A case study in America: The life of Anna Nicole Smith (born Vickie Lynn Hogan)

Where to begin when remembering a figure as larger than life as Anna Nicole Smith, who died yesterday in Florida. Do our emotions first lead us to 1993, when she was Hugh Hefner's hand-chosen successor to Marilyn Monroe in American soft-core pornography, or perhaps her 2004 drunken speech at the American Music Awards. What about her 1989 drunk driving arrest (right -- 5'9" with hair, 5'6" without), her totally natural weight loss in 2003, or her activist work with PETA (save the whales).

My favorite Anna Nicole Smith moment was not her reality TV show with that stupid little rat-dog (Sugar Pie was its name, after her favorite breakfast), but the day she entered the annals (yikes!) of U.S. history -- her appearance before the Supreme Court in the inheritance case of her late husband, billionaire J. Howard Marshall.

It's not common for women to outlive their husbands, especially when the husbands are 63 years their elder. Also when the woman met the man at a strip club and married him with the intention of sexing him to death. Don't take my word for it, a judge said so.

But I guess I'll remember Anna Nicole Smith for the one thing she did that I liked, which was to appear in the Coen brothers' 1994 classic The Hudsucker Proxy. So what if I don't remember her performance as "Za-Za" -- it's probably best that she be forgotten.