Anna Nicole and the Shortest Arab in History
Larry Miller’s truly touching Anna Nicole memories:
Some women try to arch an eyebrow when they make an entrance, or look sullen or regal, and I don’t think I like any of those, but all she had to do to stop the show was be there. Whether you liked her or not, if there’s an “it” factor in modeling, she had it. Maybe it flies away, or maybe it’s hard to hold onto, but she sure had it then. In spades. And it was murder.
The maitre d’ led the way, and he was smart enough to leave plenty of room between them so everyone could look, which, let’s be honest, has been the point of the exercise since another blond some time back launched a thousand ships.
And right behind her was her companion, a guy who . . . well, who had to be–Okay, I’m sorry to have to say it this way, but there’s no getting around it, so I’m just going to say it and be done–the shortest Arab in history.
… As I walked away from their table I turned around and took one more look back, and they had returned to . . . I don’t know. Just being there, I guess. Two people smiling, as happy as could be. I don’t know what they could’ve talked about. He didn’t speak English, and, I’m sorry, but I think it’s a fairly safe bet she didn’t speak Arabic.
That’s the image I took with me, though, that look back at them. I’ve remembered it over the years each time she came onto the “news” (whatever that even means anymore) and it’s the one I remembered when I heard she died last week: this shockingly-beautiful, startlingly-built creature next to a man the top of whose head didn’t go above her bicep. But they were both happy; and I liked her. Oh, hell, I guess I liked them both.
WE’LL HEAR A LOT about her and those left around her in the weeks and months to come. Years, probably, since so much money is involved. It won’t be pleasant for those of us who don’t have a taste for it, but that’s the way it goes.
I liked her, and so did you, even if you didn’t. No one in the public eye dies without making us stop and think. Shall we turn up our noses at her because she wasn’t Katharine Hepburn? She did pretty well with what she was given, so let’s not scoff because she wasn’t a great poet or leader. Will I mourn more deeply, say, when the sad day comes and Jimmy Carter passes away? Less, I think.
It didn’t go well for her, you see, because that kind of beauty isn’t a gift at all, it’s a burden.
Read the rest. You know you can’t stop looking.
Topics: celeb
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 10:21 pm on Monday, February 12, 2007
One Response to “Anna Nicole and the Shortest Arab in History”
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February 13th, 2007 at 12:50 pm
From the few times I saw her on TV, I mostly just felt sorry for her. She didn’t drug herself to the eyeballs because she was happy.