The real story of Angelyne is even harder to know than it seems
She would be famous but also remain a mystery.
Angelyne, the pink-Corvette-driving blonde bomb from LA-lore, built her fame on her eye-catching billboards that popped up all over Los Angeles in the 1980s. The enigmatic entity – sometimes a singer, sometimes a model, some kind of actress and twice a gubernatorial candidate – has spent decades being famous for being famous, sailing around LA, selling merch out of her car and posing for photos (for $ 20 per person). But she has historically avoided answering questions about her mysterious past. Now, the TV show Angelynedebuting at Peacock on May 19, aims to reveal much more about her journey to stardom.
Angelyne stars Emmy Rossum as a title character and is based on a 2017 Hollywood Reporter article that revealed information about Angelyne’s past. The series uses a faux-documentary style in which Angelyne and those in her circuit sit for interviews, which then flash back to moments from her life.
The series also plays with the idea of what the truth really is when it comes to Angelyne. Maybe we know a lot more than we did before about this LA icon, but will we even know the real story? Prior to the new series debut, here’s an overview of how Angelyne became the LA icon she is – and what the series hopes to reveal.
Who is Angelyne?
The woman known as Angelyne first appeared in a band in the late 1970s in Los Angeles. She joined her boyfriend’s band Baby Blue as a singer and played in LA clubs. But the TV series plays with what may or may not have happened to break both the band and Angelyne and her boyfriend, making it clear that Angelyne and others involved in this story may see things differently. It ends up that Angelyne undergoes plastic surgery to improve her breasts and change her face to the woman most people know now.
From there, the series takes a closer look at how Angelyne was able to get posters with her picture plastered around town. Many have wondered who has bankrolled billboards, and the series digs into her relationship with Hugo Maisnik, a married older man with whom she worked (and who became her manager) to make the billboards a reality. “Success is much better than any other drug, and to be honest, I became a little addicted to attention. I became a billboard junkie,” she said in an interview in 2019. At one point, there were more than 200 billboards around in the city with her picture on. Along with the release of two albums, Angelyne focused on acting and art – but from the moment these billboards hit Los Angeles, her full-time job was to be famous.
She also ran for governor – twice. Only in 2003 at the California gubernatorial election, where she obtained 2,536 votes to become number 29. She then sat on the ballot again in 2021 during the recall of Gavin Newsomranking 18. among possible replacements.
Origin of the series
To become Angelyne, Rossum wore fake 3-pound breasts, contact lenses, powerful makeup and a blonde wig, and sometimes he spent four to five hours in the makeup chair every day. “The physical character of the character was challenging. The body is heavy, yet it must feel light and bubbly,” Rossum said in a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter.