The Evolution of Anna Nicole Smith.

This article has been a long time coming. I have hauled the book around with me most every where I go. Reading it again and again searching for the right parts to cover.

The first part that I wrote concerning Missy’s book about Anna Nicole came pretty easy. But after the inquest where a Bahamian jury was basically told what verdict to come back with, I exchanged emails with Missy and she was devastated. She was once a loving caretaker of Daniel Smith. The tow headed happy little guy that adored his mother as well as his grandmother whom he called ‘Mee Maw”. Missy was there to see it. She lived it. And to tell it, she bravely revealed parts of herself that I am positive she never would have wanted under public scrutiny. Her grief however was not for herself, but for Anna Nicole Smith’s mother.

Missy felt that the facts needed to be told and she did a fine job of doing so. So what I will do here is excerpt some of the misconceptions of Anna Nicole’s early years and some of the early year fiction that has become present day tall tales as well, as written by Melissa Byrum.

Daniel lived with Virgie after she brought Anna Nicole and Daniel back from Mexia when she and Billy Smith broke up. Actually, the way it was is that Anna Nicole’s belongings lived with Virgie and she spent weekends there when she was not working. Missy did not find this out until she spoke to Virgie in 2007. She always wondered about the nightly phone call which was to tell Virgie that she would not be home.

Daniel finally moved in with his mother when he was six years old. It took him awhile to adjust as he severely missed his Grandmother.

Missy and her friend who called herself “Nicki” shared stories about their childhood with each other. Missy’s childhood was horrible and as Anna Nicole Smith was born, so was a re-creation of Missy’s childhood as Anna Nicole’s own.

Before her death, Missy recalls that ANS recited one of her stories verbatim on Entertainment Tonight. Missy expressed sympathy for the pain that Virgie must have felt over the years being portrayed as a villain in a fabricated childhood.

While ANS was still working as an exotic dancer, she lived in fear of the embarrassment that she would feel if her mother ever found out that she was stripping for a living. But the money was too good and it was hard to break away.

ANS took Missy to Virgie’s house one day. She had described her mother as an unreasonable insensitive tyrant who was dirt poor. Missy said that she was shocked to arrive at a neat well maintained brick home. Although nervous to meet Virgie, Missy found her to have a great sense of humor and was a typical caring mother.

A date of Anna Nicole’s had stolen her ID’s with checkbook and had written checks all over Houston. Ultimately, Virgie got involved to help clean up the mess. At the same time, Virgie found about how ANS was making a living.

The story went that she came to the club where Anna Nicole was working and dragged her out by the hair. In a recent conversation with the club manager, Missy discovered that was not true. Virgie walked into the club with another officer and asked for Anna Nicole. They then walked calmly out of the club. Virgie was concerned about the lifestyle that usually comes with taking your clothes off for a living.

Missy said that while ANS may have bettered herself financially, she never lost the “dancer mentality”. However, various rumors have floated around saying that Anna Nicole was turning tricks. Missy said that is absolutely not true. She made thousands of dollars dancing and that is all she did.

Here is one that I am sure we will all enjoy. Anna Nicole and Missy were working one night when a man came up to Anna Nicole and wanted to hire her for a “big pile of cash” to dress up in S&M gear and berate him while he cleaned his house. Anna Nicole said to the man, “No way you freak. What’s wrong with you?” Missy said that they laughed about it for years to come. So no matter how much money was offered, Anna Nicole wanted nothing to do with “freaks” that practice S&M.

Anna Nicole praised her mother after she had gotten the huge breast implants and came down with a horrible infection. She told Missy that she credited her mother with her recovery as Virgie had stayed with her all though the ordeal until she was well again.

Skipping ahead to 1992, Missy recollects that Virgie and Anna Nicole spoke often on the phone. She says that Anna Nicole was often unfair to her mother for fear that she wanted to replace ANS as Daniel’s mother. Anna Nicole’s mother reassured her that no such thoughts existed.

Sometimes they went out for cocktails. One night Anna Nicole and Virgie were reminiscing about some of the stunts that ANS had pulled. They laughed as Anna Nicole described a time when she had been blitzed out of her mind and could not believe that she was tearing up her own apartment and attacked her own mother. Virgie handcuffed her to get her under control. For rumor mongers, that would be the story that ANS told about an alleged beating that she received when she was 21.

Concerning Daniels baby pictures that Anna Nicole asked for and was allegedly never given. This did not happen after Daniels death. It happened long ago and this is how it went… After J. Howard Marshall had bought Anna Nicole her dream ranch, she told Missy that Virgie was going to give her Daniels baby pictures and she instructed Missy to copy them and get them returned to her mother. Virgie and Anna Nicole set up a date to hand over the pictures but Anna Nicole later had to cancel. There was never another date set to copy the photos.

It turns out that Anna Nicole’s mother Virgie had kept a dark secret from her but the truth came out after Anna Nicole had hired a private investigator to find her father. She flew him to Los Angeles and had a reunion with him and her half brother Donnie who Missy says was a really nice young man. Virgie had never let Anna Nicole see her father. Here is why and Missy stepped into the truth by accident.

Anna’s Aunt Kay was living at one of Anna Nicole’s houses when Missy went to check on Daniel at Anna’s request. Missy told Kay that Anna Nicole had just had a reunion with her father. All the color drained from Kay’s face. When Missy asked her what was wrong Kay told Missy the reason that Virgie had left Anna Nicole’s father was because he had raped Kay when she was just 10 years old. He served some time for it. Anna Nicole’s reaction to the news is not noted in the book. Could it be that the reason that Anna never attempted to hook up with dear old Dad could have been hearing about what he did to her Aunt Kay?

This book is full of facts about Anna Nicole from the day that Missy met her when she hired on as a dancer thinking that she would be dancing in her bathing suit to the day that Anna Nicole became so successful that she morphed from the shy scared Nicki that Missy loved into Anna Nicole Smith. Someone that was a stranger to Missy.

Reading the book, I could tell that Missy had a mighty love for her dear sweet Nicki but rumors had to be dispelled and the truth told about the metamorphous of a shy but stunning young girl who made a name for herself as an international icon.

Missy recently prevailed in a lawsuit against Eric Redding, the author of “Great Big Beautiful Doll”. In their book, Redding and his wife D’eva made defamatory statements about an elevator that Anna Nicole and Missy were in on Bourbon Street. They also claimed that Missy and Anna met in 1992 which was long after they actually met. See the order resolving claims by Ms. Byrum. Also an interview as explained by Missy’s husband Rick Duncan that will help with understanding the terms of the lawsuit.

I would like to end with this excerpt from the end of the book.

This concerns the infamous “Mommy Dearest” interview, one of Anna Nicole’s last. It was filmed and broadcast by Entertainment Tonight. This is the interview that is now being litigated in Federal and possibly State court in Texas. You can read the actual filings in our “Legal Document” section. As Missy watched the “battle rage on” in the Florida court concerning Anna Nicole’s final resting place, these were her thoughts.

Missy writes; That interview is one of the single most disturbing and unsettling things I have seen concerning Nicki to this day. As I was watching the whole thing unfold on Fox News, it occurred to me that if I hadn’t been there to see the whole thing happen, I would have felt as sorry for Nicki as I now do for Virgie. The way Nicki was shaking in the interview, her misplaced anger visible in every gesture and word, made me realize how far over the edge she had gone. I think she was actually delusional at this point, and with Howard Stern coaching her along, it was apparent that her perception of her relationship with her mother had been completely skewed. I couldn’t help but ask myself how Tokyo Rose ended up in an American Courtroom…

You can purchase Missy’s book at the link to your right or visit her at http://www.annaandmissy.com/

Melissa Byrum entered adulthood at a much younger age then most of us usually do. At age 13, she left her home to escape the abuse of a sexually deviant step-father after already surviving brutal beatings at the hands of a former step-father.

By age 16, armed with a fake ID, after a stint of menial and minimal paying jobs, she was already a seasoned dancer at the north Houston topless club, The Executive Suite. She was working the day shift in 1987 when Vickie Lynn Smith entered the club.

Missy, as she is called, befriended the frightened new girl and asked the other dancers to give her a break. She writes that a girl as pretty as Vickie Lynn would not have lasted long at the job due to harassment and jealousy with the other girls fearing the loss of their customers.

There began a six year odyssey as Missy and Vickie Lynn became best friends and room mates and Missy lived and experienced what she has chronicled in her new book entitled, “When You Wished Upon A Star, The Evolution of Anna Nicole Smith”.

The book is the first and only true account of how “Nicki” the dancer became the internationally famous model and actress that we came to know as Anna Nicole Smith.

I write “first and only” as Missy points out in the introduction of her book, because other Anna Nicole Smith books written by Eric Redding and then Donna Hogan were published, falsely claiming they had long term and intimate knowledge of Anna Nicole.

Just recently Missy prevailed in a lawsuit against Eric Redding for publishing false information about her in his book “Great Big Beautiful Doll”. Donna Hogan who is a half sibling to Anna Nicole penned “Train Wreck: The Life and Death of Anna Nicole Smith”.

When asked, Missy states that she wrote the book to correct some of the misinformation not only about Anna Nicole’s early years and rise to stardom but also concerning Anna’s relationship with her mother Virgie Arthur.

Missy writes that her best friend “Nicki” as she called Anna Nicole, had a warm and loving mother who came to the rescue of her daughter and Anna’s son Daniel Smith many times and raised the boy until Anna Nicole established herself financially enough to provide a good home for Daniel when he was six years old.

Next time, Ill list some of the rumors and misinformation about Anna Nicole that Missy clears up in this emotional and loving account of her “golden spirited friend”.

You can catch Missy’s four part interview on Houston’s ABC 13 website