In the 2022 HBO docuseries “The Last Movie Stars,” Ethan Hawke floats the possibility that the great Joanne Woodward’s risk-it-all role — the one that could have won the “Three Faces of Eve” star a second Oscar, had it gone differently — was playing a failed starlet who resorts to burlesque to get by. Adapted from the William Inge play “A Loss of Roses,” it was a part intended for Marilyn Monroe, who died, so Woodward stepped in and gave it her Method-acting all. Alas, the studio lost faith, recut the film and slapped a tacky new title on it: “The Stripper.
” In a different world, “ The Last Showgirl ” could have been such a vehicle for its leading lady, Pamela Anderson . Tightrope-walking the gossamer line between objectification and empowerment, the project lands amid a charitable reappraisal of Anderson’s career, during which a memoir, a Netflix doc and countless thinkpieces have caused some to wonder whether they might have underestimated the erstwhile sex symbol. Based on the evidence seen here, they did not.
Anderson’s a star, but her range is limited, bringing little to a thinly written role — a conclusion further reinforced by Jamie Lee Curtis ’ force-of-nature supporting turn as a slightly older but still-sizzling cocktail waitress. Granted, there’s something poignant and vulnerable in Anderson’s decision to play a Las Vegas dancer who’s lost her sparkle. Shelly joined the “Razzle Dazzle” revue in 1987 (two years before “B.
