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THE HOUSE OF SMITH
Edith, meet Anna Nicole
Over the weekend I saw The House of Mirth, the Terence Davies film based on the novel by Edith Wharton, author of that paean to sled safety, Ethan Frome.
The film stars Gillian Anderson (Kate Winslet with a harelip) as Lily Bart, a 1906 New York debutante on the prowl for a husband.
Lily has options. She can marry the man she loves, Lawrence Selden; George Dorset, the cuckold who might divorce his cheating wife; or Sim Rosedale, who makes Warren Buffett look like an office temp.
Problem is, the orphaned Lily is a poster child for bad judgment. Somehow she manages to ruin her reputation with her chastity intact.
Not a terrible movie, certainly, but nothing to write home about, let alone my readership of seven. I don't understand why they persist in making these movies about how crappy life was for women back then, when those hidebound societal conventions no longer apply.
The answer is that they still do. Take a look at Anna Nicole Smith.
You remember Anna, the voluptuous Guess Jeans model and quondam Playmate of the Month, whose image once adorned boys' lockers, fraternity houses, and prison walls from Sing Sing to San Quentin. She married the decrepit old oil magnate, remember? The guy who...well, a picture's worth a thousand trips to the thesaurus. Le voila:
Anna Nicole Smith is in the news again. According to reports, she babbled like an idiot while testifying in the probate case involving her late husband's will and testament. My intention was to write a column mocking on her for being, in effect, the most expensive trophy wife in the history of the phenomenon. But the more research I did, the more I saw that Anna Nicole has more in common with Lily Bart than Marla Maples. Only her story is better: Anna is born Vicki Hogan on November 28, 1967, in Houston, Texas. She is raised by an aunt; her parents, like Lily Bart's, are unaccounted for. At the age of 16 she is knocked up by one Billy Smith, a frind from the fried chicken eatery where she works. Texas being the land of shotguns, they hastily tie the knot before the birth of their son, Daniel. The marriage, tragically, does not last. When Billy the Kid leaves town, Vicki Hogan Smith decides to try her luck peddling breasts of a different kind. She begins working at a Houston strip joint, where she meets J. Howard Marshall, a wheelchair-bound oldster who also happens to be the wealthiest man in the state of Texas -- wealthier than Perot, wealthier than Dubya, wealthier even than A-Rod. Lawrence Selden is out of the picture. Enter Rosedale. See what the old man sees: a 23-year-old hottie with an ex-husband, a high school education, and an infant son. A woman, in short, with baggage. And Marshall knows how to handle baggage. He understands how to work that to his advantage. His last wife, who recently passed away, was once an erotic dancer at the selfsame club where Vicki struts her stuff. Marshall dotes upon young Vicki and takes an avid interest in her career. She christens herself Anna Nicole. She gets a boob job, the better to look like her idol, Marilyn Monroe. She has nude photographs taken of her and sends them to Playboy. She raises her son. And she entertains the old lech. I should interpose at this point: Marshall, the father of two adult sons (more on them later), is at this point impotent. He and Anna never do the nasty. The farthest it ever gets is her rubbing her silicon implants against his liver spots. Heffner's people write back. There is a photo shoot. Anna Nicole Smith in all her air-brushed glory appears as Playmate of the Month of May, 1992. This parlays into a modeling gig with the Guess Jeans company. Which parlays into a marketing blitz of Anna Nicole Smith posters and pin-ups and calendars. Which parlays into a role in the Coen Brothers film The Hudsucker Proxy. Lily Bart also modeled, but for fun, not profit. Anna Nicole Smith is now on top of the world. She has a lucrative modeling contract, a promising movie career, and the affection of onanites worldwide. She is self-sufficient. She can afford a nice house and a nanny for her son. So, when the grizzled old billionaire pops the question, what does she say? "I do." Trophy Wife is 26. Sugar Daddy is 89. The media has a field day. "I learned my lesson from Lily Bart," she tells reporters. "She didn't take Rosedale's proposal seriously until it was too late, and then he told her to scram. I wasn't about to make the same mistake." Alright, I made that last part up. We don't know why she consented to become the third Mrs. J. Howard Marshall. Maybe the modeling thing was too grueling. Or maybe it was because she needed a beard -- or whatever the Sapphic equivalent to beard is called. See, the whole time this modeling and acting stuff is going on, Anna is getting it on with the help. In this case, Maria Cerrato, 23, the live-in nanny to her son. Seems that Anna propositioned Maria during a jaunt to sunny L.A. and the babysitter, not wanting to go work for Linda Chavez, consented. The two became lovers, in the euphemistic sense. Lily Bart did not have Lesbian tendencies, but the villainous Bertha Dorset, I suspect, had a thing for our witless heroine, which explains why big Bertha, who was having an affair with Selden, engendered Lily's ruination. (Also, Lily Bart had a habit of taking liberal amounts of prescription drugs, a habit shared by Anna, who was hospitalized in February 1994 for mixing alcohol and antidepressants). You might think that Maria's consent to performing sexual acts would make the women's congress legal. You would be wrong. Once the proposition is made, the law is violated, no matter what the outcome. This is the essence of quid pro quo sexual harassment, for which Maria sues Anna in May of 1994. (Not only did Anna proposition; according to Maria, she also proposed. She wanted to move with Maria to California, where she thought same-sex marriages were legal). The deliberations outlive J. Howard Marshall. The old coot dies in August of 1995 without ever consummating the marriage. Anna Nicole is the widow of the wealthiest man in the Lone Star State. Problem is -- cue foreboding music -- she's not mentioned in the will. Lily Bart is mentioned in the will. She gets a paltry $10k of her aunt's $400,000 estate, all of which she owes in gambling debts. Destitute, she is forced to -- gulp -- get a job to make ends meet. Anna also goes into debt, when a judge awards Maria Cerrato $840,000 in damages. She moves to an apartment in L.A. described as "small," which I'm sure is seven times the size of mine. But instead of getting a job, she files for bankruptcy. Thus begins a long legal battle involving Anna and her step-sons, both of whom are considerably older. J. Howard Marshall had a falling out with his eldest son and namesake, and, in the final draft of his will, drawn up after his marriage to Anna, leaves his entire estate, worth almost two billion dollars, to his second son, E. Pierce Marshall. I won't get into the specifics here, because I'm not a probate expert, but let's just say for a guy with so much dinero, E. Pierce has a lousy lawyer. Allying herself with the estranged J. Howard Marshall III (as a step-mom, she always liked him best), Anna argues that the dead lech had promised her half his vast fortune. Of course he promised her half his fortune. He probably also promised her a honeymoon on Mars, a 200 IQ, and eternal life. The deal was, Spend my remaining years with me, and you can have whatever the hell you want. All the marriage certificate did was legitimize the prostitution. (An aside here, if I may, about research for this column. Type ANNA NICOLE SMITH into a search engine, and the results are sites of the late-night Showtime variety. To find anything useful, I had to search for Marshall and Cerrato. Half the time, there would be some dry legal rendering about the case, accompanied by a photo of Anna topless. It's harder, on the Net at least, to find a picture of her with her clothes on). This past September, a federal bankruptcy judge buys the argument and awards Anna a whopping $449 million. E. Pierce, not satisfied with the $1.2 billion that is his inheritance, appeals the decision. Whatever happens in the latest legal battle, Anna is sure to wind up with a pretty penny. Texas, where her husband died, and California, where she now lives, are both community property states, which means both award some money to widows no matter what the will says. Plus, E. Pierce argues that promises his father made to Anna should be discounted, because the old geezer was off his rocker at the time. Of course, the final draft of the will, the draft in which E. Pierce gets everything, was also drafted at this time. Troy McClure could dream up a better case. E. Pierce is doomed. But just in case, Anna is branching out. She has her own Web site, www.annanicolesmith.com, on which she peddles Anna Nicole Smith mousepads, Anna Nicole Smith tank tops, Anna Nicole Smith autographed posters, and other Anna Nicole Smith merchandise. Like Anna, the items are overpriced. And for someone worth half a billion dollars, she sure chintzed out on the Web design. You can probably guess how Lily Bart's story ends: She never confesses her love for Selden and vice versa. Spurned by society and unable to function as a working woman, she overdoses on prescription drugs. Marilyn Monroe, Anna's idol, died the death of Lily Bart. Anna, in fact, bought the house in which Monroe popped her last pill. It's not hard to imagine Anna checking out the same way. Let's hope that Anna recognizes that it's not 1906, that women have power, that $445 million is enough money to retire on. Let's home she uses her money wisely, contributes something to society more beneficial than bikini calendars. Let's home she makes a good home for her son, Daniel, the most messed up kid since Pearl Prynne. I don't recommend you see The House of Mirth. But I implore Anna to.
By Greg Olear
020601