Remembering Anna

ate in 1991 playboy's Photography Department received a package from Texas: photos of a girl named Vickie Lynn Smith. She wanted to be a Playmate. The magazine's photographers and editors, who get about 1,000 'such submissions a year, were impressed enough to fly her to Los Angeles for a test shoot.

ARNY FREYTAC, playboy Senior Contributing Photographer: I rejected her Playmate test. She had a great face, but

she was overweight. I said she should lose a few pounds and maybe we'd test her again.

MARILYN GRABOWSKI, playboy West Coast Photo Editor: And I said, "No way! She's so pretty." You couldn't help

being mesmerized.

FREYTAC: Marilyn said, "This girl has got to be a Playmate."

CRABOWSKI: She was still Vickie then. She seemed shy, a sweet girl who wasn't comfortable posing for nude

photos. The moment we stopped snapping pictures, she'd grab a robe and cover up. As it turned out, she'd been

a stripper back in Texas. So was that shyness a persona of hers? Was she faking it?

ALEXIS VOCEL, makeup artist: The photographers didn't want to deal with her. They had beautiful girls going

through there every day for Play­mate tests, and this one was heavy. It would be hard work to drape her just right, hide the weight and get the perfect angle. GRABOWSKI: She weighed 160 pounds. A tall girl, but still— VOCEL: Still she had that incredible face. And being an exotic dancer helped her. She could really turn it on when she wanted to. GARY COLE, playboy Photography Director: Vickie was pretty unpol­ished. I met her at our Santa Mon­ica studio, and the first thing she said was "I'm glad to be anywhere that isn't Texas." When we saw her pictures, we saw something spe­cial. It's hard to say what makes a person photogenic. The stock answer is great bone structure, good skin, big eyes. She had all that plus something undefinable, a sort of camera charisma you can't teach. As I was picking pictures for this month's tribute to her, I went through a stack of black-and-white contact sheets, 36 exposures each, and couldn't find one bad expres­sion. She never blinked. She never looked goofy like the rest of us. That made it easy to edit her pho­tos, because they all looked good. But at the same time it made it very hard to edit her photos, because you couldn't run them all.

After an attention-grabbing debut as cover girl of the March 1992 playboy, she made the Centerfold two months later. Signing her Data Sheet as Vickie Smith and claim' Ing to weigh 140 pounds, Miss May listed a bold ambition: "I want to be the new Marilyn Monroe." GRABOWSKI: She felt a great affin­ity for Marilyn, the first playboy Centerfold. While we were shooting she would put on Marilyn's music to get in the mood, and she'd sing along, (text continued on page 132)

Anna

(continued from page 56) She had a high little voice like Mari­lyn's but with a Texas twang. HIGH M. HEFNER, im.ayboy Founder and Editor-in-Chief: Of course. Mar­ilyn Monroe was the sex star of our times. The key to her iconic power was sexuality plus vulnerability. BILL WHITE, Manager, Playboy Studio West: Marilyn Monroe didn't make many records. We would rotate two CDs. playing an endless loop of "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend," "Some Like It Hot" and a lew others— show tunes thai would drive you crazy

after a lew hours. Anna was a wild one, live-fool-1 1 and physically strong. She'd wrestle wilh photo assistants. The photographer would take Pola­roid s, and we'd yank them from the camera and wait for them to develop. The pho­tographer doesn't want the model seeing the Poluroids before he does, but Anna would get you in a deadlock and rip llu-m right out of your hand. She'd say. "Hey. I look good!' ELIZABETH NOR RIS. former rt.WltOY Director of Pub­lic Relations: We didn't do a public­ity tour when she was Miss May— frankly because she sounded silly. She talked like a baby. And I think she resented not getting that pub­licity tour. She was

moody, very needy, i-xpecting first-class treatment all the lime.

Hut even without a publicity tour. Miss May was a hit. Soon she had a new title and a new name.

REG POTTERTON, im.ayboy writer: By then she was Anna Nicole, Play­mate of (he Near 1993. 1 was sent to interview her at the Drake Hotel in Chicago. I had to wake her up to do it — I arrived at noon. While I wailed. I counted the room-service plales piled outside her room: seven of them. This was a hungry woman. PETER MOORE, editor. Men's Health: I was at l'l.\Ylu>\ then. I had just started editing Playmate stories and was fired 2 up: "I'm going to bring real journal-

ism to the girl copy!" 1 loved Reg's bit about room-service plates. It said (his girl had prodigious appetites—lor food. sex. life. But when the magazine came out, she was furious. She thought we d made her sound like some kind of Texas food compactor. 1 inslanth called a florist and sent two dozen led roses with a note: "Anna Nicole, we didn't mean anything had. I complrlelv appreciate all you do lor im.ayhoy." Crisis averted. She liked the roses, and after that I was more careful. NORRIS: Her Playmate of tlie Near tour was first-class all the way. She loved riding in limos and seeing all the cameras wailing for her. At her I'MOY party in New York 1 said. "You should

sit on the piano." ()l course she rolled around on the piano, and thai went over very well with the press. GARETII GREEN, makeup artist: This girl was Inn. She had a sweel tooth—loved chocolate trullles—and .1 nice taste lor champagne. That night we chased everyone out of her suite at the I'la/a. ordered a bottle ol Cris-tal and drank it while 1 got her read\ Doing her makeup was easy: Play up her eyes a bit. bring out her bone structure and there she was—killer gorgeous.

VOGEL: Anna had appetites. She loved Tried chicken, pies, cakes. She'd tell her limo driver to pull over: "I need a coconut lemon cake! "

MONIQUE FII.I.AK1). co-founder. Elite Models: I liked her right awa\ and pin Ikt in mv celebritv division She li.id ;i lace like an angel, skin like silk. 1 ha\c worked with Cind\ Ciaw-lord. Iman. Naomi Campbell—great models—and I thought Anna Nicole could be one ol ilie greatest. But other people in the agenc\ laughed " Thai big gul is not a model. lbe\ said CII RISTO l> 111. R N A PC) 1.1TA NO. I'l.AYBOY Editorial Director: It was lin­age of Kate Moss and the wail look That skinny heroin-chic image w.i* the ideal ol beauty, and this bombshell (.line along and just blew that Mult up. No wonder she gol so lamous so last, from Centerfold to I'laxmaie ol

ihc \c.\r lo I.ness ]eans girl lo house­hold name I'll. LA K I): To mi1 she embodied America. I am from France, and when 1 looked at this girl. 1 saw peaches and cream. Do von want lo know how American she was? When 1 look her lo a fine Krench res­taurant, she asked. "Can I gel a greasy hamburger?"

"Honey." I said, "they don l serve thai here."

"I want a ham­burger. With ketch­up." They had lo send out lor the ketchup.

And how she loved the cameras! If you look her lo a quiet place lo eat. she would keep looking around. \V here are I he paparai/i? What good was it lo look her best if there were no cameras?

Mori- than success, she wanted lame, lint slu- was not prepared lor ii.

After seeing Anna Nicole in I'l \^ it\ everything. DANIKLA 1 KDKKICI. fashion pho­tographer: I shot her lor I'lumn and (lurss .Hid loved her. She was cheeky, naughty, gooly. sexy—like a great hig K.ubic doll.

(;KAB()\VSK1: You never knew what she would do next. She might hole up in a hotel with some guy tor three davs. Sexually, she was voracious. l'OTTKRTON: The bed in her hold room would look as though wild ,1111 mals had lorn K up.

VOGKI.: I'd (.ill her sexually assertive. People ihink dial's masculine, but it wasn't that, just because she had a few things with a few girls doesn't make her ni.iM iilme. She was hungry, needy. STKIMIKN WAY DA. im.aybov Senior Contributing I'hotographer: I thought she was strange 11 om I he lit si, acting shy and then transforming for the camera. She may have been unpolished, but she had every stripper move in the book and huge sexual appetites, which was part of her (raving for acceptance. COI.K: We were shooting a Valen­tine's pictorial in 1994 in a bathtub. Suddenly she told Steve Wayda he couldn't shoot another picture unless she got a bottle ol Jack Daniel's. Steve

(ailed inc. W h.il should I dor"

"She's an adult. ' I said, "Gel lu-r a bottle ol |.k k Dan­iel's." They called a licjiior store and a delivery K u y hiou^hl il. VOGEL: A rule delivery guy. TOM JOHNSON, delivery i;iiy turned male model: Anna Nicole walked in, naked except lor a leather hoa. V O G E L: She checked him out .ind s.iid. 'Come over here. JOHNSON: 1 was like. Ainiiililih! I was so nervous. I tried small talk. I remem­bered she was Irom lex.is like my lather, so 1 asked her where in Texas. She said. "I Illusion. Now lake oil* your clothes." WAYDA: She talked him nun the halh-lul) with her. So the ^uy wound up in (he pictorial. Il was Ilirlatious al Hist.

bill thru she was .ill over him. COI.K: I don't ihink they were either. It was pretty real.

Soidi llir 2h-year-old Playmate married /. Howard Marshall II, KKKN: 1 know lor .1 lad thai Anna loved her hush,Hid, old as he was. She i .illi'd him every day. YOGKI.: l-'.vcry day al fixe iwi. she would i;o lo i hi" models' lounge, a room ollthe sludio with a toiuh and phone, lo call him. They would talk lor only a lew minutes, hut you could tell she was sweet on him. GRl-'.r.N: She had a nickname lor him.

She would call him l'eepaw: "I love my Pcepaw."

WAYDA: We all heard her calling How­ard Marshall, doing that baby talk of hers. But she didn't always talk that way. She- talked to me in a normal voice. IMI.I.ARD: She met me one day draped in a sable coat and what 1 thought was costume jewelry: catlings, necklace, bracelets. But it wasn't. She had been shopping. "Hello, ma'am." she said—she always called me ma am. "Look, ma am. 1 just spent a couple million dollars!"

Marshall died in 1995, leaving Anna Nicole a still-disputed portion of his SI.6 billion estate. \ow fin international eelebrilx, she was wore mercurial than ever. PII.LARI): I was getting her good

monry. hooking her on modeling jobs lor $:>().000 a day. But she didn't want to work. "Ma'am, I can't go lo Dubai," she said. "My passport's expired." Did you ever hear ol a world-class model who can't keep her passport in ordei r Allcr that I didn't work with her. She was already on prescription chugs for pain in her back. "Be careful about the drugs," I said.

YOGEL: With more success came more indulgence. Her ego grew, and she stalled to believe she was a major star. Here's someone who wasn't edu­cated or sophisticated — how could she handle it all? Everybody's kiss­ing your ass, you don't know who lo

trust, and it spins out of control. Like a tornado, it picked her up and car­ried her away.

WHITE: Kven early in the clay she'd need a glass of wine to loosen up. She was usuallv a little tipsy. GRABOWSKI: She would finish a bot­tle of champagne and ask lor another. She'd deny she was on drugs, but everyone knew.

VOGEL: You couldn't help her. You wouldn't take her to Alcoholics Anony­mous or even suggest she had a prob­lem; she'd cut you out of her life. GREEN: Prescription drugs and alco­hol—[hat's what got her oil'track. But she had her good times. 1 was with her in L.A. when she was shootint; a

movie. Naked (inn 33'/:. We were driv­ing around in ,i pickup truck with Daniel, her son. a great kid she loved lo death. He was seven or eight years old then. GRABOWSKI: She was mi proud of Daniel. He was gor­geous, like a young ]on Bon Jovi. GREEN: She said. "Guess who's going to rent Marilyn Monroe's house!" And Daniel said. "Mommy, I don't want to live there. That's scary.

"Rent the place." I said. "Throw a party; get it out of your system. But don't live there. You're loo obsessed will] Mar­ilyn—you'll end up like she did." Well. Anna didn't want lo hear (hat. She got angry, and I was out. She wouldn't work with me alter I said those words.

WAY DA: By I hen her life had mined into ,i lull-time circus. (.RABOWSKI: She almost died in MKI.i. I (.died her, and she was slurring her words. "I'm in the Jacuzzi," she said. Then the phone went dead. WHITE: Marilyn tried again. Anna Nicole was pretty out ol it. She hung up. Now we were getting worried. I'd taken an KMT course and knew she lould lie in trouble il she was silting in a hot tub. drinking. The danger was that she'd pass out. regurgitate and have an airway problem. Marilyn called twice more. No answer. So she turned to me and said, "Bill, gel over there. Anna was renting Marilyn Monroe's

bungalow. I drove fast through yellowish-red lights into Brentwood, up this little street to a black iron gate, 12305 Fifth Helena Drive. That was when it hit me: I had seen this place before in a newsreel. This was the spot where they rolled Marilyn Monroe's body out on a gurney. I rang the bell. The door opened, and 1 was looking at a dripping-wet woman in a swimsuit— the maid. "I'm from pi.wimv," 1 said. "Is Anna Nicole okay?"

The maid led me inside, and I heard that same damn Marilyn Monroe music. It was on the sound system. The place was sparsely furnished, with pictures of Anna and Monroe on the walls. And out in the Jacu/./.i I found Anna, naked, humming along with Marilyn. There was a wine bottle, three-quarters empty, nearby. Her skin was all pruny. She said, "Bill-11-ly! " slurring her words. "Come 'n' join me." The maid said she had been in there all morning. We got her out, and it wasn't easy. Anna was

wet and slippery, and she wasn't help­ing. She was giggling. GRABOWSKI: That w.is some momeiil lor Bill. pulling a nude Anna Nicole out ol the Jacuzzi. I'm sine he saved her lilt-.

WHITE: We got a lowel around her. and she started to come around. Alter about 10 minutes I showed her the Playmate of the Near layout I'd brought. She loved it. Just then from behind me came a big. deep voice: "Who the hell are you?" Her bodyguard. She'd sent him out to McDonald's. He dropped these two huge McDonald's bags and escorted me out. and I heard Anna say. "Bvvye. Bill-ll-ly! ' That day scared her. Anna staved sober alter thai—scared sober. For a while.

GRABOVVSKI: She had her good qualities. She adored Daniel. And she dreamed of having a daughter, too. a little girl ol her own. From the time she was in her 20s she'd had a hope chest. She'd buy clothes for the baby girl she

hoped to have—to the point where \%e joked that .she'd have lo buy a house to store all those little-girl clothes.

While denying she had substanci-abuse problems, Anna Xicole somel/wes told friends she ex/jetted lo die like Mtirilxn Mon­roe. After a stint as the wobbly, overweight star of cable's The Anna Xicole Show, she slurred her way through several awards-show appearances. Injections from her m<m\ breast surgeries may have eroded her health. Still, last September, one dream came true: She gave birth lo a daughter. Danmehnn.

Three days later Daniel died. And in February Anna Xicole died, leaving others lo fight over her daughter, her fortune and even her body.

HEFNER: We got a call from het halt sister. Amy I logan. asking it Anna Nicole could be buried here in Los Angeles in the vault next lo Maiilvn Monroe. I own thai vault. But we weren't going to gel into thai light.

NAI'OLITANO: Looking at pictures lor this issue, I've been struck by how incred­ible she was. I'm glad we re showing her at her best, al the lop of her game. HEFNER: A small-town girl with a trou­bled childhood, with big dreams parliallv fullilled—you can feel the echo of Mari­lyn. The public life, the early death. Of course. Marilyn was a ver\ good actress in dramas and comedies. She truly accom­plished something in that sense, which Anna Nicole did not. But in this other, newer pantheon of celebrities defined by lame ilscll. Anna Nicole was one of the greats. And as long as we have her photos, she will not be forgotten. Perhaps in some way thai would have pleased her. There's a soil of immortality in du­nnages she left behind. IMLLARI): Let's remember her sweet­ness, not her problems. HEFNER: In the end the point is this: She lived large and died too soon. LARRY DJERF. IM.AYBOY Newsstand Sales Director: 1 met Anna Nicole at her I'laymale of the Year party in LA. We had a conlcrcnce room al the Bel Age hotel full ol 'magazine distributors anil wholesalers, and when she came in all heads turned as if they were on swivels. I thought. That is a va-voom I'laymale.

After the party I saw something I'll never forget. She came out of the hotel alone, wealing the same oll-the-shoulder dress she'd worn to the parly. And I watched her—this big. beau­tiful, glamorous, curvy woman—as she got into her I'laymale ol the Year prize, a |aguar convertible, and drove off down Sunset Boulevard And she looked so. so happy.

For another exclusive look at Anna, tune in to "I'layboy Remembers: Anna S'iciile Smith" on I'layboy T\. premienng April II at nine I'M. FT. Additional air dates ami limes available al playboy.com/ANS.