Across the pond, Europe has been buzzing about the latest performance to debut at London’s Royal Opera House – the Anna Nicole Smith opera. The production opened a couple weeks ago and has made great fodder for tabloid reporters and drama-mongering bloggers because – as we all know in the world of pop culture – there’s a lot to say about the rags-to-riches story of the litigious Playmate whose rise to fame and troubled drug addiction has made for quite the on-stage show. And while the over the top script profiling Smith offers tremendous entertainment value, it highlights several of the deceased celebrity’s troubles that repeatedly make their way into the media even years after her untimely death.

Smith’s life was a story of instability starting with her teenage years when she married and eventually divorced a fellow fast food coworker. The on-stage display of her erratic behavior is an appropriate characterization of the former reality star’s tumultuous life. Ultimately, we see in the opera how her struggles culminated with an overdose on prescription drugs that led to her death in a Florida hotel room four years ago.

Although spot on in much of the Playboy model’s rise and the fall, the directors get sidetracked after the intermission in an attempt to make Smith out to be a tragic figure. The latter half of the production plays to the audience’s empathy by framing Smith as a victim. While misfortune makes good theater, these scenes miss the mark in their depiction of some of the final phases of her life.

One of the mischaracterizations in the second act is about her final marriage to Texas businessman J. Howard Marshall II. Marshall was 63 years Smith’s elder when they wed, and he passed away less than two years after the ceremony. In a New York Times review of the opera, one reporter alludes to a glaring error.  To set the course for her downward spiral, the opera leads the audience to think that Marshall didn’t have a will, and still, Smith was left with nothing.  More than a decade of legal activity between Smith and his family over the estate, however, has shown that Marshall in fact had a will, and was quite clear in his intentions.  Underscoring that fact, over more than a decade Marshall drafted and updated a dozen wills and living trusts.  At no point were the beneficiaries different than those included in the final will and living trust, which contained all of his property; technical aspects were merely altered.  In other words, leaving Smith out of his inheritance was something he did by design.

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The criminal trial of Howard K. Stern in the events connected to the death of former Playboy model Anna Nicole Smith took a surprising twist Thursday. Stern, Smith’s former lover and lawyer, walked out of a Los Angeles courtroom essentially scott free.  Smith’s psychiatrist, Dr. Khristine Eroshevich, received $100 in fines, a reduction from a felony to a misdemeanor charge, and one year of unsupervised probation.  Stern walked out of court and immediately spoke with media – blaming the prosecution for being dishonest.

After a two month long trial and 13 days of deliberation, the jury found Stern guilty on two felony counts.  Both counts involved conspiracy charges of acting fraudulently to obtain prescriptions and using false names to acquire medication for Smith. Eroshevich was similarly charged with conspiracy as well as aiding to furnish sedatives and opiates to an addict.

While this may be a good day for Stern, this sentencing is a slap in the face to the jury who spent a grueling two weeks deliberating in order to reach a fair, thoughtful verdict.  Judge Robert Perry acted unusually throughout the proceedings. He claims there is not enough evidence proving Stern intended to break the law.  That excuse doesn’t even work for speeders on a long stretch of rural road, it certainly shouldn’t work for a man who admitted to falsifying names in order to get his girlfriend drugs that ultimately killed her.  This is truly a disappointment for justice.

Once again celebrity wrongdoers get special treatment.  Numerous testimonies verified Stern’s involvement in Smith’s medical management.  Smith’s bodyguard, former nannies, and G. Ben Thompson, another of Smith’s former lovers, all testified to seeing Stern bring Smith pills on separate occasions.  He even had multiple prescriptions for her under his own name! (more…)

Just in time for Hollywood’s Blockbuster Summer season, the west coast is scheduled for a limited engagement legal premiere of sorts. This week on June 25th, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals will host the latest episode in the saga of the long-running litigation between the estates of Anna Nicole Smith and oil baron J. Howard Marshall.

This remarkable drama demonstrates the lasting power of a lawsuit that has outlasted the life and death of Anna Nicole Smith and her former husband, billionaire oil man J. Howard Marshall II. As the litigation against the estate of her former husband goes on without them both, the absurdity of the case grows clearer. (more…)

Anna Nicole Smith, the dysfunctional former Playmate of the Year whose very public life ended all too tragically, may finally be getting some measure of justice.  The state attorney’s office in Broward County, Florida, said last week it was reopening its investigation into her February 2007 death by what had been deemed “an accidental overdose.” 

The news comes less than two weeks after two doctors and Howard K. Stern, the former Playboy and Guess Jeans model’s erstwhile Svengali, were arrested by California authorities on charges they illegally conspired to provide Smith with thousands of prescription pills. Broward State Attorney spokesman Ron Ishoy, told the press his office was taking a fresh look at things.  This includes examining the evidence collected by California officials to see “where it might lead in relation to Ms. Smith’s death.”  (more…)