Isn't She Lovely?

This past February 8th was a day that went unnoticed in American tabloids. But what was it, exactly? No, it wasn’t just six days after Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow and declared there to be six more weeks of winter, but nice try. Instead, it was the one-year anniversary of Anna Nicole Smith’s reasonably sudden death, just months after her son’s, Daniel’s.
No one seems to care about dear old Anna Nicole, and I can’t help but wonder why. Perhaps her marriage to 86-year-old millionaire, J. Howard Marshall, didn’t gain her quite the following. But to me, anyone who can live in Hollywood for years and not know what a salad fork is by the ripe old age of 35 is no gold digger at all. Rather, she’s a gold mine. Anna’s existence was not an unfortunate one, despite what the E! True Hollywood Story may say. No, it was a figurative “F you” to the Audrey Hepburn’s of the world.
Few people know that Anna was not an Anna, in fact. She was Vicky Lynn Hogan by birth, but through careful cultivation and meditation, she crafted the blonde bombshell, Anna Nicole Smith, whose weight fluctuated almost as often as her Xanax prescription. But no matter how hard she tried to stop herself from slurring her words on virtually every one of the media’s stages, our poor Vicky couldn’t seem to control her own tragic downfall. The Anna Nicole Smith Show (of which I own Season One) touted that “she’s so outrageous”, and oh, how outrageous she was indeed. Anna got visits from her white trash cousin, Shelly, who made us all feel just a little bit better about ourselves when she ordered macaroni and cheese at a five-star restaurant, and whose parting words with her dear cousin, Anna, included the plea, “Hey, can I borrow, like…five dollars?”
But why should we care? It’s no coincidence that just eight days after Smith’s passing, Britney Spears’ haircut disaster happened, or is it? With a year under our belts to look back in awe at the ridiculous and unreal lives of the glamorous (the flossy, flossy), I’d posit that it’s safe to say that dear old Anna paved the way for celebrity breakdowns, which I personally enjoy reading about while using the elliptical at Helen Newman. A modern-day, trailer park version of Marilyn cut down in her prime, she became the mold for future damsels in distress. So this one’s for you, Anna, Vicky, whoever you are. Here is the true “homage slash obituary” you so deserve, even if it’s a year and almost a month late. It’s just like you said, “You never know if they like you for who you are or what you are.” Well, Anna, we like you just fine on both accounts.