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© St. Petersburg Times, published May 31, 2002
THEY SHOULD HAVE THOUGHT OF IT EVEN SOONER: Here's a show that's about 10 years too late: a "reality TV" look at the life of former Playmate-stripper-Guess model and current embattled widow of a billionaire Anna Nicole Smith.
The E! network says it had the idea before MTV put cameras on heavy metal god Ozzy Osbourne and his colorful family 24/7 and rocked TV's mind-set with the result, The Osbournes.
E! previously profiled Smith, 34, on its series The E! True Hollywood Story, which is a celebrity version of VH1's Behind the Music, which is a sex, drugs and fight-filled rock 'n' roll version of A&E's Biography. Smith's Hollywood Story always gets good ratings, E! VP Mark Sonnenberg tells the Hollywood Reporter.
"We were thinking about doing an update of the Story but then decided to take a step further and dedicate a whole series to her because people are fascinated about her life," Sonnenberg says.
Someone needs to tell him people are fascinated by the life she once had.
Smith was a twentysomething stripper in Houston in 1991 when she met octogenarian Texas oil mogul J. Howard Marshall at the strip club. They got married in 1994, when she was 26 and he was 89, and stayed that way for 14 months, until Marshall died.
That's the show people want to see.
Instead, The Anna Nicole Smith Show will follow Smith; her 16-year-old son, Daniel (not by Marshall); her lawyer, Howard K. Stern; and her purple-haired assistant, Kim.
"Five days of the life of Anna Nicole Smith are far more riveting and engaging than the entire lifetime of most people," Sonnenberg says.
HOW DID THE LAWYER GET A STARRING ROLE? Smith has been in court for the past few years fighting the claim of Marshall's son, E. Pierce Marshall, that she's not entitled to a chunk of the estate. In March a federal judge in Los Angeles awarded her $88-million.
In his ruling, Judge David Carter said the marriage wasn't a storybook romance (depends on your storybook) but Smith deserved some of J. Howard's money.
"Their lives were intertwined in need, driven by greed and lust," Carter wrote. "Nevertheless, the court is convinced of his love for her."
WE WANT PAT BOONE: Ozzy's daughter/co-star Kelly has recorded a version of Madonna's Papa Don't Preach, at mother/co-star Sharon's urging, for the show's accompanying album, The Osbourne Family Album. Kelly initially balked at singing anything for anyone. But she has warmed up enough to the idea of bigger fame that she has agreed to perform the song live for the first time at the MTV Movie Awards on June 6. It's enough to make you wish Boone would show up to do his cover of Ozzy's Crazy Train. (That is on the album, due out June 11.)
THE NOSE KNOWS: If Michael Jackson looks even more different the next time you see him, it's because he's had another nose job, the New York Post says. And that would be nose job No. 6.
THE POT CALLS THE KETTLE: Dionne Warwick, who has developed some image problems of her own with a marijuana arrest in Miami this month, calls Britney Spears "a role model for strippers" in an interview in the Variety Club's magazine, The Barker.