Now that Pam Anderson is back in the “news” as one of the (truly) hot stars of “Dancing with the Stars,” it may be time to revisit her career — or at least her as a friend.
Now, I’m not saying I’m her closest friend — though her then-husband Tommy Lee did once babysit for my kids; and her later husband Kid Rock and my son did play on the same flag-football team. But I have known her for a while and like her a lot. She’s a good mama and a fine next-door neighbor.
And that’s probably not anything you heard on Howard Stern in her heyday (when he was most concerned with the fact she might remove her breast implants … fortunately, she relented!)
No, when my then-wife and I (my baby mama, as they like to say now — we only got married because the INS showed up at her workplace and tried to deport her and my two children back to Canada) … first bought in Malibu in 1998, the last thing we were thinking about was being Pam Anderson’s next-door neighbor. We were simply looking for a place with good public schools so we didn’t have to pay the Center for Early Education (the home, in Hollywood, for the kids of everyone from Steven Speilberg to Jodie Foster.) $20,000 per year times two!
But that’s how it worked out. In Westwood, where my first son was born, there was a young actor named Jeff Barton, whose wife Bobbie was the best friend of an old girlfriend of mine from 5th Avenue in New York, Rosie Herman. After they’d gotten married, Bobbie convinced Jeff to quit acting and move to Malibu, where they’d bought a big home on Point Dume and he went to work for Coldwell Banker, the real estate broker to the stars. Having been invited to their house enough times to realize how beautiful Malibu really was, we decided we should move there.
Through Jeff, we found a wonderful condo for sale in an architectural development overlooking Zuma Beach. We knew most of the residents of this small development were well-to-do — among them were Christopher Robin (of “Winnie the Pooh” fame) granddaughter (yes, there was a real Christopher Robin) and one of the American designers of Audi. But I don’t think either of us were ready for the moment on Saturday that we walked out of our townhome and bumped into our new neighbors, Pam and Tommy Lee.
As anyone who lives in Malibu can tell you, meeting Pam Anderson-Lee (or whatever she goes by now) in person is hardly overwhelming. Without makeup and in a baggy sweatsuit (her favored about-town look), she’s just another pretty blonde. (On the other hand, were you ever to meet Cher out of makeup you truly wouldn’t recognize her!)
So there she was, one day, just another neighbor with her two children, Brandon, now 13 and Dylan, now 12 (but probably 5 and 4 at the time!) welcoming us to the neighborhood.
