Pamela Anderson Stars as Vegas Showgirl in Dark New Indie Film

Posted on: May 2, 2024, 04:01h.

Last updated on: May 2, 2024, 04:34h.

Corey Levitan Read More

Expertise: Commercial Gaming, Entertainment, Expert Insight, Las Vegas, Las Vegas Myths.

Pamela Anderson seems poised to bring not only her acting career but the spirit of the Las Vegas showgirl back to life in a dark new indie film.

Pamela Anderson’s character in “The Last Showgirl” appears to contemplate suicide from the roof of either the Palms or Rio. (Image: Utopia)

In “The Last Showgirl,” which was filmed over the past couple of years on location in Las Vegas, the former “Baywatch” star plays a Las Vegas showgirl forced to reinvent her life when the production show she dances in closes after 30 years.

The indie film — Anderson’s first feature since 2022’s?“Alone at Night” — was directed by Gia Copolla. She is the granddaughter of five-time Oscar-winning director Francis Ford Coppola, the niece of writer/director Sofia Coppola (who won 2004’s Best Original Screenplay Oscar for writing “Lost in Translation”), and the cousin of Nicolas Cage (who won 1996’s Best Actor Oscar for “Leaving Las Vegas”).

Indeed, “The Last Showgirl’s” official synopsis makes it sound “Leaving Las Vegas” dark. Now in her 50s, Anderson’s character struggles not only with a dead career but with an estranged adult daughter resentful to have taken a back seat to the character’s showgirl family during childhood.

In its initial publicity photo, Anderson’s character even appears to be contemplating suicide on a roof of a casino resort west of the Bellagio — probably either the Palms or Rio.

The movie also stars Oscar-winner Jamie Lee Curtis, Dave Bautista, Brenda Song, Kiernan Shipka, and Billie Lourd.

Four of the last real showgirls in Las Vegas, who danced in “Jubilee!” at Bally’s, put on a happy face on the show’s stage shortly before it closed in 2016. (Image: Denise Truscello)

No Show

“The Last Showgirl” is the first movie to shine a direct spotlight on the plight of hundreds of former Las Vegas showgirls, who found themselves professionally and personally adrift after the last two showgirl production shows on the Strip closed — “Folie Bergere” at the Tropicana in 2009, after 50 years, and “Jubilee!” at Bally’s in 2016, after 35 years.

Since then, despite a persistent myth, Las Vegas has been showgirl-free. All the showgirls you currently see along the sidewalks of the Las Vegas Strip are either paid models or street performers posing for photos in exchange for tips.

Anderson’s film is headed to Cannes, May 14-25, in search of distribution.