Voluptuous as “Baywatch” pinup, Pamela Anderson was always a muse. Just ask Sacha Baron Cohen’s Borat! But this year, specifically, she is honored by New York Women in Film and Television for her work in THE LAST SHOWGIRL. At the annual Muse Awards luncheon at Cipriani 42^nd Street she greeted the over 600 guests graciously and plain-faced, an ageless beauty without the usual cosmetic accoutrements we’ve come expect of the famed and glamorous, particularly if they are sex symbols as well. Guess what? She’s all the more glamorous natural, posing on the press line in a somber tan, loose-fitting pants suit. An advocate of plant-based cooking, an earnest, healthy approach to life has become her brand.

Yes! There were veggies on the table, a baby artichoke salad with shaved parmesan, but braised boneless short ribs were the entrée of the day. Smashed potatoes had clout while messages of inclusion and empowerment were the focus of many a speech, moved forward by host Nancy Giles’ jokes about our political scene: “Therapy and medication get me by.” The humor was welcome. Speakers—among them Anderson’s fellow honorees Marissa Bode, Lisa Cortes, Amy Entelis, Versha Sharma, and producer Celia Costas, landed on the event’s theme of “Metamorphosis,” invoking Franz Kafka and Ovid, but mainly relating to their own transformative processes of becoming who they are, thanking ancestors, and encouraging women to believe in themselves.

The classical theme may have been most resonant for Costas, awardee of the Mayor’s Office of Media & Entertainment “Made in NY” Award. The daughter of memorable Brooklyn College’s classics department Professor Procope Costas, who actually looked like Zeus with a silver mane, Celia Costas’ career was launched when Alan Pakula hired her to be locations manager on SOPHIE’S CHOICE. Other credits include New York based productions: tick, tick, BOOM!, THE INTERN, ANNIE, WALL STREET: Money Never Sleeps, and ANGELS IN AMERICA.

With luck, the talented women in the room, awarded in mid-career, will move on to greater glory. Pamela Anderson is set to star in the “Naked Gun” reboot with Liam Neeson, and in Karim Ainouz’s ROSEBUSH PRUNING with Riley Keough, Callum Turner, Elle Fanning, Jamie Bell, Lukas Gage, and Tracy Letts. This NYWFT event, always tasty and tasteful, leads with diplomacy over edge, making a huge difference as women continue to embolden women to figure it out.