Baywatch creator searching for 'Kiwi Pamela'

US producer and director Greg Bonann, the creator of the hit TV series Baywatch, is looking for a Kiwi actress that he could turn into Pamela Anderson for a new New Zealand TV drama. Bonann, who launched Anderson and her co-star David Hasselhoff into stardom, has plans for a new drama in New Zealand and wants to do the same with three Kiwi girls in a show dubbed 'Southern Lakes'.

He has started work with some of Hollywood's well-known writers to develop a script for the show, and hopes to shoot a pilot episode in Queenstown next year. His Kiwi-born business partner, Walter Brown, who co-produced Baywatch Downunder, an Australian spin-off of the hit lifeguard series, revealed on December 7 that the show would be a sizzling hot drama that played on Queenstown's massive tourism scene.

"One idea to maximise the breathtaking landscapes of the Southern Lakes region and to ensure the show has a tourism theme with an endless flow of colourful international characters is (having) three beautiful, adventurous sisters return to Queenstown to rescue their grandfather's floundering floatplane charter service, Queenstown Air," the NZPA quoted Brown as telling Sunday News from his base in California.

"Trouble, drama and adventure find them each week as they fight to preserve their family business in the face of overwhelming odds," he said. Brown hopes most of the characters including the three principal roles will be found and cast in New Zealand and expects the drama to be a hit.

"Greg created the most popular television series in history so he knows what people want to watch," he said. "Baywatch had all the elements to be extraordinarily successful in its day and it created household names. Of course every producer hopes for that kind of success and personally, I think New Zealand has the magic to do it," he added.