“Can I have higher boots next time?”
This was the question Pamela Anderson Lee posed after risking life and shapely limb, striding down the middle of the street in a pair of nosebleed-inducing platform shoes that were designed less for walking than posing for a Frederick’s of Hollywood catalog.
The star of the syndicated action series “V.I.P.” already had stumbled once, and the spiky knee-length boots threatened to give way again as she led a throng of cheering extras to a brawl between two exquisitely chiseled martial-arts experts.
In the show, the world’s top-ranking Blond Bombshell — No. 8 in Playboy’s just-released list of 100 Sex Stars of the Century — plays Vallery Irons, the comically out-of-her-element head of a Beverly Hills security firm. Each week, amid fiery explosions and indiscriminate gunfire, Anderson Lee’s earnestly determined bodyguard-to-the-stars character finds some new way to foil the outlandish plots of sinister villains, even though her crack team of undercover agents actually does most of the work.
Call it “Mission Improbable,” if you will. But, color it successful.
In the November sweeps period, “V.I.P.” (Vallery Irons Protection) was the top-rated new weekly syndicated series, beating out “Mortal Kombat Crusade,” “Stargate SG-1” and “The Crow: Stairway to Heaven.” Some of the credit must go to the strength of the lineup of Fox-owned stations that took a chance on the show (and time slots that coincided with NFL games), but Anderson Lee’s impossible-to-ignore physique and sexual notoriety certainly were the demographic drawing cards.
“We felt all along that the same young male who watches football on Fox is the same young male who would watch Pamela in an action-hour,” stresses Paul Frank, vice president of comedy and drama development at Columbia-Tristar Television, which distributes “V.I.P.” “In the markets where we do have that football lead-in, we retain a great percentage of the viewers week to week, and it’s a good companion for our show. But, the funny thing is, we’re garnering more females than anticipated.
“We expected to have a stronger male presence … probably as much as a 65-35 demographic split. In fact, it’s probably something closer to 55-45.”
This doesn’t come as any surprise to Anderson Lee.
“People always think that I have a large male audience, but, I swear, most of the feedback I get is from teenage girls, and that’s who I relate to,” she said, relaxing between scenes on the “V.I.P.” set, which today is in an industrial backwater of downtown L.A. “We’re not glamorizing violence. There’s a lot of explosions, but no one ever gets hurt. It’s not really meant to be serious, it’s just meant to be silly.
“We’re not following any rules. There’s no formula at all.”
In fact, though, there is a method to the madness on display here.
The look of the show — from Vallery’s Barbie-on-Ecstasy wardrobe to the many posh settings for mayhem — has been carefully calculated to take advantage of Los Angeles’ glamorous international mystique. A pulsating rock score drives the action, which often borders on cartoonish, and the team of security agents could double as runway models.
Anderson Lee, who sees herself more as a Doris Day for the ’90s than the pitiable bimbo she’s made out to be in the media, has a good handle on what’s going on in the show and her career. In person, she’s friendly, quite funny and as articulate about her goals as any other executive producer you’ll meet hanging around a set.
“It’s an action-comedy … the comedy comes from poking fun at ourselves and poking fun at being on a television show,” observes the “Baywatch” and “Home Improvement” veteran. “There was one scene the other day … I’m walking down the beach and I’m wearing a bikini and gun holsters. The guy walking with me says, `The problem with society today is that there are no positive role models.’
“I said, `Exactly.’ It was funny.”
Late last year, the native of Vancouver Island was approached by the show’s creator, J.F. Lawton, about playing a tough celebrity bodyguard. He’d seen her in “Barb Wire” and liked her commanding presence on the screen.
Anderson Lee had others ideas.
“I wanted to play a fish-out-of-water character,” said the mother of two young sons, Brandon and Dylan, who are playing in a nearby trailer. “I loved the action idea, but suggested we make it a comedy. The humor could evolve from me just falling into the world of Hollywood glamor and prestige, and going through it like any normal person would.”
In the pilot episode, star-struck Vallery Irons was discovered by an arrogant Hollywood actor while working in a funky L.A. hotdog stand. On their first date, in full view of the paparazzi, she inadvertently saves him from an assassination attempt, and becomes an instant celebrity when the cowardly star introduces his stunning companion as his bodyguard.
A highly competent, but struggling, Beverly Hills security agency asks Vallery to join its firm in a figurehead executive position, never intending to give her any actual assignments. Of course, when the smoke clears each week and good triumphs over evil — no thanks to the ditzy blond — most of the credit is given to the person least responsible.
As a testament to the cult popularity both “V.I.P.” and Anderson Lee have achieved already this season, several high-profile comedians and athletes — including Jay Leno, Bill Maher, Gilbert Gottfried, Pauly Shore, Charles Barkley and Eric Karros — have agreed to appear as themselves in the humorous fantasy segments that open each week’s show.
Even though he’s working on a typically tight syndication budget, Lawton has been able to attract an impressive array of behind-the-camera talent, including Oscar-winning costume designer Tim Chappel (“Priscilla, Queen of the Desert”); director of photography Jack Conroy (“My Left Foot”) ; production designer Mimi Gramatky, who helped conceive “Miami Vice”; and co-executive producer Morgan Gendel, who has written scripts for various “Star Trek” series and was nominated for an Emmy as co-producer for “Law & Order.”
When negotiations for the rights to the series resume at the upcoming NATPE convention in New Orleans, the producers hope stations will upgrade the show’s time slots so it can improve its position against the likes of “Baywatch,” “Xena,” “Hercules” and “Star Trek.”
One advantage a syndicated series has over a network show is that it often is pre-sold on the international market to help defray costs at home.
This means that even a moderately successful syndicated show is more likely to complete its initial 22-episode order than a poorly received program on the networks, which might face cancellation after just a few weeks. And, because it’s less expensive to produce, there’s less pressure on the show to perform well immediately for sponsors and stations.
This month, “V.I.P.” will begin to be shown in more than 60 foreign countries. It has taken this long to dub the completed episodes into several different languages.
“I sound really great in Spanish,” said Anderson Lee, who’s graced the cover of Playboy a record five times and has one of the World Wide Web’s most-visited sites. “I would watch `Baywatch’ in German and Spanish and say, “I wish I had such a low, sultry voice.”‘
Considering how much time she was required to spend in a bathing suit on “Baywatch,” it probably wasn’t her voice that most attracted viewers to that show and helped her become an global sensation. Now, on “V.I.P.,” she gets to accessorize her swimwear with pistols and high-heels.
Next stop, “Masterpiece Theater.”
