And so came the news on February 8, 2007 that Vickie Lynn Marshall - aka Anna Nicole Smith - died from as of yet unknown causes. No doubt that some will wonder where you were when you heard the news. Well gentle readers, I didn't hear the news on the 8th. As old fashioned as this sounds, I read about it in the newspaper the next morning.
I first heard (and saw) Anna circa 1993 or so during her campaign as a Guess jeans spokesperson. There were a lot of guys who thought Anna was the bomb but blondes are not my thing, not even blonde bombshells. Still, it wasn't hard to see why lots of guys became happy when they saw her photos. I later found out that Anna had been a dancer at Gigi's. Gigi's is a girlie bar located at 290 and Hollister in northwest Houston which has been in business for over 20 years now. I once saw Christy Canyon perform there in 1995 when she came through Houston during a week long dancing stint at the bar.
My personal distaste for Anna increased when I started hearing her speak in interviews and watching her on TV. Anna really was a dumb blonde, but I have some casual friends who strongly argue otherwise. One acquaintance I know has been a girlie bar photographer for many years. He says he knew Anna from her years as a dancer and strongly maintains that her whole bombshell thing was an act. Anna had more brains than she let onto.
Well we do know that Anna had enough smarts to spot her opportunities and if you are going to dig for gold, then you might as well dig until your fingernails break. And so she did, marrying one of the grand old men of the oil and gas industry. It all went downhill from there. Watch as we see Anna kiss a man 63 years her senior, we watched as Anna yelled out "screw you Rusty!" to famed Houston attorney Rusty Hardin who was representing the Marshall estate in their legal battle with Anna over the dead man's billions. Watch as Anna puts on 80+ pounds and then gets a TV show in all defiance of our modern day culture which demands that our TV stars be trim and beautiful.
But then Anna did something that I thought was quite genuine. Several weeks ago I did catch something on TV and the Internet where Anna was crying over the death of her son. Whatever else you might have thought about Anna, clearly her boy was someone that she cared about. There is no doubt in my own mind that her son's death was what caused Anna to pound the nails into her own coffin.
And now it's over, at least until the next round of legal fireworks begin. There is a part of me that is bitter and angry at Anna for tarnishing Houston. For better or worse, we Americans don't allow for much in that gray area between money and sex. If money is what you are after, you get tarnished as a woman and Anna was duly crucified for exposing America's hypocracies about money and sex. We Americans have never allowed for women to breathe and flourish socially in such categories as courtesans and mistresses. I personally think that we are poorer and less interesting as a society because of it.
As for what her fate will be in the annals of stardom? We know that Anna didn't leave much behind in terms of work, other than her Playboy and Guess jeans layouts. She just didn't have much to offer in terms of talent. Looking into my crystal ball, I see that the court battles over hers and her ex-husband's estates will go on for perhaps another 5 years. In 20 years Anna will be a distant faded memory, remembered wistfully by the current generation. That is unless her remaining infant daughter manages to make a name for herself.
Anna Nicole Smith - RIP
Posted by The Mighty Wizard at February 11, 2007 08:45 PM