Inevitably, every time a god or goddess dies, we cry bloody murder. From Monroe to Diana to Cobain, inevitably the murder investigation begins. And so it should. How lucky are those savages who aren’t even questioned when their crime is tucked smoothly away, filed neatly if tearfully under suicide, overdose, accident, natural causes. It’s good to wonder. And then to say goodbye.
But then there are situations that seamlessly blend Passions-style pathos with Dynasty extremes. Live on camera, but more real than the players even know. Anna Nicole Smith’s tragic story ended in a bizarre series of brutal events, including quite a few unanswered questions about her and her son’s demise.
I might dismiss the whole kitten-caboodle because really, who cares about Anna Nicole Smith? She was a socialite bimbo, clearly a very minor talent, likeable enough, and seriously, obviously troubled. Her contribution? Negligibly nothing. Practically illiterate, the poor little girl from Texas got lucky when oil Tycoon J. Howard Marshall came into the bar where she was working as a peeler.
But I’m one of those people who think all human life is sacred, and just because Anna Nicole was clearly not the brightest crayon in the box gives me no right to dismiss her. Just because she shimmered in the glitter and the sleaze of sex and drugs, I have no right to demean her value. After all, the only ones whose lives have not been both enriched and mired by sex (or the even more enjoyable proclivities) are liars.
It sure wasn’t just the riff raff who appreciated her buxom charms. From the Texas truckers to the tycoons, Anna liked ‘em larger than life. She was a real hit with the ladies, too, living out the fuzzy joy of soft-core videos of bubbly pink hot tubs and naked ladies frolicking about. Who is to say that simply sharing what she had with this world- her beauty- and vamping it up and camping it up were not unique and special gifts? I cannot underestimate the power of a woman’s body.
Anna’s life and death both feel like a neon joke, a blow-up Barbie decked up in the tinselly ritz of Planet Playmate. A sweet moron, Anna’s celebrity was her curse. Sure, she loved the attention and being able to afford everything her little heart desired in pink, to wear cute shoes and keep her blonde hair impeccably huge. But the girl didn’t know what she was doing.
Her life was a running joke about botched plastic surgery, extreme and multiple drug problems, possible mind control, deeply disturbed friendships, questionable signed contracts, mental illnesses, conspiracies, diet pill industry drama, financial mayhem, liposuction galore, prescription drug hell, methamphetamines, estranged family politics, child abuse, incest, binging, maybe purging, videos of her pregnant and our of her mind, the unexplained death of her healthy 20-year old drug-free son Daniel, and of course, those billions she may still inherit from the death of her 92 year old hubby. Everyone in line for that money is gone, including J. Howard’s son, Anna, and her son. Everyone, that is, except Little Orphan Dannie. As far as that goes, Dannielynn could have starred in her own reality TV- Who’s Yer Daddy? the miniseries.
Still, I didn’t think she was ‘swindling the old man of his millions.’ Is a man, old or otherwise, helpless when he decides to go and spend his money on strippers? The old dude’s ashes are apparently buried with her, at her request. It doesn’t matter if they both knew it would be a brief union and that she’d get a lot of pretty dresses. He waited for her for two years while she demurred his proposal. She made him a happy man when she finally said yes. I’m sure he knew full well what the cards were.
I didn’t bother with Blonde Ambition: the Untold Story Behind Anna Nicole Smith’s Death when it came out because I wasn’t paying thirty bucks for a hardcover with huge font that was pumped up through the media as the story that blew Big Gay Larry and Howie’s cover (her lawyer and her ex). And then, in a cloud of pink cotton candy, poof, she was gone, and I forgot all about the big naked blonde from Texas.
Plumb forgot, that is, until I pulled out my favourite gingham clog stilettos for a summer patio affair. They were a fun little Wal Mart investment, $14.95, and I’d called them my “Anna Nicole shoes.” They were definitely for blondes, southerners, Texans, and I love them. And that’s how it went through my mind, “Hey, I wonder if that book’s in at the library.”
While I can’t vouch for every last observation or data Rita Cosby writes in a book that isn’t particularly riveting one way or another, her credentials are not exactly novice. She’s a smart and gutsy journalist whose groundbreaking ‘exclusives’ include an interview with war criminal Milosevic, numerous world leaders, presidents, and politicians galore. She was also working quickly to get the facts out, so she didn’t wait around by her typewriter to see about a more poetic pacing for the story. I haven’t followed Cosby’s work before, so who knows, maybe the scandals she digs up are just publicity stunts, but even with what are just known facts, there are too many unanswered questions in this series of unfortunate events.
I’d say anywhere there is sex and celebrity and half a billion dollars and suitcases of dozens of kinds of drugs, paternity circuses, a dead son’s frightened consultation with a private detective a month before his end, and more than one unexplained death, it stands to reason that murder lurks nearby.
Blonde Ambition: the Untold Story Behind Anna Nicole Smith’s Death
Rita Cosby
Grand Central Publishing, New York
2007
Visit writer Lorette C. Luzajic at www.thegirlcanwrite.net. You can order her poetry collection from indigo.ca, or through her site.
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Say Goodbye to Hollywood
January 24, 2008
Addicts we know and love: Amy Winehouse, Lindsay Lohan, John Belushi, Kurt Cobain, Courtney Love, Elton John, Michael Jackson, Eminem, Drew Barrymore, Johnny Cash, Elvis, Judy Garland, Stephen King, Sigmund Freud, Billie Holliday, Robert Louis Stevenson, Charlie Parker, River Phoenix, Ernest Hemingway, Sir Winston Churchill, Jerry Garcia, Etta James, Wynonna Judd, Whitney Houston, Chris Penn, Ray Charles, Dionne Warwick, Fergie, Bo Bice, Ozzy OSbourne, Boy George, Anna Nicole Smith, Mary Kate Olsen, Samuel L. Jackson, Anthony Bourdain,Little Esther, etc etc etc etc etc.
While all eyes this week were on Amy Winehouse smoking crack, giving Britney’s train wreck a rare moment of relief from our scrutiny, Heath Ledger’s overdose news came out of left field. Details won’t surface for days, but rumours of a secret heroin addiction are already flying. Whether Heath was a sleeping pill popper or a junkie doesn’t matter: it goes to show that the consequences of drug use can happen to anyone at all, even bright stars with umpteen award nominations under their belt. Ledger was an absolute hottie who took risks in his craft and shone in the controversial blockbuster Brokeback Mountain. My heart goes out to his family and friends.
Though I can’t and won’t deny that once I was a party girl who might have thought Amy’s whining about rehab refusal was ‘wry and cavalier’, when the beehive-headed eccentric came out with that hit, it made me sick to my stomach. Sure, the timing was not all that wry- everyone around me was dying and going mad. I thought it tasteless to even joke about addiction like that. I’ll never be the anti-drug mafia: we’re going to do what we’re going to do, and we are wired to seek pleasure. But acting careless about it instead of reverent seemed a slap in the face to the millions of people who are in trouble because of acting carelessly once upon a time. I didn’t know much about Amy’s personal life, but she seemed robust and healthy and I couldn’t blame a sister for trying to make a giant hit. The days of celeb-rehab were raging, so the timing was right even if I felt her commentary should have been “I wanna go to rehab, too.”
Now that I actually saw with my own eyes a once-beautiful young woman sketching around her apartment smoking something sinisterly from a glass pipe, skeletal and tight-faced, I am deeply saddened. I’ve seen people straight out of that scenario, and they were smoking crystal meth, not crack, though with either it is very possibly too late. I hope not. I’d like to see a few more survivors than just the amazing Fergalicious, who once was so paranoid from the meth that she thought spies were in her laundry hamper.
I think that was the worst part, watching a video that brought back memories that seemed normal at the time. I made a painting once that said, “My life was a nightmare of spies and hospitals.” And so it was. Just for the record, I was not on meth: have you ever seen a fat meth user? And so what if I wasn’t? I have my own stories that would make your skin crawl, and so do you. It’s not a game of who’s on what. It’s a game of life and death. And I watched the life pour out of a whole handful of beautiful people with so much promise, then I buried them.
Last week I attended yet another heartbreaking funeral for the beautiful Miss Emily: after several years of meth-induced psychoses, she died alone on her birthday. She essentially starved and exhausted her body and brain. No one chooses this, folks. This is not about the choice to defy God or the family. It’s not about sin or evil. It’s called addiction because the person can’t stop even if they want to. And by the time you’re an addict, you want to. It’s not a joke. Do you think Miss Winehouse WANTS to look like that? Get off your high horse and get your hand out of the Dorito bag. We are wired to alter ourselves, via anything we put in our body, whether cigarettes or chips or crack. Then we get poisoned. Somewhere between the putting in and the dying is a fine line, and I’m still looking for it, quite frankly.
Growing up, my church was vehemently anti-Hollywood and anti-rock music because of the vast amount of ‘sin.’ It’s true that the entertainment industry is filled with drugs and alcohol, but there are two good reasons for that. One is the stress that comes with so much freedom, the emptiness that comes from a superficial society and its demands on your looks and your lifestyle. It’s obvious to me that a poor girl like Drew Barrymore is no more a ‘sinner’ than you or I. No eleven year old girl can be called evil for being a drug addict. Fuck off, right wing religious mafia. Grow up and get with the program. Try reading a few science manuals, and then read your Bible again so you can try acting like Jesus and show a little compassion. The other reason is that it’s visible. We all see that Lindsay Lohan chugged champagne from the bottle on New Years, then called her sponsor. No one saw me and my mom getting loaded on good Niagara wine after Emily’s funeral.
Why the church didn’t use the opportunity to teach different ways of stress relief and exploration, or to teach the facts about drugs and alcohol and compassion, I don’t know. I can tell you all right now, there is no difference between the ‘evil drug addict’ and you. It’s always blamed on ‘bad company’ as if there are a few ‘bad apples.’ Until we see that those bad apples are just the same ones that got bruised or fell of the truck along the way, we can’t even hope to relate to each other and help each other. I’m guilty myself of that ultimatum: it’s me or the drugs, sailor, sister, brother, husband. And boy did I feel bad when they chose the drugs. Now I know there was no choice. It was nothing personal. It was not about me.
The answer? If you thought I’d have one, I’m sorry, I don’t. It’s easy to yell ‘get help.’ But ‘help’ is still floundering and drowning in well-meaning counselors, judges, doctors who have no idea what they are doing. Miss Emily had help. Her helpful shrink prescribed Dex to help her cope while they discussed her issues. That’s almost the same drug as meth! Britney Spears’ drug tests seem to turn up normal, leading to the notion that she is buying clean piss. Thanks to invasive photographers and my own gossip gluttony, I’ve looked right into Miss Spears’ purse and seen the Adderall she’s likely been taking since postpartum depression. And Adderall is also a meth-similar stimulant that causes extreme paranoia and may explain why Britney is going crazy and thinks her walls are bugged. No one ever talks about the help she’s already had, they just keep yapping at her to ‘go for help’ again and again. “Help’ used to be a lobotomy. It often still is prison. So where can help be found?
I don’t know, but the only starting point I know of is love instead of admonishment. And hope.
Hope might be the most dangerous drug, but not so lethal as its absence.
www.thegirlcanwrite.net
The Astronaut’s Wife: Poems of Eros and Thanatos
by Lorette C. Luzajic
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