R.I.P. Anna Nicole Smith

Hey folks, Harry here... This is a difficult obit to write. Not because I was a great admirer of Anna Nicole Smith, but because it is nigh impossible to discuss her life without reflecting upon the cult of personality that America's Media has become. I can't say that I didn't notice her in THE HUDSUCKER PROXY. She was kinda hard to miss. In a different era - one where the desire to fill all 1000 cable network channels with an endless variety of PEEK-A-BOO theater, there would have been a place for the voluptuous Anna Nicole Smith. In figure and form she struck me as a callback to the shapely celluloid goddesses like Jayne Mansfield or Mamie Van Doren. But in theaters - Anna was never groomed by a studio to take advantage of her va-va-va-boom figure to become the visual metaphor for great comedians to play off of. Instead - her personal life became the foundation for her notoriety. Her lawsuits and tabloid play. She became a slow-motion trainwreck upon reality television. Nothing particularly harmful - but there was always something scary about her media attention. When tragedy hit and took her Son, the frightening way that shows like ENTERTAINMENT TONIGHT flocked to her - collecting every tearful moment - it turned my stomach. It is times like those that common decency would tell you TO PUT THE CAMERA AWAY. Yet there it was. Could Anna Nicole Smith have had a serious career in film? Not in this period. Studios don't craft and cradle the fragile emotional starlets as they used to. Even in the "good ol days" - the studios ate em up and spit em out. The more things change, the more they stay the same. In the last month of her life - the jackals pounced. And I fear - she's left a daughter and a legacy that might follow that kid for the rest of her life. Unless the media can do the one thing that it should have done years ago. Let go. I don't believe Anna Nicole Smith was an untalented media whore as so many will claim. There was a charisma there. I just feel it was tapped in all the worst ways and exploited in the saddest way it could be. Not merely by the big bad media, but by Anna herself. But for now, all that debate is meaningless, all that speculation about where it turned wrong... well it's waste. She died young and hounded by the media she had flirted with for a goodly portion of her life. I doubt her death will be any different, though I hope for her family and her daughter's sake... and our own sanity, that it just stop. A life has ended. Have the common decency to let her and hers... rest in peace.