Anna Nicole's rise and fall has captured our attention
As authorities continued to investigate the death of Anna Nicole Smith yesterday, the saga of the 39-year-old former Playboy centerfold took yet more twists: A third man stepped forward to say that he may be the father of Smith's infant daughter, and Smith's mother said she knows what caused her daughter's death.
Vergie Arthur told "Good Morning America" she believes drugs killed her daughter and also Smith's 20-year-old son, Daniel, who died in the Bahamas in September. "I think she had too many drugs, just like Danny," Smith's mother said. "I tried to warn her about drugs and the people that she hung around with. She didn't listen. . . . By the last interview I saw of her, she was so wasted."
Even more startling were the comments of Prince Frederick von Anhalt -- the eighth husband of actress Zsa Zsa Gabor -- who announced yesterday that he had a longstanding relationship with Smith and may be the father of the baby she delivered last September. Von Anhalt, 59, even threatened to file a lawsuit if 5-month-old Dannielynn is given to either of the men -- attorney Howard K. Stern or photographer Larry Birkhead -- now claiming the baby's paternity. A judge yesterday refused to order an emergency DNA test on Smith's body as part of the paternity dispute but did order the body be preserved until a hearing in 10 days.
Cable channels continued their round-the-clock coverage of the saga yesterday, with various outlets reporting that the nurse who discovered Smith Thursday afternoon believed she had choked on her own vomit. Smith, who was in a room at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Hollywood, Fla., was later pronounced dead at a hospital. The county medical examiner said yesterday that his six-hour autopsy found no signs of trauma and that the cause of death won't be known for three to five weeks. Investigators also said no illegal drugs were found in the room where she died, though prescription drugs were found there.
In the aftermath of Smith's death, even seasoned observers of pop culture are hard-pressed to explain why the small-town-stripper-turned-train-wreck captured the imagination of so many people. Was it her rags-to-riches story? The Marilyn Monroe metaphor? The hefty inheritance? The bizarre and byzantine private life?
"Anna Nicole is someone who moved rapidly through several strata of American life to become a celebrity," said Mark Andrejevic, author of "Reality TV: The Work of Being Watched." "Her story serves as the tabloid version of the American dream."
Andrejevic, a communications professor at the University of Iowa, said Smith's "exaggerated character" quenched our collective thirst for ever more sensational and eccentric celebrities. So what if she didn't have any talent? "That's what made her an interesting character for reality TV," said Andrejevic, "the way in which she embodied the lottery of fame in American, the randomness of it."
Aside from her frequent appearances in the pages of Playboy and those long-ago ads in which her robust backside was provocatively jammed into Guess jeans, Smith's artistic resume was indeed light. Much of her notoriety stems from her 1994 marriage to billionaire oil tycoon J. Howard Marshall II, who died 14 months later at age 90, setting off a legal fight over his fortune. With only a few forgettable film roles -- including "Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult" and the just-finished sci-fi comedy "Illegal Aliens" -- Smith resorted to reality TV on E!'s "The Anna Nicole Show," which captured the onetime stripper at her heaviest and most high-strung.
With the cameras rolling, it was not uncommon to see Smith, her ruby lipstick smeared and the familiar crown of platinum hair flat and unkempt, heave her shrieking self (at times she topped 220 pounds) onto an oversize bed. Looking more bombed than bombshell, the star of "The Anna Nicole Show" rarely brought her A-game. But as sad and tragic as Smith often appeared on TV, there was something transfixing about her.
"This is the end of a pop culture phenomenon of really historic proportions," said Clay Calvert, author of "Voyeur Nation: Media, Privacy, and Peering into Modern Culture. "Anna Nicole proved you don't have to have any talent or intelligence to get people interested in you."
And people are definitely interested. Since Smith's death,
Camille Paglia, the cultural critic and best-selling author, said she's always been riveted by Smith, whom she believes deserves a place in the pantheon of blonde starlets alongside Jean Harlow, Jayne Mansfield, Anita Ekberg, and Monroe.
"It's been painful to watch her life deteriorate , obviously. It's been a kind of poor, white-trash, squalid melodrama," said Paglia, a professor of humanities at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. "But in point of fact, anyone can see she didn't take a bad picture. Every time you saw her -- fat or thin -- she had this sexual charisma and humor. She communicated with a mass audience and was truly a popular figure."
Despite her resemblance to stars of the past, Paglia said Smith was anything but old school.
"The Hollywood era was always about preserving the mystery of the star, and Anna Nicole was horribly overexposed," said Paglia. "But she still looked great."
Material from wire services was used in this report. 
