The Sad Case of Anna Nicole Smith

By now, most folks have Anna Nicole Smith fatigue. I know I do. During a February 9, 2007 broadcast of the John Gambling Show on WABC Radio in New York City, Fox News commentator Chris Wallace wryly observed that the extensive coverage of Ms. Smith's passing made him think that he "was witnessing the death of a head of state."

So why should we care about Anna Nicole Smith? Because this woman's very sad and predictable demise is a wakeup call to the Paris-Lindsay-Britney crowd and all other would-be bimbos who worship out-of-control celebrities.

Andrea Peyser has written an excellent column about this underreported aspect of Anna Nicole Smith ("This belle tolls for thee, bimbos"). It can be found on Page 4 of the February 10, 2007 edition of The New York Post.

Smith, 39, died suddenly at a Florida hotel on February 8, 2007. A preliminary autopsy was inconclusive. The voluptuous former Playboy vixen and TrimSpa pitchwoman had long been suspected of alcohol and prescription drug abuse. A toxicology report will be issued in several weeks.

The death of Anna Nicole Smith is a huge mystery, which is not terribly surprising because everything about this lady was outsized, including her nearly six-foot height, gargantuan enhanced chest, and wild weight swings, which were reportedly as much as 70 pounds. She was also incredibly litigious, having spawned lawsuits that will long outlive her.

In 1994, the year after her first appearance in Playboy, Anna Nicole Smith, then 26, shocked the world by marrying 89-year-old billionaire Texas oilman J. Howard Marshall II. Marshall, a former trusts and estates professor at Yale Law School, met Smith in 1991 when she was dancing at a topless bar. According to a February 9, 2007 New York Post article, Marshall was confined to a wheelchair at the time. In a startling photograph of the couple kissing, it looked like Smith was giving Marshall mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

That image evoked hysterical laughter and disgust. The picture provided incredible fodder for late-night television comics. I remember my father, then 72, being nauseated by it.