of Demi Moore in The Substance, Nicole Kidman with Babygirl, and Kate Winslet in Lee.
“Women are interesting at every age. There are only so many bombshell stories. Let’s just get to the root of it,” said Anderson. “I say every woman is a movie. And it’s so fascinating to uncover and unravel all the imperfect ways of being … I just think women are interesting, complex people. And so, it starts with the writing and the scripts.”
While The Last Showgirl is, at its heart, a story about a woman coming to terms with the end of her career, it also offers a behind-the-scenes view of a showgirl experience that’s now a bit down on its heels.
To prepare for the film, Coppola and her cast of dancers spoke with former dancers and dressers of the famed Las Vegas Jubilee! revue that went dark in 2016 after 35 years.
A little tidbit, the costumes for the movie were actual Jubilee! stage costumes, designed by the legendary Bob Mackie. Some of them still had the names of the dancers sewn into them.
“I felt like every woman that had worn those costumes was with me on stage,” Anderson shares. “It felt magical.”