Anna Nicole Smith in Netflix documentary You Don't Know Me Credit: Netflix
February 8 In 2007, Anna Nicole Smith died in her room at the Hard Rock Hotel in Florida after an overdose of prescription drugs. It was a sad but not entirely unexpected end to a chaotic life. But after stumbling across the ensuing decade-long pop culture storm, during which the definition of celebrity expanded to include anyone with a social media account, it takes time to fully remember just how famous Anna Nicole Smith is—now the subject of a documentary. Netflix movie. — once was. And it may take a little more time to realize that the fame she had is no more.
Vicki Lynn Hogan was a native of Mexia, Texas (population: 7,000), dropped out of school, worked as a waitress in restaurant Red Lobster and was a wife and mother before she was 20 years old. as a species distinct from the consumptive androgynes that populate the pages of the world's fashion magazines.
She cherished the distant dream of becoming the next Marilyn Monroe, but spent her days working at the local Wal-Mart. Two events changed her life. In 1991, while performing at the Texas strip club Rick's Cabaret, she caught the attention of octogenarian oil billionaire J. Howard Marshall II.
“He asked me to have lunch with him the next day,” Smith recalled. “I said I have to work. He gave me an envelope. And that was the last time I danced. It was terrible in that place. It was just terrible. And he saved me from it.» In 1992, she submitted photos of herself to Playboy, and in less time than it took for Viagra to take effect, she ended up in the magazine's centerfold in May.
Paul Marciano, co-founder of Guess jeans, drew attention to Vicki Lynn — as she was still called — and her magnificent beauty. She was big, blonde, had curves, and matched Guess' retro pin-up aesthetic.
A renamed Anna Nicole Smith has replaced Claudia Schiffer as the face of Guess jeans. Her photo shoots were laced with vintage glamour, which made the fashion world sit up and insist they weren't exclusively in the stick insect business. This was followed by editorials for the chic magazines Vanity Fair, W, Harper's Bazaar and Italian Vogue.
By 1993 she was seducing Bryan Ferry — a man who knows his iconic models — in his video «Will You Love Me Tomorrow» and by 1994 she appeared in the Coen brothers' Hudsucker's Confidant, the third installment of The Naked Gun. . was named Playmate of the Year. Anna Nicole Smith was such a legitimate success story that when New York magazine published a photo of her drawing Cheez Doodles, accompanied by an article titled «White Trash Nation,» she sued them for defamation.
But the magazine was right. In 1994, America was a seething snake pit filled with fame-hungry, mentally unstable rednecks. This was the era of John Wayne Bobbitt, whose penis was cut off by his abused wife. About Tona Harding, the bumbling figure skater who was hit on the knee by her rival, Nancy Kerrigan. It's about Joey Buttafuco, the Long Island ladies' man whose teenage girlfriend Amy Fisher shot his wife in the face. About Jessica Hahn, a former church secretary who was sexually abused by devout televangelist Jim Bakker, who turned his late-night fame into regular Playboy spreads. About Bill Clinton's accusers, Monica Lewinsky, Jennifer Flowers and Paul Jones.
Still from the film «Anna Nicole Smith: You Don& #39;t Know Me Credit: Netflix
It was also a time when there were countless platforms to give these damaged people the recognition they craved. These shocking stories were commonly published by supermarket tabloids such as The National Enquirer. Daytime television was filled with controversial talk shows hosted by Jerry Springer, Jenny Jones, Richard Bay and a million gaudy imitators. And then there was the original shock athlete Howard Stern.
In the mid-1990s, the Stern show was both a VIP lounge and a confessional for porn stars, weirdos, and tabloid regulars. People like Bobbitt, Buttafuoco, his wounded wife, Khan, and countless others went to his studio to be subjected to his lustful interrogation and to make the clock of their actuality count down a few more minutes. «If Howard Stern didn't exist, white trash wouldn't have a superstar,» observed his occasional guest, Rev. Al Sharpton.
Anna Nicole Smith with her husband Howard J. Marshall. Photo: Rex
With her improbable trajectory from small-town Texas poverty to a gorgeous, gleaming fantasy figure posing perfectly in glossy foreign fashion bibles, Anna Nicole Smith seemed to inhabit a rarefied world where the air was different from the toxic filth inhaled by the psychos who were happy to show off. her pain at the freak performance where Stern and Springer snapped the whip.
But she soon plunged back into their filthy world. In 1994, 26-year-old Anna Nicole Smith married 89-year-old J. Howard Marshall at the White Dove Wedding Chapel in Houston.
«He courted me for two and a half years.» she explained. "I promised him that I would marry him after I made something of myself. I wasn't physically, oh my god, you're a hot, hot body. I loved him for what he did for me and my son.»
Anna Nicole Smith: You are not Authors and rights: Netflix
Minutes after the wedding ceremony, Smith blew a kiss to her wheelchair-bound new husband and went to a photo shoot in Greece. Thirteen months later, he died and she was embroiled in a battle with his family over her claims to a share of his estate.
The wedding, its sudden end, and the endless legal battles that followed, irrevocably changed the public perception of Anna Nicole. The Guess girl who photographed like a 1950s dream was forgotten. Anna Nicole Smith, whose weight had skyrocketed and who slurred and stumbled her way through tabloid television shows, the National Enquirer and the Howard Stern Trial, was a completely different sight.
“He was the light of my life. ”, she repeatedly insisted on her husband, with whom she had never lived, and did not share anything with him except a kiss on the lips. But for the rest of the decade, in the media and in the courtroom, she was doomed to play the role of an unlucky gold digger.In 2002, she capitalized on her ubiquitous gossip column by subscribing to E! reality series. The Anna Nicole Show was a depressing dive into what the editors of E! managed to turn into a storyline. For two seasons, the oft-confused Smith and her Fellini-style entourage, which included her attorney (and future husband) Howard K. Stern, her jaded assistant Kimmy, her screeching interior designer Bobby Trendy, and half of her deceased husband's (Judge handed Marshall's son the other half) vacillated in storylines about drinking bouts and court battles.
Also on the show, albeit reluctantly, was Smith's son, Daniel, who died in 2006 at the age of 20. In the same year, she gave birth to a daughter, Dannylynn, whose paternity has been the subject of fierce controversy. By the time of her death, Anna Nicole Smith had become less of a punch line than a cautionary tale about what happens when life goes off the rails and there is no one to stop the train because all the passengers are voyeurs watching the carnage. /p>
Her departure was greeted with several tearful eulogies. «What is she famous for, besides her fame?» snorted MSNBC morning pundit Joe Scarborough, himself mostly known for his access to Donald Trump. «(She was) available for parties,» smirked writer for gossip site Radar Tyler Gray. «She cost a lot, but she'll be joining the party.»
Anna Nicole hated New York magazine cover
Lawyer Rusty Hardin, who represented J. Howard Marshall's son, Pierce, and whom Smith addressed in court with a loud «Fuck you, Rusty!» commented: “I once told her, I don’t know why you are so upset with me, I was useful for your career.”
It is 2023. Howard Stern now has empathetic, compassionate conversations with Lisa Kudrow about body image or Priyanka Chopra about depression and who cries during an interview with Bruce Springsteen. Reality shows are dominated by rich real housewives. Everyone who has a four-figure number on TikTok considers himself, if not a star, then certainly a brand.
But no one has reached the trajectory that Ann Nicole Smith enjoyed. This is the age of dynastic privilege; about the Kardashians, Jenners and Hadid, who were born celebrities and achieved what they were entitled to with little effort.
There is no struggle in the success stories of these women, there is no social mobility; they didn't go from rags to riches, they went from wealth to more wealth. Anna Nicole Smith was the last White Trash Cinderella.
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