The Anna Nicole Smith Show, Episode 1: Starting Out Fresh

Okay. Anna Nicole Smith states early in the show that she wants to “start fresh” with a new life. Saying that, I think as a reviewer of her show I should try to give her that benefit by trying to forget everything I just learned about her in the two-hour E! documentary about her life that ran before the first episode of the series.

Yet, honestly, for readers who are just catching up with the program after the premiere, perhaps a review of the documentary really is in order. After all, it will give readers a chance to understand ANS a bit more when we get to the first episode of the series.

Oh, and yes, I’m going to call Anna Nicole Smith “ANS” from this point on in the review, just for brevity. Believe me, you’ll need it. I know I certainly do after 2 ½ hours of watching ANS.

Sorry, I said I would give her a fair shake and I will.

It is curious that we don’t ever get two-hour documentaries about Einstein or Gandhi, but ANS we do get.

Sorry.

The E! True Hollywood Story begins with some background on ANS’ past. She was born Vicki Lynn Hogan on November 28, 1967, in Houston, Texas (although she has always listed Mexia, Texas, as her hometown . . . a small town that strangely enough doesn’t seem to thrilled with having her do this). Her mother was a deputy sheriff, but ANS didn’t follow in her mother’s footsteps. Instead, by the age of 16 she had dropped out of high school and married her boyfriend, Billy Smith. After giving birth to a boy in 1986 and divorcing her husband in 1987, ANS worked at numerous jobs before settling on the hardworking life of a stripper at the age of 20.

Working as a stripper did wonders for ANS’s life – she got enough money to get breast implants, she was arrested three times for driving under the influence, she met her next boyfriend, Craig Spires, and she met her future husband, oil tycoon J. Howard Marshall. Marshall was known to like the ladies and had just lost a mistress that was formerly a stripper due to complication during plastic surgery (no, I’m not making that up), so he was looking for a new stripper to become friends with. ANS came along and filled that tragic, stripper-less void in Marshall’s life, and their love blossomed from there.

Although Marshall supposedly asked ANS to marry him, ANS was determined to prove she had the brains to handle her own career. She did this by posing for Playboy in May 1992. She was so proud of the photos that she gave Polaroids of her nude body to her son, Daniel, to show off to all the other six-year-olds in the neighborhood. Danny was excited to show off his mom, and no doubt, other kids in the neighborhood were excited as well. By 1993, she had not only been named “Playmate of the Year” (and given a lovely, wood-like plaque), but she became a model for Guess ? Jeans. Guess ? wanted her for her ability to look like Jayne Mansfield. Playboy named her “Playmate of the Year” due to ability to pose like Marilyn Monroe. It was this type of originality that propelled her forward in her career.

In 1993, ANS was able to move out west and proceeded to stay in the same place Marilyn Monroe died in. ANS was touched by the warm, glowing vibrations such a place could have and filled it with Marilyn Monroe memorabilia. After a while, she felt as if Monroe was connected to her. Actually, more like literally related to her. In fact, she thought Monroe was her mother for a time. When it was revealed to her that Monroe died five years before ANS was born, ANS was naturally crushed. Even so, she still tried to fulfill another Monroe prophecy by overdosing on alcohol and pills, but she recovered.

1994 saw her career going downhill and decided that marrying the Billionaire Marshall wasn’t such a bad idea after all. They married on June 27, 1994, in Houston, Texas and celebrated their wedding night with her flying off to a modeling assignment and Marshall going home alone. He was 90 and she was 26 at the time, so it would be understandable why he didn’t want to be flying somewhere on his wedding night. They would continue to live separately for the rest of Marshall’s life, with Marshall buying ANS two homes, several cars, horses, and many other items, while ANS gave Marshall plenty of needed space and “alone” time.