All The World's A Stage

Feeling that prurient interest has overtaken you lately as you watch yet another report on the death of Anna Nicole Smith? We did too until we heard the inane report on a local LA week-end show. They were criticizing the deceased for being famous and not having a body of work to have engendered all that fame.

We were in disbelief. Au contraire, we thought. Anna Nicole Smith was the media equivalent, and thus, the poor relation, of Princess Diana, and therefore the older stepsister of Jon Benet Ramsey. Simply put, the camera's love affair with her face fascinated us all.

She played characters when she posed for Playboy and when she was the Guess face. She seemed to be playing the role of gold digger when she married her billionaire. Yet another persona was assumed, and a fitting demeanor shown, when she testified in court about her matrimonial claims to his fortune.

The cameras followed her into court on and off for years. We all watched each time and wondered how could she have married him? "For that alone, she was entitled to his fortune," was heard in homes across America.

Then suddenly Anna Nicole Smith emerged on E as a sloppy drunk, or drugged, reality star. Somehow we all believed that this presentation was the real woman, despite our experience with all of those reality players who had come before her.

Then she surprised us as the ultra-slim bombshell spokesperson for Trim Spa. She began embarrassing us at that point, but still we looked, fascinated once again with her charms.

Her birth movies were somewhat over the top, but we continued to watch, shaking our heads. Too, too much, we said. Then in an instant, we shared her grief, sadly riveted to the shock of her son's death. She had us witnessing her most moving role of all--the truth is stranger than fiction role of a grieving mother beset by the paternity claims of an ex-boyfriend over her newborn baby girl.

And now she's dead--but her images live on. We say, that's an enormous body of work, spread over fifteen long Media Years. Anna Nicole Smith was the first true Reality Star—one who had a tragic ending to her own personal production.

Taylor and Shari