Why it's no surprise to me that my smart, Tolstoy-reading, old friend Pamela Anderson is about to take the Golden Globes by storm, writes our US Editor who's known the Baywatch star for three decades

When Hollywood takes to the red carpet tonight for the Golden Globes it will be the usual love fest of couture fashion, troweled-on make-up and hair teased to the rafters. 

But in among the A-listers – and competing in the same Best Actress category as Oscar winners Angelina Jolie, Nicole Kidman and Kate Winslet – is a woman few would expect to be sharing such illustrious company. Pamela Anderson.

In what has become perhaps the most remarkable reinvention in Tinseltown history, the starlet once most famous for jogging in slow motion along a beach in Baywatch with her pneumatic breasts on full display will, tonight, walk the red carpet with no make-up – and is widely expected to steal the show.

Pamela, 57, is nominated for her role as an ageing sex symbol in The Last Showgirl, directed by Gia Coppola, granddaughter of Godfather legend Francis Ford Coppola.

And while it would be easy to dismiss Pamela merely as an ageing sex bomb playing herself, many in Hollywood believe the Canadian-born former Playboy playmate could pull off the shock of the night and beat Angelina Jolie, favourite to win Best Actress as opera diva Maria Callas in Maria.

A member of the Globes voting committee told me: 'The fact that you have someone like Pamela in the same category as Jolie and Winslet is staggering. For many years Pamela was a joke, someone destined to fade into pop culture history which, to be fair, she did.

'But she's tapped into the zeitgeist of a 'new Hollywood' in a way stars like Jolie have failed to do. Pamela has pulled off the remarkable achievement of feeling fresh and different.

'She's embraced being herself. This whole thing about wearing no make-up and being authentic feels real and in the moment. She's an older woman embracing her beauty and that's very on trend.

'When it comes to voting for Best Actress she could pull off the biggest surprise of the night.'

As someone who has known Pamela since the '90s, when I arrived in LA as this newspaper's Hollywood correspondent, her reinvention as the darling of the social media generation is no surprise.

For Pamela – despite her va-va-voom image in the early days – has always been underestimated.

She is a ruthless mistress of self-invention, someone who is always ahead of the curve, reads voraciously and – like all good survivors – constantly adapts.

Underestimate her at your peril. One of Pamela's favourite sayings has always been: 'It's great to be a blonde. With low expectations it's very easy to surprise people.'

She has been underestimated for as long as I've know her. Whip smart and always in control, I remember taking Pamela and her then husband, Motley Crue drummer Tommy Lee, to England during the height of Baywatch madness.

Yes, she wore black rubber dresses, gave endless interviews about their sizzling sex life, boasted about joining the Mile High Club on the Virgin fight over and played the part of 'dumb blonde' to perfection.

The trip was a rousing success. She was on the front pages of every newspaper and her visit even made News at Ten.

But when we returned to The Lanesborough each night, one of London's finest five-star hotels, Tommy would head straight down to the bar while Pamela would run a bath and read her favourite books which – I kid you not – included a well-thumbed edition of Tolstoy's War And Peace and a book about Jungian analysis.

Pamela considers herself a born survivor. I remember chats long into the night with her telling me how, as a small town 21-year-old from Vancouver Island, she was 'discovered' jiggling up and down braless in a beer T-shirt by a local TV camera panning the crowd at a Canadian football game.

Within weeks she had moved, solo, to Los Angeles. She would share – revealed many years later in her memoir Love, Pamela – that she had been sexually abused in Canada but, rather than play the victim, she decided to empower herself.

Within weeks of arriving in Hollywood with $200 in her pocket she landed the role of 'tool time girl' on the sitcom 'Home Improvement', which caught the eye of Baywatch producers who were looking for the ultimate

Californian blonde. The rest is history. Pamela told me: 'I'm not Californian and I'm not blonde but who cares? I will be whatever they want me to be.'

She jogged down a beach in slow motion wearing a red swimsuit and a global sex symbol was born.

In those days she was always at the Playboy mansion, always surrounded by drooling men. Playboy boss Hugh Hefner was besotted by her.

Hefner admitted late one night that she was one of only a handful of Playmates who turned him down for sex.

It was then that Alexis Vogel came into her life. Alexis was the polar opposite of Pam. Big, brash, with flaming red hair she was hilariously funny –and a genius with make-up. She created Pamela's trademark smokey eye, Marilyn Monroe pout and huge tumbling waves of platinum blonde hair.

Most importantly, Pamela trusted Alexis although their relationship could be fractious, something I witnessed first hand.

Alexis felt Pamela never gave her enough credit for creating her trademark look.

Pamela was always acutely aware of her financial worth, something we now take for granted but, back then, was not the norm for women in Hollywood.

She commanded $25,000 a photoshoot, a fortune in the '90s. She took one film production firm to court in a breach of contract suit, something that could have been career suicide.

She demanded and received mega bucks for D-list movies like Barb Wire.

Alexis, charging day rates, felt Pamela could have been more generous in sharing the spoils of success. There were many nights when Alexis would call me, often near tears, to say how unreasonable Pamela had been.

One night I had to courier money to Alexis so she could buy make-up to use on Pamela on a photoshoot at 6am next morning.

When Alexis wanted to launch her own beauty line she claimed Pamela was not enthusiastic although eventually Pamela gave Alexis permission to use her image in promotional material.

Alexis died of cancer in 2019 and I would never betray her confidences.

But I will say that though they were best friends there were times Alexis felt deeply hurt by Pamela, particularly when it came to finances, even though their rows would quickly blow over.

Pamela was constantly reinventing herself, always with the aim of being financially independent.

When Baywatch and Playboy came to an end she took herself off to a posh mobile home park overlooking the ocean in Malibu and raised her two sons with Tommy Lee (who she divorced in 1998), Brandon and Dylan.

She did a great job as a mother. Neither fell into the Hollywood drugs trap and Brandon now helps manage her career.

After the 'earth mother' phase came the car crash, multiple marriages phase.

A tempestuous and brief marriage to singer Kid Rock was followed by two marriages and divorces to professional poker player Rick Salomon.

Producer Jon Peters (A Star Is Born) offered her $20million to marry him – she turned it down. She could easily have lived off rich men and goodness knows she had enough offers, but never did.

She married her bodyguard Dan Hayhurst in 2020 but that lasted fewer than two years. By this stage Pamela's name was rarely heard around town.

Mutual friends would tell me she had made money in real estate and was doing the odd commercial overseas where Baywatch continued to play in reruns.

There were whispers of problems with the tax man. It would have been easy for her to fade into obscurity or, even worse, self-destruct like famous contemporaries such as Guess Jeans girl Anna Nicole Smith who died of an overdose aged just 39.

Then in 2022 came Hulu's Pam & Tommy starring Lily James and Sebastian Stan as Pam and Tommy Lee which retold an infamous tale about how a honeymoon sex tape was stolen from their garage and offered on the nascent worldwide web. The mini-series was made without Pamela's permission and she was furious.

Celebrities like Kim Kardashian would later purposely release sex tapes to become famous but Pam was devastated.

She never made a penny off the tape and was humiliated that her intimate moments with Tommy were splashed over the internet.

She went home to Canada, back to a homestead first settled by her grandparents, and cared for her ageing parents. Then she seized control of her own narrative.

She made seemingly 'odd' friendships, becoming one of the most vocal supporters of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange when he was held in Ecuador's embassy in London for leaking US secrets.

She wrote her memoir – eschewing a ghostwriter – which became a big hit in 2023.

A source said: 'As always with Pam, timing was right. She's someone who lived through a particular time in popular culture who could have been eaten up and spat out but who came back with this book which was raw and honest and talked about what she'd been through and how she survived the onslaught of constant casting coach offers and men in Hollywood who sought to take advantage.

'This was the era of Britney Spears, of women who were taken advantage of. Pamela debunked the sexist '90s stereotype and people loved it.'

Those people included formidable Vogue boss Anna Wintour who invited her to 'the' fashion event of the season, New York's Met Ball.

Jaws dropped when Pamela walked red carpets and posted images to social media without a stitch of make-up.

'She became a role model for a whole new generation of women,' one high-ranking beauty editor told me last night.

'You have these young stars like Billie Eilish and Taylor Swift spending a fortune on stylists and glam squads who create unrealistic images of perfection and here comes Pammy – in her late 50s –walking the carpet with no make-up in a dress she chose herself. And she looks fabulous. 'Genius.'

Pamela has said the death of make-up artist Alexis inspired her to stop wearing make-up. 'She was the best. Since then I just felt, without Alexis, it's just better for me not to wear make-up.

'It's been freeing, fun and a little rebellious too. I did notice there were all these people doing big make-up looks and it's just like me to go against the grain and do the opposite of what everyone's doing.

'Whatever is happening is just happening. It's about self-acceptance. This is the chapter of my life I'm trying to embrace now.

'You have to understand that you're good enough and you are beautiful. I like to say the word life-ing instead of ageing. Chasing youth is just futile.'

The success of The Last Showgirl has offers flooding in. She has launched a line of cruelty-free make-up and has partnered with trendy fashion brand Re/Done on a denim capsule collection.

Which brings us back to tonight. If Pamela's name is called out for the Best Actress Globe, there is no doubt the crowd in the glittering ballroom of the Beverly Hilton Hotel will go wild.

But even if her name is not in the envelope that will not matter.

The fact Pamela is in the room, with Hollywood's most influential stars and powerbrokers, is victory enough for a woman who represents one of the greatest showbusiness comebacks of all time.