Anderson was born to a working class family in British Columbia. After high school, she worked as a fitness instructor until she was “discovered” at a Canadian football game. Anderson, wearing a form-fitting Labatt’s tee shirt, was broadcast over the stadium’s giant screen. She was then hired by Labatt’s to appear in their advertisements.

An offer from Playboy soon followed. She would go on to appear in five more issues of the magazine. Anderson parleyed her modeling success into a series of bit parts on television programs. She got her first big break in 1991 as the “Tool Time Girl” on the sitcom Home Improvement. While there, she attracted the attention of casting agents from Baywatch, who were looking to replace Erika Elaniak, the shows then-current blonde bombshell. The hour-long show portraying the lives of Malibu lifeguards was a nearly plotless vehicle for semi-nude video montages and the critics panned it accordingly.

Anderson’s television success did not transfer well to the big screen. Despite mass publicity, including an appearance by Anderson at the Cannes Film Festival clad in a skintight cat suit, her first effort, Barb Wire, was both a critical and commercial failure.

In 1998, Anderson returned to television as the executive producer and star of V.I.P, in which she plays the owner of a bodyguard agency staffed exclusively by models. The series remains a success in syndication