“Lily was a princess, she was fair-skinned and precious as a child. She did whatever she had to do, she had that certain flash everytime she smiled. She’d come away from a broken home, had lots of strange affairs, with men in every walk of life who took her everywhere, but she’d never met anyone quite like the Jack of Hearts.” Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts – Bob Dylan
True Crime with Aphrodite Jones on the Investigation Discovery Channel featured the life and career of Anna Nicole Smith last Thursday, and did a good job in answering the sticky questions about her troubling death on February 8, 2007. Specifically, Aphrodite addressed the controversy of whether “Anna was responsible for her own destruction or was she enabled to death?”
In order to answer this question, a biographical sketch of Anna Nicole’s life was provided, while not comprehensive, was necessary to show the forces at play in her life that may have contributed to her untimely demise. From what I could tell, the negative exceeded the positive, if the events of her life were placed on a balancing scale of the good, bad or, at times ugly.
First there’s Jim’s Krispy Fried Chicken in Mexia, then Wal-Mart, then GiGi’s Men’s Club, where she had the misfortune of meeting billionaire J. Howard Marshall. Anna’s pursuit of her desired inheritance in multiple courts of law, after the oil tycoon died (they had married in June of 1994), turned out to be the equivalent of the Greek myth of Tantalus grasping for grapes, but forever just out of reach.
I suspect this may have contributed to Anna’s spiraling out of control prescription drug usage. The stress of making all these court appearances and being promised the money several times, only to have it taken away, must have had a catastrophic effect on Anna’s already vulnerable psychic makeup.
Nicole’s career as a show biz diva with a “trashy chic” moniker pasted to it, must have contributed greatly to her dicey self-esteem. In turn, this may have fueled her abuse of prescription drugs, that were used as anodynes to cushion her disappointment at not making a smooth transition from Playboy Centerfold to legitimate Hollywood actress. And her erratic behavior, a very addictive behavior, was further manifested in her wild weight fluctuations and shopping spree rampages.
In this way of thinking, addiction to drugs is just one aspect of addiction, which comes in many colors. Anna must have had eating disorders and problems with managing money also. These bad habits should have been warning signs to those closest to her, that Anna was hooked on everything under the sun, that wasn’t nailed to the floor!
But given these obvious, very deep problems that Anna had with her marriages and her rise and fall career, the fact that she was a drug addict is a factual slap-in-the-face for me. Aphrodite Jones addresses the perplexing stance that Anna’s doctor, Sandeep Kamoor takes, with his rationalization of diagnosis given to Anna.
The most revealing part of the show was when Sandeep Kamoor talks with Aphrodite Jones and tells her he doesn’t believe Anna Nicole was an addict. Jones makes the comment these handlers just give their star clients what they want in order to stay on the payroll.
I was shocked by Kamoor’s attitude towards Anna, as if he was just giving her medication to treat a whole host of ailments. The doctor is in denial, but has gotten off in the courts, so he continues to spin this thread of fabrication, where toxic narcotics are given the euphemism of medication. This was the spin for Elvis as well.
This telling special clearly answers the question of whether the handlers of Nicole enabled her on an inevitable path of destruction. They saw a chronic drug addict, but averted their ‘professional eyes,’ and proceeded to do absolutely nothing about it.
This includes Howard K. Stern and Anna’s psychiatrist, Dr. Khristine Eroshevitz, who actually wrote many of the prescriptions for drugs the pathologist found in Anna’s system during the autopsy.
Anna Nicole Smith’s life and death were as tragic as they come. If you carefully examine the sequence of events, that comprise her life, each one reduces her more and more, whittles her away, until you’re left with nothing.
Noone could equal her as a coroneted ‘Queen of the Tabloids,’ except perhaps Jayne Mansfield, who eerily mirrors Anna in so many ways. By the time she splits for the Bahamas, the deal is already done. The overdose in Room 607 of the Hard Rock is practically an afterthought.
Drugs in Anna Nicole’s system at the time of her untimely death: the sedative chloral hydrate, and four benzodiazepines – Klonopin (Clonazepam), Ativan (Lorazepam), Serax (Oxazepam), and Valium (Diazepam). Furthermore, Benadryl (Diphenhydramine) and Topamax (Topiramate), which enhanced the sedative effect of the chloral hydrate.
