The dangerous lives of celebrities

When Princess Diana died in a car accident almost ten years ago, newsmen hung their heads low and lamented how fame had killed the young princess. Anna Nicole Smith will get no such eulogy. Even in death, the bombshell is still famous only for scandal, her life story immortalized in Playboy and tabloids. I can't say that I have ever been a fan, but when I read that she'd died at 39, just months after burying her son and while embroiled in a custody battle over her newborn daughter, it hit me strangely. Obviously, the autopsy results are still being gathered, the five bags of evidence from her hotel room are still being rifled through in some CSI lab, but to say that the woman was not killed by fame would be ludicrous. I read this morning that she was "famous for being famous," and I can't think of any way to better put it. So, just because she wasn't run off the road by rabid paparazzi doesn't mean that our voyeuristic thirst didn't push her into an early grave. Despite that early departure, it would be difficult to make the argument that Anna Nicole Smith was not resilient. Comebacks, fad diets, lawsuits, dead husbands, dead sons, she's like a one woman Kennedy family reunion. Say what you will, the woman was a fighter.