An opera, based on the life of late model Anna Nicole Smith, could just be the most X-rated opera ever seen in the Royal Opera House, with its lurid sex scenes and foul language. The storyline covers everything from the late model’s drug abuse to her relationship with J. Howard Marshall, the millionaire octogenarian that she married in 1994, just a year before his death.
Critics are already citing one scene as particularly shocking, in which the heroine performs oral sex on her wheelchair-bound boyfriend. It has been composed and conceived by Mark-Anthony Turnage, and the man behind the lyrics is Richard Thomas, the librettist who also wrote 2003’s ‘Jerry Springer: The Opera’.
According to the Times Magazine, Thomas, 60, says that ‘Anna Nicole’ delivers the same kind of drama and comedy as the grand operas of the 19th century. “A lot of people say: ‘Oh, but do you really think Anna Nicole deserves an opera?” the Daily Mail quoted him as saying.
“I say yes, she’s more deserving of an opera than any individual who has ever lived. That’s my line because I’m sick of that snobbery. Anna Nicole is grand opera, just like those of old with a mix of comedy and horror,” he stated.
The Royal Opera House is hoping that the subject matter and risque content will attract a younger audience, and has even lowered its prices with a maximum of 75 pounds to reflect that.Tags:
Anna Nicole Smith, Royal Opera House, Shocking, Heroine, Lyrics, Jerry Springer, Millionaire, Magazine, Audience, Comedy, Horror
Through the ups and downs, personal troubles or no, Britney Spears is the hottest human being on Planet Earth, according to USA Today's survey.
USA Today’s annual Celebrity Heat Index, which measures how much exposure a star gets in print and online, has been topped by Britney, all thanks to the exposure she got through internet and print reports.
It's just another feather in Britney's cap, following her selection by People readers as having the "best comeback" of 2008 as well as being the "most talked about celebrity."
The second place has been nabbed by Angelina Jolie, whose life and romance with actor Brad Pitt is constantly making headlines. Jennifer Aniston takes third place and Pitt fourth.
Paris Hilton and Anna Nicole Smith, meanwhile, dropped out of the Top 10 altogether.
Making the list for the first time is Twilight actor Robert Pattinson, who made a splash after playing Edward in the film adaptation of Stephenie Meyer’s popular vampire books. Gossip Girl star Blake Lively is also a newcomer to the index.
A two-hour video of buxom stripper-turned-heiress Anna Nicole Smith undergoing breast augmentation surgery has been blocked from distribution by a California judge.
The estate of the late tabloid celebrity, who died of an accidental overdose of prescription drugs in February aged 39, won a court order barring a plastic surgeon in Texas from selling or circulating videos of procedures he performed on Smith in 1994.
Court documents from the case, including the judge's ruling made on Friday, were posted by the website CelebTV.com. Smith's death, and the legal haggling over custody of her baby daughter, sparked a media frenzy in the United States.
A lawsuit filed by her estate's executor, Howard K Stern, accused the Houston physician, Dr Gerald Wayne Johnson, of taping the surgery without Smith's consent and sending copies to a Los Angeles-based memorabilia dealer, Thomas Riccio.
The suit says Johnson's wife and Riccio agreed to share in proceeds generated from a planned release of the footage to various media outlets.
The exact nature of the surgery was not specified in the lawsuit. But a June 2007 letter signed by Johnson and attached as an exhibit said he performed "breast augmentation reconstructive surgery" on Smith in October 1994, the year she married billionaire oil tycoon J Howard Marshall.
The letter also says his office "routinely records all such procedures with the knowledge of the patient" and that he retains "all rights to this video which is our policy to keep confidential during the patient's lifetime".
If the patient dies, Johnson wrote, "it is then up to my sole discretion as to how and when I will disseminate or make public any or all of the images within the video we have produced."
Johnson's lawyer could not immediately be reached for comment.
Last month, Stern won a separate court order barring Riccio from distributing the surgery video, and Riccio has complied, Stern's lawyer, Vivian Thoreen, told Reuters.
She said the Johnsons were believed to have retained copies of all the footage and Friday's court order requires them to turn over all the material to Stern.
"We believe it's an estate asset," Thoreen said.
Larry Birkhead's former attorney filed a lawsuit against him Tuesday, claiming he didn't pay his legal bills during a paternity dispute involving his and
Anna Nicole Smith's baby.
Debra Opri wants to force binding arbitration under the terms of a contract in which she agreed to represent Birkhead in September, according to the lawsuit filed in Superior Court.
Opri said her work on Birkhead's behalf was "extensive, entailed hundreds of hours of work" and required her to travel to multiple states and outside the country. The lawsuit did not specify a dollar amount.
After-hours phone messages left for Opri's attorney, David Owen, and Birkhead's lawyer, Michael Whalen, were not immediately returned.
Birkhead sued Smith in October seeking a paternity test of her daughter, Dannielynn Hope, to determine who was the baby's father.
Howard Stern, Smith's attorney and longtime companion, had also claimed to be the father and was listed on the baby's birth certificate.
A Los Angeles judge ruled in Birkhead's favor in December but the DNA testing was not performed until months later. Smith died in Florida on Feb. 8 of an accidental overdose of prescription drugs.
After a highly publicized court dispute, paternity tests released last month showed Birkhead was the baby's father.
Opri was Birkhead's attorney during most of the dispute but later withdrew from the case without explaining why.
Anna Nicole's Rough Sex With Vegas Magic Man.
ANNA NICOLE once Pleasured an illusionist backstage after a show in Las Vegas, while her then-boyfriend LARRY BIRKHEAD and companion HOWARD K. STERN waited feet away.
Magician STEVE WYRICK was stunned when the busty blonde dragged him into a dark corner to perform oral sex on him after he levitated her for a segment of her reality TV show.
Wyrick, 36, tells America's Star magazine the encounter, following a show at the Aladdin Resort & Casino, started off harmless enough with Anna Nicole flirting with him but then things got hot and heavy when she "pulled me to a dark part of the backstage area."
The illusionist recalls, "She unzipped my pants and started giving me oral sex.
We had microphone belt packs on - it was all being recorded. Afterwards we walked out to centre stage and everyone was looking at us. I'm sure they all heard us - including Howard and Larry."
Wyrick claims his magical moment with Anna Nicole didn't end there - they had rough sex two hours later when the tragic model visited him in his hotel suite.
Anna Nicole Smith died of “an accidental overdose with no other criminal element present,” Seminole Police Department Chief Charlie Tiger announced at a press conference in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., Monday.
He said the police conducted a thorough investigation, which included reviewing hundreds of hours of videotapes captured by the hotel security cameras and analyzing the contents of the laptop computer belonging to Smith’s companion, Howard K. Stern, and “we found nothing to indicate any foul play.”
Broward County medical examiner Dr. Joshua Perper, who earlier had declined to make the autopsy results public until he reviewed the evidence, said that Smith’s system contained methadone, anti-anxiety and weight-reducing drugs and, possibly, vitamins, among other substances.
The former Playboy Playmate died six weeks ago, on Feb. 8, in Hollywood, Fla. According to the Associated Press, additional evidence from the Seminole Police Department, which is investigating Smith’s death, delayed the autopsy’s release.
Tiger said Monday that his department found “no evidence of illegal drugs” at the death scene and had reviewed “hundreds of hours of tapes [and] found nothing unusual.”
The day after Smith’s death, police said they had found no evidence that a crime had been committed, and Perper said he’d found no serious injuries in his initial examination.
Perper said at a Feb. 9 press conference that Smith’s death could have been due “solely to natural causes … some medical and chemicals … or a combination of natural causes and medication.”
The much-anticipated disclosure of exactly how the 39-year-old Smith died comes more than three weeks after she was finally buried in the Bahamas.
Meanwhile, an inquest into the death of her son, Daniel, in September at age 20 is due to begin Monday in the Bahamas.
All eyes will be on Dr. Joshua Perper, Broward County Medical Examiner, who will announce the cause of death in the Anna Nicole Smith case at 10:30 AM EST.
Dr. Perper delayed the announcement because of what he termed two new pieces of evidence, one of which was a computer belonging to Smith that contained e-mail messages with doctors who supplied Anna Nicole with prescription drugs.
Joshua Perper, Broward County, Florida, medical examiner, said he would conduct a news conference as soon as Monday to announce what killed Anna Nicole Smith.
She died Feb. 8 in a Hollywood, Fla., hospital where she was taken after being found unresponsive in her hotel room.
Gary Bitner, Seminole Police Department spokesman said the findings at the news conference "are going to be a significant announcement."
The spokesman added that the police, state attorney and the medical examiner's office have been working together and "it continues to be a non-criminal, unexplained death investigation."
Bitner said Perper's findings "are going to provide some resolution" in Smith's death.
After weeks of speculation, Monday will be the day the world learns what killed reality star Anna Nicole Smith. The results of her autopsy will be heard at 10:30 AM and I’m so calling in sick that day to stay home and find out the dirt, just for you. Just kidding. I’m actually unemployed.
The toxicology report has been delayed due to certain information that may have been discovered in laptop computers confiscated by police from Anna Nicole’s house, so says Kevin Frazier of Entertainment Tonight:
“There’s a belief that there is something on Anna’s personal computer that could have played a part in her death,” Kevin replies. “The Bahamian police and the Seminole [Florida] police have been working together. They have [the computer] right now, and we’re all waiting to find out what was on that computer.”
The official results of Anna Nicole Smith's autopsy are not set to be announced until Monday morning, but The National Enquirer and Star Magazine have joined news gathering forces and claimed to have cracked the case! Obviously we won't know for sure if this contributed to the death of Anna Nicole until we hear from the medical examiner on Monday, but this sounds quite intriguing. Plus, at the rate The National Enquirer and the mag's editor-in-chief David Perel have been breaking stories of late (so much that other websites steal 'em days later and claim them as their own), I wouldn't be surprised if The Enquirer and Star were dead on.
Excerpts from their websites, The National Enquirer and Star report:
* Anna Nicole Smith died with a toxic level of the sleeping medication chloral hydrate in her system.
* The ENQUIRER and Star have also learned that Anna Nicole had a raging blood infection.
* The infection was caused by an unsterilized needle and contributed to her death. The infection was so serious, it would have killed her if she had not overdosed.
* The ENQUIRER learned that just before she left the Bahamas for Florida on February 5, three days before she died, Anna Nicole received an injection in her left buttock. Tests did not reveal what that substance was.
* "As she boarded the plane for Miami, Anna Nicole developed a painful abscess at the site of the injection," said a source with knowledge of the case. "The needle wasn't sterile. The pain kept getting worse as the abscess got larger and larger very quickly."
* Anna Nicole, unaware that her blood was being poisoned by infection, had also developed a second infection from a virulent form of norovirus, which causes intestinal problems.
* It was at this point that Anna Nicole — and her entourage — made a fatal mistake. She refused to go to a hospital, a decision that would have saved her life. Instead, Anna's people gave her an ice bath to control the fever, administered the antibiotic ciprofloxacin by mouth and gave her an over-the-counter flu medicine.
* On Wednesday, February 7, Anna seemed somewhat better, but she wasn't, the source said. "She was still vomiting and suffering diarrhea," said the source. "Again, she spent the whole day in bed, as the abscess continued to grow. She was in such pain, she just wanted to sleep."
* And that's when the final fatal mistake was made. Sometime overnight on February 7, Anna ingested the sleeping medication chloral hydrate. The drug is extremely potent. The dose was too much — and in fact it was a toxic level, the ENQUIRER and Star have learned exclusively.
* Preliminary analysis indicated the cause of death was systemic sepsis syndrome, a lethal blood infection. It was caused by the abscess of the left buttock.
* Further investigation revealed the fatal level of chloral hydrate. Chloral hydrate can cause depression of respiration, especially in a person who is already sick because of an infection and dehydration and it can cause death within a relatively short period of time.
* Anna Nicole also had scarring from numerous injections she got in the buttocks.
NASSAU, Bahamas (AP) -- A Bahamian judge ordered a DNA test Tuesday on Anna Nicole Smith's infant daughter to identify the girl's father, an attorney for the baby's grandmother said.
The result could end a bitter custody feud sparked by the death of the former reality TV star last month.
Larry Birkhead, an ex-boyfriend of the Playboy playmate who asked the judge to order the test on 6-month-old Dannielynn, pumped his fists in the air and jumped up and down as he emerged from the private court hearing.
"It's been a good day in court for me," he told reporters. Asked if he thought he would see the girl soon, he only smiled and winked.
Deborah Rose, an attorney for Smith's mother, Virgie Arthur, confirmed that the judge ordered the test but she and others who attended the hearing declined to describe the proceedings.
Authorities left the building after the hearing and could not immediately be reached for comment.
Smith's most recent companion, Howard K. Stern, who is listed as the father on the girl's birth certificate, left the courthouse in a black sport utility vehicle as Birkhead greeted a crowd of cheering tourists.
Smith, 39, died February 8 after collapsing in a Florida hotel. Authorities have not disclosed the cause.
Stern has been caring for the girl in the gated, waterfront home where he lived with Smith in the months before she died. The Bahamian courts have ordered Stern not to leave the country with the girl before a custody ruling.
Arthur wants to take Dannielynn from Stern, arguing she could provide a more stable home. She did not speak as she exited the courthouse and left in a white limousine.
The girl, Dannielynn Hope Marshall Stern, could inherit millions from the estate of Smith's late husband, Texas oil tycoon J. Howard Marshall II. Smith had been fighting his family over his estimated $500 million fortune since his death in 1995.
Frederic von Anhalt, the husband of Zsa Zsa Gabor, also says he may be Dannielynn's father. Last month, he also filed legal documents seeking a DNA test to determine if he is the father.
