Pamela Catherine Gidley (born June 11, 1965) is an American actress and model.
Gidley was born in Methuen, Massachusetts, but was raised in Salem, New Hampshire, the youngest of the family with two older brothers. After she graduated high school, she moved to New York and, while walking down a street in Manhattan, she was discovered by a modeling agent. She won the Wilhemina Modeling Agency's "Most Beautiful Girl in the World" contest on March 12, 1985, in Sydney, Australia. As her modeling career had taken off, Gidley studied acting at the New York Academy of Dramatic Art under actress and acting teacher Stella Adler, who ran the Stella Adler Studio of Acting. She eventually moved to Los Angeles to pursue her career in acting.
Gidley has appeared in film and television. She has acted alongside several Hollywood stars including Keanu Reeves, Josh Brolin, Melanie Griffith, and Jon Cryer. She made her acting debut in the 1986 film Thrashin'. She has appeared in several films of the 1980s including Dudes, Permanent Record, The Blue Iguana, and the cult sci-fi classic Cherry 2000. Gidley has starred in many films throughout the '90s, including Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me, a prequel to the short-lived television series, Disturbed, alongside Malcolm McDowell, Highway to Hell, alongside Patrick Bergin and an early role for Ben Stiller, the comedy Jane Austen's Mafia!, the comedy horror Aberration, a film in which she starred in the lead role, and Kiss & Tell, a film in which Gidley also served as producer. In 2000, she appeared in the family comedy The Little Vampire. She has not starred in a film since 2005. Her most recent film to date is the direct-to-video comedy Cake Boy.