Pamela Pamela

Wednesday, June 15, 2005 9:01 PM PDT
pamela anderson

Reuters via Yahoo! News, Wed, 15 Jun 2005 6:27 PM PDT
Sharapova poised for title defense http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20050616/lf_nm/sport_wimbledon_sharapova_dc_1
When Maria Sharapova shook up the world of tennis a year ago by beating Serena Williams to win Wimbledon, she did not even have a decent mobile phone with which to relay the news.

Sharapova poised for title defense By Bill Barclay
Wed Jun 15, 9:27 PM ET

LONDON (Reuters) - When Maria Sharapova shook up the world of tennis a year ago by beating Serena Williams to win Wimbledon, she did not even have a decent mobile phone with which to relay the news.

The sight of the pretty, long-limbed teenager trying vainly to call her mother using her father's mobile on the Center Court was one of the enduring images of an endearing triumph that transformed Sharapova's life permanently.

The art of communicating the Sharapova success story has since been honed to perfection.

A year later the 18-year-old with the looks of a model cat-walks back to the scene of her triumph having acquired the poise of a champion and a clear understanding of her financial potential both on and off the court.

"I've no butterflies yet, just a lot of excitement," Sharapova told a telephone conference call this week. "Being back here brings back all the great memories.

"This is where it happened, this is where I won my first grand slam. It's really exciting."

Born in Nyagan in Siberia, Sharapova journeyed from Russia to the United States as a nine-year-old with her father in search of a tennis career.

INTERNET SEARCH

Last year's victory marked the completion of her road from rags to riches and today she is the most marketable sportswoman in history.

Anyone poring over her WTA handbook profile will be rewarded with the revelation that, last October, she was the top search on the KaZaZZ! internet search engine ahead of Britney Spears, Paris Hilton and Pamela Anderson, among others.

Sharapova has long been able to walk the walk and now the teenager who used to read prepared statements at post-match news conferences talks the talk perfectly.

"A lot of things have changed on and off the court," said the world number two who revealed last week that she will be launching her own eponymous brand of perfume in September.

"I feel like I'm a more complete player than I was a year ago.

"Off the court I've got to meet amazing people in different industries, I've got be associated with great companies and I've also been able to give back charity-wise. That's also very important."

In fact Sharapova's progress on court has not quite matched her success off it.

After winning Wimbledon she reached the third round at the U.S. Open and, this year, the semi-finals of the Australian Open and the quarter-finals of the French Open.

UNDER PRESSURE

She has won three tournaments in 2005 -- at Tokyo, Doha and last week at Edgbaston in England, where she repeated her 2004 win in the low-key Wimbledon warm-up event.

Given the relentless glare of publicity, those are creditable results achieved under considerable pressure.

"It's very difficult knowing that people are always expecting you to win," she said. "But it's impossible to win everything. People just have to realize that.

"Your fans obviously want you to win all the time but I think they respect the fact that you're just simply a human."

One of the biggest threats to her defense at the All England Club will be resurgent Belgian Justine Henin-Hardenne, who exposed the weaknesses in Sharapova's game in winning their last-eight clash at Roland Garros two weeks ago.

Stretched thinly over her 1.83m frame, Sharapova's high center of gravity means that, against a wily opponent who makes her run, she can look more like a giraffe on stilettos than a future world number one.

On grass, however, her increasingly strong serve and clubbing groundstrokes down both flanks are usually more than enough to compensate.

"I'm not worried about playing her," Sharapova said. "I played Justine on her favorite surface (in Paris).

"She had a little bit of an advantage on that but obviously on grass everything is faster, points are shorter. If you're serving well and returning well, those are the keys on the grass."

USA Today, Wed, 15 Jun 2005 5:44 PM PDT
'Perfect' pals: Locklear and Duff http://www.usatoday.com/life/people/2005-06-15-locklear-duff_x.htm?csp=34
Heather Locklear and Hilary Duff became so tight on the set of their new movie, The Perfect Man, that they developed a secret ...

'Perfect' pals: Locklear and Duff
By William Keck, USA TODAY
BEVERLY HILLS — Heather Locklear and Hilary Duff became so tight on the set of their new movie, The Perfect Man, that they developed a secret clenched-lip language that allowed them to gossip freely without anyone being the wiser.

Heather Locklear and Hilary Duff, who play a mother and daughter in The Perfect Man, bonded on the set of the movie. It opens Friday.
By Robert Hanashiro, USA TODAY

"I had good stories for her of things not to do," Locklear says, lounging with Duff on a sofa at the Four Seasons Hotel.

"All confidential," Duff says with a nod.

In the film, which opens Friday, Duff's character gets herself into a heap of trouble when she concocts an imaginary suitor for her single mom (Locklear). It was Duff, whose mother, Susan, is a producer on the film, who suggested Locklear for the part.

For more than two decades, Locklear has jumped from one TV hit to the next (T.J. Hooker, Melrose Place, Spin City) since her debut in 1981 at age 19 as Dynasty spitfire Sammy Jo Carrington. Duff, whose first role was a 9-year-old witch in 1998's Casper Meets Wendy, also has worked non-stop since making the transition from her long-running Disney Channel TV series, Lizzie McGuire, to a string of successful feature films (Agent Cody Banks, Cheaper by the Dozen, A Cinderella Story). Last year, the actress/singer also found time to go on tour with her sister, Haylie, 20, and sell 11 million records.

Finally crossing paths, Locklear, 43, and Duff, 17, discovered that they share much in common: chiefly their love for rocker boys and clean living.

On the appeal of bad-boy rockers

Locklear, who was married to Motley Crue's Tommy Lee from 1986 to 1993 before he moved on to future ex-wife Pamela Anderson, has been happily married to Bon Jovi's Richie Sambora since 1994. And Duff, who for months has remained cagey about the nature of her relationship with Good Charlotte lead singer Joel Madden, acknowledges that the two are in fact an item. Plans are being discussed for Duff, 17, and Madden, 26, to "come out" as a couple as co-presenters at the MTV Video Music Awards in Miami on Aug. 28, one month before she turns 18.

"What happens when you're 18?" Locklear asks.

"Nothing," Duff answers. "I don't feel like there's anything that I can do when I'm 18 that I can't do now. Nothing's going to change."

Duff says Madden is her perfect man because he shares her values. "Compared to any young Hollywood-actor dude, Joel is so normal. He's not a partier. He's not a crazy rock star. He doesn't trash his room. And I like the way he looks, obviously."

As a "good and honest girl," Locklear says her attraction to bad boys allows her to explore "the flip side of myself, the darker side."

"You see them on stage," Locklear says, "and it's pretty hot."

On 'dating' Tom Cruise

Locklear's string of celeb beaus, which include '80s heartthrob Scott Baio, began in 1982 with a handsome young Hollywood newcomer named Tom Cruise. But not really, she clarifies all these years later, acknowledging: "I don't think we kissed. It was more friends."

That admission sort of confuses Duff, who expresses her suspicions when she is shown a photo of the two out on the town.

"Oh God," Locklear sighs, telling Duff, "It's a long story. I'll tell you the secret part of it later. The real story."

"I think I know," Duff says.

"No, no. It's not bad," Locklear says, laughing. "He was new in town, and he was 18 or 19. He didn't know anyone, and so I said I would go to wherever with him. He called me 'Ma'am.' "

On maintaining squeaky-clean images

Maybe there's something to that never-changing blond hair. Locklear and Duff don't attract the kind of tabloid attention awarded such sometimes-blondes as Lindsay Lohan, Ashlee Simpson and Britney Spears.

Duff says the reason such stars constantly land in the tabloids is they crave that attention. "They choose to be seen like that," Duff says. "Which is fine. I just don't. It's not how I live."

The only negative stories Duff has read about herself paint her as a "drama queen" at odds with Lohan. That ongoing soap opera is part of the reason Duff is on her fourth publicist in one year. "I felt we needed someone who was going to get some positive stuff out there," she says.

Duff seems to be doing a pretty good job of that on her own, just by being careful. On the rare occasions she does go clubbing, she enters through a back door. "And I don't get drunk and dance on tables."

"I do!" Locklear interjects, calling Duff "much more sophisticated and mature" than she was at Duff's age. "I was like this dork."

As parent to daughter Ava, 7, Locklear says: "I have to wonder how all this could have happened to Hilary and yet she's still so grounded and has a good heart. How do you get that in a daughter?"

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