Before the Real Housewives and the Paris Hiltons (but after Zsa Zsa Gabor), there was Angelyne, a celebrity solely because she said she was a celebrity. Technically an actress (who had bit roles in the likes of Brian De Palma's PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE and the bawdy sketch flick CAN I DO IT 'TILL I NEED GLASSES?), Angelyne rose to a very specific type of fame when she started promoting herself via billboard in 1984 in conjunction of the release of her second album. According to Robinson (THE WOMAN CHASER) Devor and Michael Guiccione's long out-of-print documentary ANGELYNE, the billboards were financed by a wealthy backer in exchange for all of the profits she'd make from her newfound celebrity, though, like everything related to Angelyne, whether or not that's the truth is questionable.
The album may not have taken off (see the music video above), but the billboards became a ubiquitous part of Los Angeles culture. The Angelyne character continues to be a fixture of the city, as she drives around town in her pink Corvette. She's even become, well, technically an actress, with bit roles in EARTH GIRLS ARE EASY, HOMER AND EDDIE and in countless television shows and music videos. She always plays herself, or a character that is essentially a version of herself, even when she's playing Barbara Bush in 1991's THE MALIBU BEACH VAMPIRES. It's no surprise that she's one of the "personalities" visible in the music video for Moby's "We Are All Made of Stars" along with Kato Kaelin, Corey Feldman, Todd Bridges, Gary Coleman and Ron Jeremy.
Even with the benefit of Devor's documentary and brief profiles like the one below, Angelyne remains a completely vapid enigma. The living, committed embodiment of the "blonde bombshell airhead," Angelyne is Anna Nicole Smith without the depth (or tragedy), a bizarre cult phenomenon inspired by simply being the living persona of a Barbie doll. She's not a character that can really be examined or analyzed -- she simply is, and there's no depth beyond the surface. Whether or not this is just an act is irrelevant, as if it's an act, "Angelyne" is so far into character that I doubt there's a "there" there anymore.
(It's not that surprising that she's inspired drag personas like Stangelyne and Trixie Mattel as well, as she's essentially a drag queen without the gender-bending.)
Angelyne is the rare example of a celebrity famous entirely because she says she is -- unlike the current incarnation of the psuedo-celebrity, she didn't even have a reality show to cause her rise to fame. And a TV show about Angelyne probably wouldn't be interesting anyway, as she's so committed to her character that she doesn't really DO anything.
It's a persona exemplified by this exchange in a 2012 interview with Alex Israel in his (deliberately) odd YouTube series "As It Lays:"
Israel: What do you want the world to know about Angelyne?
Angelyne: Absolutely nothing! Oooo!
That's Angelyne in a nutshell. But for the sake of seeing at least a taste of Angelyne not being Angelyne, here's her sharing the screen with John Candy in CAN I DO IT 'TIL I NEED GLASSES?
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