Originally posted January 3, 2012… RE-POSTED December 22, 2102
NOTE: A SH reader was surprised to learn that Lisa Vanderpump is a trained actress. Yes, Lisa IS a trained actress… and she plays her part well on the RHOBH. The following explains how Lisa and Ken met and a bit about her training as an actress…
Lisa Vanderpump
A very insightful look back at Ken Todd and Real Housewives of Beverly Hills’ Lisa Vanderpump… in 2002!
Ken Todd… with Brandi Glanville
From The London Standard Evening… August 19, 2002:
“… She and Ken usually spend three or four days a week in London, and run the business for the rest of the week “by mobile” from Gloucestershire. This arrangement clearly works.
Lisa doesn’t know quite how much she and Ken are worth now, but they sold four bars to the Trocadero group in 1998 for £10.5 million. “Bars are sold on a multiple of their profits,” she explains, “and all our current places are doing very well.î
They met in – what else – a bar in 1982. Ken made his first fortune in the rag trade, and owned Corks bar in Kensington. Lisa, who had made her acting debut at nine playing Glenda Jackson’s daughter in A Touch of Class, and had earned enough by the age of 20 to buy her own London flat, was manning the door of Corks one night for a joke. “I was being a smartarse,” she recalls.
“I tried to charge him to come in.” She was 21, he was 37. “She was like a breath of fresh air coming into my life,” says Ken. “I thought, hello, he looks interesting,” says Lisa. They married six weeks later.
Working together, they claim, has helped to sustain the marriage. “We complement each other,” says Lisa. “He’s the impulsive one, I’m more conservative. He’s always looking for a new venture.”
Ken says: “We both like the same things and have similar ideas. We’re not only lovers, but friends as well.” Involving herself in Ken’s business from the start, Lisa devoted herself to it full-time in 1995, giving up acting after a four-year stint in Los Angeles culminated in that Baywatch role.
Had working with David Hasselhoff turned her off acting altogether? “No, no, he’s a lovely man, although he’s far too tall,” says the diminutive Lisa. “They kept saying, ‘put her on a box’, and I’d be saying, ‘no, put him in a trench’.”
She and Ken moved back to England partly because they didn’t want Pandora, now 16, and Max, now 10, to grow up around the “Hollywood b-s” of Los Angeles.
“The earthquake pretty much catapulted us back, too,” she adds. That 1994 tremor, registering 6.6 on the Richter scale, threw them out of bed at 4am. Their Beverly Hills’ mansion stayed standing, but three out of Ken’s four LA pizza restaurants were destroyed. Given that Ken, according to Lisa, “hadn’t done nearly enough while we were in America, apart from play polo and tennis,î the natural disaster seemed a timely spur for a change of scene and – for Lisa – of career.
“When you get to a certain age,” she explains, “the acting business gives you up, rather than you giving it up.” Now that Pandora has expressed thespian aspirations, Lisa, at 42, has had to face her own ambivalence about the business.
On the one hand, it was “very good” to her, but on the other, and especially in Hollywood, there was pressure to conform to a physical ideal. “I’ve been lucky that I’m slim and have a good bust,” she says. “I work out and don’t stay too long in the sun, but I haven’t had any work done. On our 21st anniversary, I told Ken that I was the same size as when we married; it’s just that everything is two inches lower.”
More at the link above…
(Thanks to SH reader “Jozy”!!!)
i love lisa and ken
If she’s 42 then I’m 102! Was she that age when she was on Baywatch or is she claiming that to be the case now?
She was 42 at the time of that article (2002, 10 years ago).
I think she’s closer to 56…creative math on her part….I do love Lisa tho.
Ahhh, finally a story where I can catch up on the comments.
It doesn’t pay to stay away from here for 2 days.
I thought Lisa was tall, but this said she’s little???
I think we love them because they have the same values as the rest of us. Riche . . poor . . or in-between . . . it’s all about family.
A fun read. Thanks for digging this up!
P.S. don’t worry about the “please read” gossip…I certainly don’t and I’m sure most of your other readers don’t either – I never would have heard about it had you not addressed it head on which was exactly the thing to do. so much water under the bridge. Your readers trust you and aren’t going to question you since this is such a great forum with respectful commentators and intelligent posts.
I second that!
Third!
man them are a nice set of bewbies
TeeHee
Hi, MT, you cutie! How goes it today? Mwah!
BSL! Hi-lo! Mwah! Or muah?! I’m so confused…
I’m going with mwah!
Lisa is gorgeous.
BSL you’re back!
Ahhhhh! I love sweet and this was sweet. My Bubble has been restored.
I enjoyed reading this article and didn’t know a lot of the info~!
My husband and I were just saying that Lisa and Ken actually seem normal and grounded for having the empire they have acquired but “how” did they accumulate their empire! Thanks for the find! There is a special place in my heart for a successful man that walks with dignity and a small well dressed dog!
I really like this Lisa!!!!! But I loooove SH;)—- HO HO HO;)
I’m disappointed in that top photo of Lisa.
Thanks for rerunning this story, somehow I missed it the first time. Love Lisa and Ken. They’re my favorite couple in the HW shows.
Ken looks like Disco Ken in that picture.
Where does Vanderpump come from?
Her family originally from Holland I read somewhere..
I love them, it reminds me of a time with my grandparents and parents today. The worst word in the world is either bloody or bugger, and that has some meaning behind it “you little bugger” (utter mischief maker) that was really rude or “now I’m bloody angry” the worst word my grandparents generation would utter and you knew you WAS in trouble if they said that! Time to run and hide in the coal shed!
My momma dated a man from England and he said that bloody over there was like us saying the eff word.
That’s interesting about “bloody.” I have to say, the F word doesn’t bother me unless it’a actually referring to sex, and then it sounds crude to me. Otherwise, it’s just a word for exclamation or emphasis. Same with the S word. I use it when I stub my toe or break a glass, but I would never use it to describe poop.
That is funny Hers, I am the same way. It doesn’t offend me when Brandi say F either, I would buy her book with F in the title too. Lol.
I understand. I love accents but I cant do them so whenever I would try to do his i would just add bloody in the conversation and he finally had to point out that he never uses that word and why. I was like oh ok. But I do like to listen to him talk. His name is George so I always kid mom “mom you should marry that Beatle guy” He still sends her roses every birthday and Christmas. I adore him. Comes in once a year and mom says thats good enough. She aint lookin to be takin care of no man at this point in her life.
I grew up adoring the Beatles, Dad was a massive fan and had all their records. I name my first dog after a Beatle, my Great Pyrenees, Lennon, and am happy to own his great neice Lilly and (after another Beatle), he great nephew, George.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iim6s8Ea_bE my favourite song from The Beatles from being a youngster and Dad who had EVERY Beatles song going, until he swapped it all for a motorbike!
It was, it was the worst words you could use back then!
<——showing my age, apologies
I am glad he told me cause I would have just kept on saying it not knowing any better.
The good old days hun x
Yeah the good ole days.
I like Lisa and Ken they are class. They couldn’t have been successful if they weren’t in the restaurant trade with all the rich and famous.
Now I have “Shoot that poison arrow through my heaaaart” stuck in my head, lol. I think Lisa has got to be the most beautiful on bh, and probably on all the hw shows.
Lol thanks Made, I was lookin for a video but I couldn’t find a good one, just one on Perez but I didn’t know if that’d embed. In my opinion, any chick in a cool ’80′s video has automatic cred…lol
I love the 80s
I loved my banana clips!
I wish they would come back. I bet I could get mine so tight it would be like a low-rent hillbilly facelift.
LOL, seriously!!
Ya and the thing is, a lot of eightes stuff is prettier. The poofy hair on many women really is kinda flattering, (sans the sky high bangs, of course), and the little extras, like lace collars or broaches were cool. Now we all have flat hair and plain Gap clothes…lol.
ITA, Kel. We tried to give our hair lift back then, and now we try to look like a wet rat.
I eggmit I’ve always been scarf-challenged. I guess that’s why I liked the Hermes scarf pillows in Kelly Bensimon’s house. They’re more useful to me as beautiful pillow covers.
Lol it is like that show “I love the ’80′s strikes back”! But seriously the ’80′s were so great, I am afraid nuthin will ever compare. I always say I wish I was born earlier than ’77 so I coulda been like in my twenties then, that woulda rocked!
See if you remember some of these commercials. I had totally forgot about the Bonkers one.
I had, too. No memory of Bonkers whatsoever.
I did have the velcro shoes though . My brother wore his waaaay longer than I though he should have. But they had lil pockets on them that he put his lunch money in and between that and his casio watch he was totally tubular. Oh how I miss my favorite LAJean outfit with matching hightop shoes. Such good times. really. And swatches… loved those things. Loved them. And Maybeline electric blue mascara. And Gloria Vanderbuilt perfume for special occasions Navy for everyday wear. awe yall these things were just so great. But this sumbish got tangled up in my hair more times than I can remember
“Sumbish”. That is a keeper, now stored away for future use. You may see me use “sumbish” on a future comment section, fyi, and I request your permission now to utilize it…lol
Permission granted. And I will seal it with one final video for the night from my boyfriend Blake Shelton tee hee
I didn’t recall the Bonkers either…damn you Tre! tee hee
Hi Made…This is your mission if you chose to accept it
I know the full video/movie of this with Lisa playing the Femme Fatal is on YouTube, I watched it many months ago…so, my darling, do you think you can find it, cause I bloody can’t!! Aussie’s say “bloody” all the time, we even had an overseas ad for tourism where the catch line was “Where the bloody hell are you”? ie when are ye gonna come to Australia for a holiday….there was some controversy over it though! Anyway, if anyone can find the video you can! 
While searching for that I did find a moive Lisa was in.
Poodle: If you’re talking about the video LisaV made with the band “ABC”… the videos were on SH back in September 2011: http://stoopidhousewives.com/2011/09/25/real-housewives-of-beverly-hills-lisa-vanderpump-music-video-star/
You may want to do a search on SH before you look elsewhere for anything re Housewives!! TFC!! SH
oops. Sorry bout that. I am gonna blame my momentary lapse of reason on the holidays. Wont happen again.
MP: LOL!! Wasn’t directed to you.. but to “poodle”! No problem!! TFC!! SH
I know but I have been here long enough to know better. Hope you have a very Merry Christmas Ms SH. THis site has brought me such fun entertainment throughout the years. Love ya.
Made, thank you for posting the St Trinians link, I loved that show as a teenager, it was so “naughty”! It was so much fun when they travelled overseas. You really do know your stuff!! Have a wonderful Christmas and New Year! xox
Merry Christmas to you too my friend. I am glad you liked it. Lisa has not really changed much since those days. Can also see a lot of Pandora in her.
Ms SH, I do apologise. And thank you for providing the link and not telling me to find it myself, that I appreciate. I realise your site is THE SITE for all things Housewives, and you’re right, I should have checked before I asked Made. Again, didn’t mean to offend anyone, or diminise your hard work. In future I’ll search before I ask.
Kel, you’re definitely right about her being the most beautiful on BH and probably all the HW shows, as well. She’s just a natural beauty.
I know, right? That arse….lucky ducky.