A real life soap opera (Part 2)

This is the second of a two part post, so if you’re new here maybe you should read part one first.

We’ve been following the story of Anna Nicole Smith, exotic dancer, Playboy playmate of the year and poster girl for breast augmentation surgery.

So far, Anna Nicole has climbed her way up the ladder from exotic dancer to Playboy centerfold to wet dream girl of post pubescent boys of all ages. She has sued a New York magazine for damaging her reputation and been sued by some nut bar who claimed she sexually harassed him; and won. Why in hell was he complaining?

Then she divorced her first husband and married an 89 year old billionaire who lasted over a year before buying the biscuit. It is not recorded whether or not he went out with a smile on his face.

Hell, we’ve already got enough for a good book. Now, here’s the sequel.

Anna Nicole had a daughter she named Dannielynn Hope Marshall Stern. The poor child bears the name of Anna Nicole’s deceased husband, J.Howard Marshall and her lover, Howard K. Stern, who claims to be the father. But we’re not through yet. Somebody called Larry Birkhead, Anna Nicole’s former lover, is also claiming to be the father.

Not wanting to be left out, the husband of Zsa Zsa Gabor, Prince Frederic von Anhalt, also joined the paternity battle. He claims he had a ten-year affair with Anna Nicole. He also said up to 30 men could be Dannielynn's father. The gallant Prince Frederic says, "Anna liked to have fun. She liked to have fun with men. She was a very sexy woman." Uh-huh.

Folks, I’m no expert, and as the father of three children I know doctors can’t always pinpoint the exact time of conception, but even allowing for an error of a month or more, that means that Anna Nicole had fun with a different man every night for a month. She wasn’t just sexy; she was horny as hell.

Determining the father of Dannilynn could be very important since whoever is ruled to be the father will take control of Anna Nicole's estate and the roughly half a billion dollars she could inherit from Marshall's estate, if the courts ever figure it out. They’ve had over twelve years. My but the wheels of justice do turn slowly.

Oh, but there’s more.

Broward County, Florida, medical examiner Joshua Perper concluded that Anna Nicole died of "combined drug intoxication" after taking a concoction of the sleeping medication chloral hydrate and at least eight other prescription drugs, including methadone and Valium. She died aged just 39, after being found unconscious in a Florida hotel room on February 8, 2007.

Her death came just five months after her 20-year-old son Daniel, offspring of her first marriage when she was still in her teens, suddenly died under suspicious circumstances in the Bahamas.

Her death sparked the controversy over the paternity of Dannielynn and who should be given custody.

Her live in lover, Howard K. Stern wanted Anna Nicole buried in the Bahamas where he shared a house with Anna Nicole and where her son Daniel was buried. Her mother wanted her buried in Texas. So they went to court in Florida to settle the matter, while Anna Nicole’s embalmed body decomposed in a Florida morgue.

The battle over the body came complete with weird accusations like the claim by Anna Nicole’s mother that her lover wanted her body so he could sell the rights to her funeral to Entertainment Tonight for a cool million. (Did she really have a pink funeral?) There was also an incident where Stern's lawyer Krista Barth accused Birkhead's attorney Debra Opri of claiming her client had killed Anna Nicole.

There’s more; much more; enough to turn this tale into a trilogy. But you’ll have to dig it up for yourself. This stuff is a little too bizarre for my tastes.

A Real Life Soap Opera (Part 1)

I’ve been hearing a lot about this woman, Anna Nicole Smith; in the news and on television. I knew she was a celebrity of some kind, but I didn’t really understand a whole lot about what was going on. I don’t usually pay much attention to this kind of stuff. Hell, I thought Jessica Simpson was one of Homer’s kids.

Apparently, Anna Nicole Smith had died and the body lay decomposing while her lover and her mother argued, in court, over where the body would be buried. Thinking this rather strange, I decided to peruse the web and find out a little about the case. Folks, this story is destined to become a “Movie of the Week”, maybe even a mini-series. And, it will have to be sold as a true story, because no one would buy it as fiction.

Anna Nicole was a high school dropout who got married at seventeen, had a kid and worked at a few odd jobs, at Wal-Mart, then as a waitress at Red Lobster, before buying herself a set of boobs and taking up exotic dancing. While she was dancing exotically, she was spotted by someone from Playboy who had her take off her clothes in the March 1992 issue of Playboy magazine. She was eventually named Playmate of the Year and started a whole new career as; you guessed it, a sex symbol.

One article I read claims Anna Nicole was responsible for the big bust trend. That is clearly untrue. Dorothy White started the big bust trend back in 1957. I still remember the day she caught me peeking down the front of her dress. She didn’t say anything. She was too busy trying to stifle her oncoming giggling fit. I was thirteen, she was twenty.

Now, where was I? Oh, yeah, the other girl with the big boobs.

Anna Nicole divorced her first husband in 1993, and in June of 1994 she married oil billionaire, J. Howard Marshall. Some say she married him for his money. Anna Nicole claims it was true love. She was 26; he was 89. Make up your own mind.

Also, in 1994, Anna Nicole sued New York magazine for five million dollars in damages to her reputation. The magazine had used her picture in an article titled, “White Trash Nation”. She claims she was told she was being photographed to “embody the all-American woman look.” Uh-huh. I wonder what Hefner told her?

Marshall died in August of 1995. He must have been one tough old bugger to last a whole year with that girl. Just looking at her in the flesh would cause cardiac arrest in more than a few men.

On his death, one of his sons tried to cut Anna Nicole out of the will. The son is now dead and Anna Nicole is dead, but Marshall’s estate, valued at 1.6 billion dollars has yet to be decided by the courts. A Texas probate Court decided Anna Nicole was entitled to nothing.

In 1996, Smith filed for bankruptcy in California as a result of a $850,000 judgment against her for sexual harassment of an employee. Uh-huh. Like this woman really had to resort to sexual harassment to get a man.

A Los Angeles bankruptcy judge awarded her roughly 450 million dollars from her late husband’s estate. But, in July 2001, a Houston judge affirmed the jury findings in the probate case, which ruled that she was entitled to nothing. In addition, he ordered Smith to pay over $1 million in fees and expenses to her stepson’s legal team. The conflict between the Texas probate court and the California bankruptcy court judgments forced the matter into federal court.

In March 2002, a federal judge issued a new ruling reducing her share of the estate to $88 million. In December 2004, a three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the March 2002 decision, once again leaving her with nothing.

The Bush administration subsequently directed the Solicitor General to intercede on Smith's behalf out of an interest to expand federal court jurisdiction over state probate disputes. In the Supreme Court's decision, handed down on May 1, 2006, the justices unanimously decided in favor of Smith. Although the decision did not give Smith a share of her husband's estate, it affirmed her right to pursue a share of it in federal court.

(To be continued)