We Can’t Let Go Of Anna Nicole
Some of us remain mired in a high school mentality. That’s my theory on why such extraneous stories as that of Anna Nicole Smith grab our attention and won’t let go.
We always wanted to be captain of the football team. Or the head cheerleader. Or we fantasized about having relationships with them. Maybe you were too healthy for all that during your teen years, but a lot of us weren’t. We revered them and their station. We reacted to their existence in our own peculiar ways.
And many of us also gloated if they fell from the perch we placed them on. That cheerleader turns up in the family way. The football guy gets in a car accident after a kegger to celebrate a big win. We don’t stop talking about it in the lunch room.
So we remain, many of us anyhow, smitten with celebrity. Whether that fame is legitimately won, or is as faux as Anna Nicole Smith’s breasts. Which affectations apparently fascinated more than simply the horny males of the world.
Do I have anything new or especially insightful to add to the circus that has become the post-mortem on the former Playmate of the Year? Frankly, no. But, as one who remains fascinated by such as the evolution of Michael Jackson’s face, I can’t stand on the sidelines without commenting. After all, this deal gets curioser and curioser by the day.
It has all the ingredients of a saga that will launch the next Greta Van Susteren into a Fox Network anchor’s chair on a nightly basis. There is the paternity issue. There is the law suit against the estate of Smith’s deceased multi-millionaire hubby. There is the mystery surrounding Smith’s fame and the happenstance of her death. And it’s all fueled by an almost daily new wrinkle.
Just when we thought the most bizarre had already occurred — her widower’s name is Howard K. Stern, for heavens’ sakes — up pops a fake prince, claiming he’s the poppa of Anna Nicole’s kid. The guy happens to be married to Zsa Zsa Gabor (her 8th betrothal) of all people. He’s known as Prince Frederic von Anhalt, but he’s not really a prince, and his name is really Hans Robert Lichtenberg. One has to wonder what in the name of Louisvillian Larry Birkhead is going on here?
Nobody really knows. Which is why even intelligent people with real lives and families of their own are still hanging on every cockamamie twist and turn. When the New York Times put its imprimatur on the situation with a reasoned commentary about the phenomenon, the story got real legs. Now it’s all the news that fits.
In the last day or so, the following has come to the my attention. 1) “Paternity Madness — The Anna Nicole Baby Daddy Bracket.” Developed by the wackies at celebrityhack.com, it was sent to me by a local attorney of note, a fellow not normally prone to such foolishness. 2) The revelation that the Immigration Minister of the Bahamas resigned because of his relationship with Anna Nicole. He apologized to his constituency. Reminiscent of a marvelous scene in the original “M*A*S*H,” photos emerged of Minister Shane Gibson in bed with the comely Ms. Smith.
And so the story goes. Where it will lead nobody knows. We remain fascinated. And entertained. Lost in its evolution, of course, is the reality that a rather sad gal’s jetstreamed but forlorn life is over. Was she done in by her fame? The vultures who clawed their way into her life? Her own guile?
As with Marilyn Monroe and Edie Sedgwick, another emotionally fragile but gorgeous ingenue has bitten the dust. We idolize them and in the guise of “taking care of them” try to possess their beings. Who’s zoomin’ whom? The Jerry Springer Show lives and we want to watch more than we’ll ever let on.
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