You're a reporter for a big French newspaper, and you have an appointment with Pamela Anderson on a winter morning. A few years ago, these two propositions would have seemed incompatible; but now, it happened naturally. When the opportunity to interview the Canadian actress crept into your inbox, you instinctively forwarded it to your superiors for approval. The lackluster nature of her career, in the strictly cinematic aspect, posed no particular problem for them. No more, in truth, than the relative hostility aroused among your film critics colleagues by The Last Showgirl, the Gia Coppola film that precipitated your meeting with the woman you would, thank you very much, avoid reducing to her status as an international sex symbol.

Admittedly, like millions of swooning teenagers, you discovered her existence in the early 1990s, thanks to a rather mediocre yet unforgettable series, Baywatch. Five seasons in a row, she donned the vermilion bathing suit of a kind-hearted naiad, a first-aider in her spare time. You confusedly recall that this swimsuit disappeared several times when she posed for Playboy, the erotic magazine for which she holds the record for most covers.

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