Years active: 1974 - present (started around 23 years old; 50 years in the business)
About Angelyne
Angelyne is an American model and occasional actress who ostensibly became an icon of Hollywood and Los Angeles, best known for purchasing billboards advertising herself. Angelyne drives a pink Corvette with the license plate "ANGELNN".
As a significant part of her "mystique" consists of her refusal to answer questions (or giving contradictory information), much of Angelyne's actual biographical information is unknown or doubtful.
Angelyne has a pink Maltese named Buddha. She began to gain local attention in the early 1980s when a series of handbills, and later billboards, popped up around Los Angeles featuring her in various poses. Around this time, she made her first appearance on national television as a guest on the late night talk show Thicke of the Night hosted by Alan Thicke, and featuring a young Arsenio Hall. She made a few cameo appearances in movies as well.
Although it has been claimed that billboard companies or a wealthy husband pays for her billboards, Angelyne, who is single, credits "investors" for financing the outdoor advertising. Angelyne compares herself to Barbie, stating that "Kids think I'm a Barbie doll." and, in one billboard, "Barbie wishes she were me." Angelyne has not given her age or birthdate in interviews, although the IMDB lists 1958 (in Idaho) without providing a source. The Los Angeles County register of voters lists her (by her single first name only) to be age 44 as of June 20, 2007.
Angelyne was one of the candidates in the 2003 California recall election, finishing 28th in a field of 135 candidates (garnering 2,533 votes). Her slogan during the campaign was "We’ve had Gray, we’ve had Brown, now it’s time for some blond and pink." She was also a candidate for Hollywood city council in 2002 if it were to secede from Los Angeles.
Her billboards have gained more fame than she has, and have appeared in several television shows and movies, including the opening titles of the 1980s ABC television series Moonlighting, in the movie Get Shorty, and a quick parody during the credits of the animated FOX-TV series Futurama. She was also featured in a song called "Culver Moon" on Jackson Browne's 1996 album Looking East As of 2011 most of her billboards have disappeared from Los Angeles.
Perhaps the best description of Angelyne is that, as she says, "Barbie wishes she were me." Although Angelyne initially paid for her own billboards (there are rumors of a wealthy patron, possibly her husband) billboard companies now donate space to her as a way to draw the public's attention to a newly constructed billboard.
Her billboards have gained more fame than she. Examples of how embedded Angelyne's billboards have become in Los Angeles pop culture occurs in several movies, such as Escape from L.A., starring Kurt Russell. As Russell's character walks up Hollywood Boulevard, Los Angeles in ruins around him, he looks up to see a pristine Angelyne billboard. One has also appeared in the movie Volcano, starring Tommy Lee Jones. Her billboards are prominent in the movie Get Shorty. On the animated television show Futurama, the main chartacter Philip J. Fry sees an Angelyne billboard after waking up from a thousand-year long cryogenic sleep. The billboard was also spoofed in Shrek 2 featuring Fairy Godmother in the same iconic pose.
When being interviewed by the Malibu High School newspaper the Surfwriter, she said she is a billboard princess, not queen, because "princesses have more fun."
