186 marieclaire.com.auGETTY IMAGES; PATRIK SIMPSON/ANS/GETTY IMAGESLARGER
THAN LIFE
Clockwise from
left: Anna Nicole
with son Daniel
in 2004; her
erratic behaviour
at Oscars after-
parties was
legendary;
Howard Stern
and Anna Nicole
with Dannielynn
after their
commitment
ceremony;
Dannielynn with
her father, Larry
Birkhead, in
July 2016.year. Her death was recorded as an
accidental overdose. She’d been on a
cocktail of 11 different prescription
drugs including ones for weight-loss,
seizures and depression. Medical
records showed that in her final weeks
she’d taken as many as 600 pills.
Later, Stern and two doctors,
Dr Sandeep Kapoor and Dr Khristine
Eroshevich, went on trial for supplying
drugs to a known addict. Dr Kapoor
was acquitted of all charges in 2010
while Stern and Dr Eroshevich, who
were initially convicted, had their
charges dismissed in 2015.
As one reporter commented:
“Anna Nicole Smith has become a
phenomenon, a woman whose story
grows more unbelievable at every turn.”
First her burial had to be delayed until
paternity of her daughter had been
proved. Cue a battle with a cast
of potential fathers
including Zsa Zsa
Gabor’s husband,
Prince Frédéric
von Anhalt, who
claimed he’d had an
affair with Anna
Nicole in the ’90s.
A DNA test
finally confirmed
Larry Birkhead, a
photographer who’d dated Anna Nicole
after they first met at the Kentucky
Derby in 2004, as the dad. Birkhead
has raised Dannielynn, now 10, out of
the glare of the media spotlight. His
one concession to fame so far has been
to allow his daughter to model for a
2013 Guess Kids campaign so she could
“share something with her mother”.Birkhead then went
to court with Stern and
Anna Nicole’s estranged
mother to vie for custody
of Anna Nicole’s remains.
The now-infamous
televised court case was presided over
by Judge Larry Seidlin, who rambled
throughout the court proceedings and,
at its closing summary, broke down in
tears. In March 2007, Anna Nicole was
finally laid to rest beside her son at
Lakeview Memorial Gardens in Nassau.I
n February 2011, the spirit of
Anna Nicole rose again with
the premiere of the opera Anna
Nicole in London. Writer Richard
Thomas says: “I wanted the audience
to love Anna Nicole [played by Dutch
opera singer Eva-Maria Westbroek]
from the first moment she appeared
on stage. Anna
Nicole was fearless
because she had
few choices but she
was determined to
make a name for
herself. She seized
opportunities with
a ferocious energy
but those oppor-
tunities turned out
to be curses in disguise. I wanted
audiences to come out weeping for her.”
The opera, adds Thomas, wasn’t a
documentary, but “a zeitgeist tale about
good and bad choices and the law of
unintended consequences. Despite her
story being so well covered, it was hard
to find the true, real Anna Nicole. How
much did we really know about her?”Two of the people closest to Anna
Nicole were Pol’ Atteu, her stylist and
the creator of the pink couture gown
Anna Nicole was buried in, and his
husband, Patrik Simpson. Speaking
to marie claire, Atteu says: “There
were two sides to Anna Nicole. There
was the sexy, vivacious Anna Nicole
who ‘turned on’ when there were
cameras in front of her. She loved to
entertain people. It made her feel good
to know that people were having fun
watching her antics. Then there was
the Anna Nicole who loved watching
gory horror films and playing poker.
She was always someone you could
count on. Whether you were a maid or
an executive producer, she treated you
the same and if she liked you and
respected you she went to bat for you.”
She wasn’t, says Atteu and
Simpson, who together authored Anna
Nicole Smith: Portrait Of An Icon,
a dumb blonde but a “puppet master”
who controlled every aspect of what
was revealed to the media. “She had a
true gift for keeping herself relevant.
Anna Nicole knew how to work any
situation to her liking or benefit. She
knew when to shock the world and
with what. Everything was calculated.
She always knew how to keep her name
alive in the media and I think she’s up
in heaven now, looking down on all of
us and rolling in laughter at all that has
happened since she passed away.”“Whether you were a
maid or a producer, she
treated you the same.
If she liked you she
went to bat for you”- Pol’ Atteu, Anna Nicole’s stylist
Life stories