The story of Anna Nicole Smith, whose real name was Vickie Lynn Hogan, shows that fame is fleeting, and a rapid decline can follow very quickly. The blonde bombshell embodied the American dream of many girls and women - living in luxury alongside a wealthy man - but for her, it was the first step toward a tragic end. She gained fame as a Playmate but became especially known as America’s most famous gold digger. At 26, she married billionaire J. Howard Marshall II, who was 89 at the time. And since she became a very wealthy widow just 14 months after the wedding, there was no doubt that the marriage was a calculated move.
From school to the grill
Anna Nicole Smith was born in 1967 in the small Texas town of Mexia, into relatively poor circumstances. Her parents divorced when she was two, and she lived only with her mother, who, at the age of nine, sent her to be raised by her sister. From a young age, Anna was very enterprising, trying to grab attention and, more importantly, money at any cost. She quickly realized that high school wasn’t for her and found work in a grill bar.
Girl of the year
At just 17, she married chef Billy Wayne Smith, who was reportedly insanely jealous of her. Despite the difficult relationship, they had a son, Daniel, within two years. However, they divorced in 1993. Anna then started working as a stripper and naturally didn’t have any lack of male attention. Her sensual beauty captivated almost everyone, often influential playboys who treated her as a toy. Around this time, she was noticed by modeling scouts and signed a contract with a modeling agency. In 1992, she was named Playboy’s Miss May and crowned as Playboy Playmate of the Year in 1993.
Marrying a billionaire
Her life took a 180-degree turn when 89-year-old Texas billionaire J. Howard Marshall II fell for her. Within two years, the magnate threw a lavish wedding. Everyone immediately branded Anna as a spineless gold digger, though she claimed her feelings were real. However, their marriage was truly unusual. Anna once revealed that she never lived in the same house with her husband and never had sex with him. Just 14 months after the wedding, Howard died, and Anna became an incomparably wealthy heiress and a celebrity. The former Playmate, whom the public compared to iconic Hollywood blondes Marilyn Monroe and Jayne Mansfield, was now seen as a gold digger who used her beauty in a shady play for an inheritance that, as it later turned out, wasn’t meant to be hers.
Naked Gun
Anna tried to revive her modeling career as a prominent face of Guess. She also appeared in a few comedy films. Of her acting projects, only the third Naked Gun film from 1994 is worth mentioning, where she played herself - a highly provocative blonde diva. The same year, she appeared in the Coen brothers’ satirical comedy The Hudsucker Proxy. In the next two years, she tried her luck in action films To the Limit and Skyscraper, again with little success. Further attempts between 2003 and 2007, including Wasabi Tuna, Be Cool, and Illegal Aliens, met the same fate.
Legal battles, weight gain, and addiction
By the early 2000s, Anna’s world began to crumble. She tried to revive her career with her own reality show, The Anna Nicole Show, on E!, where she displayed her everyday life in a comical and often eccentric manner. At the time, the former bombshell was losing court battles over Marshall’s inheritance with his son Pierce, struggling with weight gain, and most of all, dealing with an addiction to numerous prescription drugs that were destroying her life.
Who‘s actually the father?
In 2006, she announced on her website that she was pregnant again but did not reveal the father’s identity. However, the media speculated it was photographer Larry Birkhead, as she had been frequently seen with him. Birkhead demanded a paternity test, but Anna refused and fled to the Bahamas with her lawyer and partner Howard K. Stern. When she gave birth to her daughter Dannielynn on September 7, 2006, she listed Stern as the father on the birth certificate. Three days later, tragedy struck - her 20-year-old son Daniel, who had come to visit his mother and newborn sister, died in the hospital room due to an accidental overdose from a fatal mix of prescription drugs.
A family curse
Less than five months later, on February 7, 2007, Anna Nicole Smith herself followed, accidentally overdosing in a room at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Florida. The 39-year-old blonde lost consciousness and could not be revived. At the time of the collapse, her partner Howard K. Stern was with her until the end. Emergency services arrived promptly, but neither CPR nor defibrillation brought the famous blonde back to life. At 2:50 PM, a doctor at Memorial Regional Hospital in Hollywood, Florida, declared her dead.
