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Thursday, April 15, 1999 6:19:54 PM EST

• Pamela Anderson Lee loses the implants
• Auctioning logbook linked to Glenn Miller's death
• Jay Leno loves his cars, bikes
• Las Vegas resort's Lenin statue loses its head

Lee

LOS ANGELES (CNN) -- For many "Baywatch" aficionados, they were perhaps defining elements of her character. Now Pamela Anderson Lee's breast implants have been removed.

The former "Baywatch" star, now appearing in the syndicated show "V.I.P.," had surgery to remove her implants last week in Los Angeles, according to her spokeswoman, Marleah Leslie.

Leslie says Lee, 31, had no problems with her implants. "It's something I've been wanting to do for a long time and I'm very happy with my decision," Lee says in a statement. Leslie also says Lee isn't worried that her smaller figure will hurt her modeling career or chances at future acting jobs.

The actress filed for divorce from her rocker husband Tommy Lee of Motley Crue in 1996; last year, he pleaded no contest to kicking her during a fight and was put under court order to stay at least 100 yards (meters) away from her.

Miller

LONDON (CNN) -- A World War II aircraft logbook, one of the few possible clues to the death of legendary bandleader Glenn Miller was sold this week for $35,260, according to Sotheby's auctioneers.

"I am truly staggered at the price," says Stephen Maycock, an aeronautics specialist at Sotheby's. "It was over 20 times more than I expected the book to realize."

Miller, who forged the 1940s big band sound, was en route to France to organize concerts for Allied troops when his plane disappeared over the English Channel on a foggy December day in 1944. No trace was ever found of the single-engine aircraft or its passengers. Bad weather was the chief suspect until the flight log, which belonged to the late Royal Air Force navigator Fred Shaw, was produced.

A single entry in the logbook is the basis for the now largely accepted theory that Miller's plane may have been blasted out of the sky by bombs jettisoned by an RAF squadron returning from an aborted raid on Germany.

Leno

BURBANK, California (CNN) -- Jay Leno has a thing about cars, and he's not afraid to flaunt it. The "Tonight Show" host, who's collected more than 100 cars and motorcycles, says he's not sure of the exact count. But he and a team of three mechanics keep them all in working order. Leno drives a different vehicle to work every day.

While he is proud of his prowess with auto restoration, he laments the lack of young people entering the machinist field. So he established a scholarship at McPherson College in Kansas, the only college in the United States that offers an associate degree in auto restoration.

"We've lost sight in this country of people who can do things with their hands," Leno says. "I think there are a lot of kids in this country who are good mechanics and their parents discourage them by saying there's no future."

The comic writes a monthly column for Popular Mechanics magazine, and in 1997 won the Meguiar's Award that recognizes car fans. Barry Meguiar, whose company sells car-care products, praised him as "a pure hobbyist who has helped elevate the status of the collector car hobby to what it is today."

LAS VEGAS (CNN) -- When the Mandalay Bay resort in this glitzy gambling mecca erected a 20-foot statue of Vladimir Lenin in front of its Red Square restaurant, the owners of the casino giant were initially pleased. After all, the statue handily competed with garish competitors nearby -- including one resort housed in a replica of the Eiffel Tower.

But the statue of the founder of Soviet Communism was not well received by Mandalay Bay patrons, particularly U.S. military personnel, according to the statue's owner, Circus Circus. What to do?

After some debate, the group decided to decapitate the gypsum-and-plaster statue, and splatter it with white paint to mimic bird droppings. "We ran an extensive search of news clips on what happened in the Eastern bloc to the (real) Lenin statues," says Circus Circus spokeswoman Sarah Ralston. "In many cases, townships had neither resources nor manpower to physically remove these statues that in many cases weighed hundreds of tons.

"What they did was lop the head off," she continued. "It makes the point. If there's any confusion about the symbolism, that now goes away." Ralston adds that the hotel plans to turn the severed Lenin head into a table inside the Red Square vodka bar and restaurant.

Reuters contributed to this report.