Blonde Ambition Read online

  Earlier that week, Anna Nicole Smith and TrimSpa, Inc. had been named in a class action lawsuit alleging their marketing of a weight-loss pill was false and misleading to consumers as well as "deceptive business practices."

  Prior to her death, Alex Goen had already decided that Anna was going to be moved aside by a new face. Alex Goen told Access Hollywood that Anna "recognized her story was getting old and we needed some fresh stories."

  "So, she was already going to step down?" correspondent Tim Vincent asked.

  "I wouldn't call it step down," Goen responded. "She was going to share the throne."

  chapter 8

  The Anna Nicole Show

  The day she died everyone told their story of the special "it" girl from the Lone Star State, with the curvaceous body who became famous for being famous.

  Anna Nicole Smith was born Vickie Lynn Hogan on November 28, 1967, in Mexia, Texas, a town of little more than five square miles about forty miles east of Waco. The town's motto? "A great place, no matter how you pronounce it." Her childhood was fair to middling. Her mother had a steady job as a sheriff's deputy, if not a steady husband. Virgie had Vickie when she was just sixteen years old, and told me that Don Hogan, Vickie's real father, was abusive. He beat Virgie so bad when she was pregnant with Vickie that Virgie would lay on the floor and crawl in a circle so that the baby would be protected and wouldn't get punched.

  "He did rape my ten-year-old sister and her young friend at the same time when I was married to him," Virgie said. "He was charged and served sixty days in jail and five years probation." He moved out the day that Virgie says she finally fought back after all the abuse. She threw a ketchup bottle at him. He left and never came back. Three weeks before Vickie's second birthday, they were officially divorced.

  Anna ended up with several half siblings, through her mother's and father's marriages, including three half brothers and two half sisters. Her younger half brother, Donnie Hogan, lived with their father in Texas until he was old enough to work. He says their father abused him both physically and emotionally, including making him witness the killing of a neighbor's dog. "He was an alcoholic and worse when he was sober," Donnie told me. "If I hate anyone on this earth, it would be him."

  Donnie, now the father of two twin boys, said that his and Vickie's dad was a devil worshipper and even has a tattoo of a devil with a pitchfork on his arm. "I'd catch him praying to Satan, and saying, 'I have the power of the devil,'" Donnie remembers. The last time he saw his father "he took out a gun and was praying to Satan . . . Dad put a gun to his mouth, to his head, and to others' heads. And then he put a gun to my head."

  After Anna Nicole had become a nationally recognized beauty, Donnie says the two of them cried at least twice together about the abuse they both endured. She told him that she had been physically abused, and claimed her real father and her stepfather molested her. The abuse affected her. "She could never trust anybody," Donnie said

  Virgie says that she does not believe the stepfather ever molested Vickie, but does not know if Vickie's real dad ever did anything to her when Vickie and her father reunited many years later after Virgie's divorce.

  Virgie says she did discipline her daughter, occasionally using a wide, thick leather belt to discipline her. She gave her the last "ass whooping" when Vickie was sixteen. "She didn't come home from school," Virgie remembers, "and I finally found her at a friend's house at 3 a.m. I brought her home and told her to 'bend it over.' And then I whooped her butt."

  Virgie says that otherwise Anna had a decent life, and thinks that Vickie created the "poor pitiful me story" because she thought it "worked better," that rags to riches was a much better story to sell to the media.

  After failing her freshman year of high school, Vickie Lynn dropped out, and began working at Jim's Krispy Fried Chicken. In 1984, at the age of 17, she married a co-worker, a fry cook named Billy Smith. They had a son that same year. Virgie picked the name "Daniel"—"Like Daniel in the Bible," she said.

  But Virgie didn't get to name her own daughter. She told me that the woman who would become "Anna Nicole Smith" was supposed to be named "Kathleen Kay." Virgie says she loved that name and had decided on it before the baby was born. When she went into labor, her husband wasn't around, so her own mother went with her to the hospital. While Virgie was asleep her mother filled out the birth certificate. "When I woke up," Virgie remembers, "my mother said, 'I didn't name her what she's supposed to be. I named her after you.'"

  "Virgie?" Virgie asked.

  "No, no," her mother said. "You know how people mess up on your name and call you 'Vickie'? I named her Vickie and I thought it should be 'Vickie Lynn.' I like the way it sounded."

  So, seventeen years later, Vickie Lynn Hogan became Vickie Lynn Smith, mother to Daniel Wayne Smith, wife of Billy. The marriage, however, to Billy Smith didn't go well. They separated shortly after Daniel's birth. Around this time, Vickie was jumping from job to job, including stints at Wal-Mart and Red Lobster. One day, desperate to make more money to help support herself and young Daniel, she followed a sign to her destiny. She said she spotted a "neon lady" on a glowing sign "in high-heel shoes and she had a bikini on and it would flash tiptoe and back, tiptoe and back." It was a sign for a Houston "gentleman's club."

  Her mother Virgie, the sheriff's deputy, thought Vickie was still working at the Red Lobster until Vickie's boyfriend one day told her that she was now stripping. Virgie decided she'd go see for herself. She parked her patrol car right in front of the strip club and marched inside. Her law enforcement uniform drew almost as much attention as her daughter, who was gyrating in "nothing but a g-string" right in front of "some old man's face."

  Seeing a uniformed officer, the manager rushed over to see if there were any problems. "Do you see that woman who's butt-ass naked over there?" Virgie asked him. "Well, that's my daughter. If you don't get her out of here, I'm going to be back every night checking your bar license, and you know what that means."

  Within minutes, the manager had Vickie dressed and Virgie put her daughter in the back of the patrol car and drove her away like a convict. They did not speak for the entire ride home. When they got back to the house, Vickie told her mom that she was making a thousand dollars a day stripping and that she needed the money for her son. She told her mother she'd never make that kind of money at the Red Lobster.

  "My child ain't going to strip," Virgie said, putting her foot down.

  Anna packed her bags and moved out and moved on to other strip joints, where managers didn't know about Virgie's law enforcement uniform. Vickie later took a job at Gigi's Cabaret, but she was considered too plump for the prime evening shifts, so she was relegated to the afternoon.

  But it was while performing there—stripping against her mother's wishes—that Vickie Lynn Marshall was put on her path to stardom.

  In 1991, during one fateful afternoon shift, "Miss Nikki," as she called herself, went over and talked to an elderly customer, billionaire oil tycoon J. Howard Marshall II, who was grieving the recent loss of both his wife and mistress. "I saw a very sick man," Anna has said, "and I just wanted to talk to him." He took an instant fancy to the 23-year-old and extended a lunch invitation for the following day. It would be her last shift at the strip club. The rest is tabloid history.

  The following afternoon, at the end of their lunch, when beautiful "Nikki" announced that she had to get over to the club, Marshall passed across the table an envelope filled with money. And Miss Nikki, the stripper, was no more. "I was back with him the following day," she has recounted in interviews.

  Things took off quickly. Within the week, the 86-year-old had proposed marriage. "I turned him down," she told Larry King. "I said that I had wanted to try and make something out of my life before [getting married]." The unlikely pair developed a caring, simpatico relationship (she thought he was sweet, he thought she was sexy) and he began supporting Vickie and her son Daniel.

  Later that year, a determined Vickie Lynn Smith
sent in nude photos of herself to Playboy magazine, expressing her interest in becoming a Playmate. According to Playboy, the editors were impressed enough to fly her out to Los Angeles for a test photo shoot. The results were mixed. Playboy Senior Contributing Photographer Arny Freytag "rejected her Playmate test," believing that "she had a great face, but she was overweight." Marilyn Grabowski, Playboy West Coast Photo Editor disagreed, saying, "You couldn't help but be mesmerized."

  Vickie was chosen to be a Playmate, and made her debut on the March 1992 cover. Clad in a dark blue, strapless evening gown with a slit up the front, Vickie quickly captivated attention. Two months later, she became Playboy's Miss May and had her first centerfold spread. For her first nude photo shoot, Anna was incredibly nervous. "I couldn't breathe," Anna exclaimed in an interview with Entertainment Tonight. "I couldn't eat breakfast. I was nauseated—I didn't know what was going to happen. I didn't know if I could go through with it." But she did, and her undeniable charisma shined through. On her centerfold mini-biography, she stated that she "wanted to become the next Marilyn Monroe."

  In an unusual turn of events, Playboy denied Vickie a publicity tour. "We didn't do a publicity tour when she was Miss May, frankly because she sounded silly. She talked like a baby," Elizabeth Norris, former Playboy Director of Public Relations said. However, despite the lack of extra publicity, Vickie Smith quickly became one of the most talked about Playboy Playmates, and this voluptuous, full-figured woman got noticed big time.

  Paul Marciano, president of Guess Jeans, approached Vickie shortly after her appearance in the March 1992 issue of Playboy. "I didn't know what Guess jeans were," Vickie said. This didn't stop her from signing on to be the new face of Guess, taking over from model Claudia Schiffer. "She brings back visions of Hollywood glamour," Guess photographer Daniela Federici told People magazine. "We haven't seen that kind of charisma since Marilyn Monroe."

  It was while working with Marciano that Vickie decided — like Norma Jeane Mortenson before her, who was successfully reborn as Marilyn Monroe—she needed to change her name. According to Anna, "Paul Marciano and me and one of his friends were sitting around coming up with a stage name, and that's where [the name] came from." With the new name, Anna Nicole's image of a rags-to-riches model and Playmate had become complete.

  Meanwhile, Marshall showered Anna with gifts. Over the course of their courtship, Marshall gave Anna a fifteen-acre ranch, a car, endless amounts of cash, and on one specific shopping trip, two million dollars in Harry Winston jewelry. "He supported me 100 percent," Anna said.

  According to her half brother, Donnie, the gifts didn't stop after Anna became famous. J. Howard Marshall loved shrimp and they'd always eat at Anna's old place of employment, the Red Lobster. In 1993, Donnie and Anna's newly reconnected dad, Donald Hogan, met Anna and J. Howard Marshall at the Red Lobster in Houston. After lunch, Mr. Marshall put on the table a box about the size of a candy box, and told her, "This is a gift." She opened the box in front of everyone. It was filled with $50,000 in crisp hundred-dollar bills wrapped in gold labels.

  "You could tell he gave her the money because he wanted to," Donnie said. "She kissed him on the forehead. Then handed the dollars to her bodyguard." Donnie said before the lunch meeting, his sister pulled him aside, telling him that she didn't want J. Howard Marshall or his team to know she was dating anyone else. Donnie said she was very clear beforehand that "that's my bodyguard, not my boyfriend, remember?"

  Her father told Donnie afterward, "Did you see that money? I wanted to grab it and run!"

  "He [Marshall] was throwing money at my sister like it was chump change," Donnie told me. "He had been ready to give up on life. She showed him that life is worth living. He went out with a bang marrying my sister."

  After over two years of dating and gifts, Marshall again proposed to Anna, offering her a 22-carat engagement ring. She accepted. "I promised him that I would marry him after I made something of myself, and I got to where I was a name. And I promised him, and it was time to do something. And I wanted to have children." Remember, there was a sixty-plus year age difference between the two of them.

  By this time, Anna was getting seen. She had a new name, a sexy image, and a highly coveted modeling contract. It seemed like her luck would never end. That year, Anna was named Playboy's Playmate of the Year. On the cover, Anna wore little more than a piece of fabric to cover her breasts and in her interview she said, "I want to be the new Marilyn Monroe and find my own Clark Gable." At her Playmate of the Year party, she said, "It is a very big honor for me. I have always wanted this. I am just so happy and thrilled and I am so glad Mr. Hefner chose me."

  "Her Playmate of the Year tour was first class all the way," Elizabeth Norris recalled. "She loved riding in limos and seeing all the cameras waiting for her." Hugh Hefner, the founder of Playboy, seemed to be quite proud of Anna. "There's something magic I think that happens between her and a camera," Hefner said in an Entertainment Tonight interview. "A lot of women are beautiful, but that kind of magic is special, and she has that."

  But perhaps Anna got too caught up in her Playboy experiences, not knowing when to turn it on and turn it off. Donnie and her father met her once in a hotel room she was sharing with her bodyguard. She started stripping during lunch with her dad and brother present. According to Donnie, she took off her top and was about to take off her panties, when someone asked her what she was doing. "Oh sorry," she said. "I thought I was still at work. I work twelve hours a day."

  In the midst of celebrating her successes, Anna kept her promise and married Marshall on June 27, 1994, at the White Dove Wedding Chapel in Houston. Because of his age and health, Marshall sat in his wheelchair, dressed in his all white tuxedo, waiting at the end of the aisle for Anna to come down. The wedding was very small; hardly anyone was there. Wearing a "long, hand-beaded wedding gown, with train and, of course, a plunging neckline," Anna walked on white rose petals down the aisle. At the end of the ceremony, Anna and Marshall headed back up the aisle together. They then released two doves outside the chapel. Afterward, they fed each other cake and did a special champagne toast. The celebration, however, was short-lived. Friends and family members say Anna kissed her new husband goodbye and left for Greece with her bodyguard boyfriend, a bodyguard that her husband was reportedly paying for.

  After the wedding, Anna had her modeling life in Los Angeles, and Marshall had his life in Texas where he continued to live. According to a security guard at a New Year's party at the Playboy Mansion, Anna was seen having sex in the pool and called the next day to say she lost her wedding ring. The security guard told me he found it and it was stored for six months before she picked it up.

  But her friends and co-workers say despite Anna's antics, she always found time for Marshall. According to a Playboy interview with makeup artist Alexis Vogel, "Every day at 5 p.m. she would go into the models' lounge, a room off the studio with a couch and phone, to call him. They would talk for only a few minutes, but you could tell she was sweet on him."

  "He called me his sleeping pill," Anna later told CNN. "Every night I had to call him."

  According to an interview Anna's aunt, Elaine Tabor, did with ABC, "Anna Nicole [spent] days helping an 88-year-old man become a boy again, riding an all-terrain vehicle, living it up as if he had never aged." It seemed as if the twosome were showing each other a good time.

  But the media wasn't quite as convinced of Anna's intentions in marrying Marshall. Tabloids frequently claimed that she had only married him for his money. "They think I'm a gold digger," Anna said. "And it's not true." Marshall's own son, Pierce Marshall, who at the time was almost twice as old as his step-mom Anna Nicole, was also not convinced at all. Pierce's lawyer, Rusty Hardin, says Anna was "unfaithful" to Marshall and that "she wanted to get as much from him as she could." He said, "I believe it's clear J. Howard loved her and she didn't love him."

  Despite all the bad press and no matter what anyone else said, Anna firmly held that she truly
loved Marshall. "I loved him for so much of what he did for me and my son," she told CNN. "I mean, I just loved him so—I've never had love like that before. No one has ever loved me and done things for me and respected me and didn't care about what people said about me. I mean, he truly loved me and I loved him for it." Anna claimed that she and Marshall even tried to have children. "We tried, but it didn't happen." The age difference might have been a logistical problem.

  The whirlwind and controversy surrounding their relationship ended as quickly as it had begun. After only fourteen months of marriage, Marshall died of pneumonia on August 4,

  1995. At his funeral, Anna wore her wedding dress. The death of Marshall created Anna's biggest public fight: was she or was she not entitled to inherit part of Marshall's massive estate? Was she a prostitute for pay or a rightfully married spouse? In his last will, Marshall declared that his son, Pierce, was to inherit his estate. However, Anna claimed that Marshall intended "to provide for her after his death, and set up a separate trust fund in her name." She began her battle for what she called her rightful claim to half of her late husband's $1.6 billion estate, money he amassed over the years from the oil and natural gas industry.