Blonde Ambition (21 page)

   On the drive home from that secret meeting, Mark Speer, who was in the car, overheard the discussions taking place between Larry Birkhead and Ford Shelley. They were talking about Howard's offer to Larry behind closed doors. The deal was if Larry agreed not to contest Howard remaining as executor of Anna's estate, then Larry could have his baby.

   Mark Speer said later that he was surprised Larry seemed receptive to the idea. As conversations with Howard continued over the next few days, Howard sweetened the deal. If Larry agreed not to contest the will and allowed Howard to remain executor of Anna's estate as well as keep control of Anna's "name and likeness," Howard would:

• Drop all legal claims for custody of Dannielynn and "give you your baby."

• Allow Larry to "run the show" in California.

• Let Larry live in Anna's Studio City house. . . .

• Pay all the bills.

• Provide several thousand dollars a month in allowance . . . and pay for a rental car.

   He also promised Larry that he would "take care of you the way I took care of Anna."

• • •

With word of all these offers, Debra Opri began arguing with her client, telling him not to talk to Howard. She felt that by his talking to the enemy of this litigation, he was allowing Howard to lure him in. She worried that since they were so close to getting a positive resolution in court without any side deals, Larry would be making a big mistake cutting a deal.

   As they prepared for the funeral of Anna Nicole Smith, why was Larry going against both his family's wishes and those of his counsel?

   What did Howard K. Stern have on Larry Birkhead?

There was a Hollywood-style red carpet—suitable for premieres and award ceremonies—though Anna Nicole Smith wouldn't walk it and no one would get to see her pretty dress. Anna would make her last trip down the red carpet in a casket draped in a pink coverlet, adorned with feathers, ribbons and her big inimitable autograph in a trail of Swarovski crystals. The final embellishment on the coffin drape was a big smiley face, Anna's cute trademark in her famous signature.

   Many onlookers from around the world gathered outside the church. The majority were Bahamian and American tourists. They watched the white hearse roll in, which was being escorted by three sheriff cars, a police van and five motorcycle police. They also bought snacks and sodas from vendors who had set up in the parking lots of the church and the adjacent shopping mall. Three helicopters hovered in the blue skies above the crowd, capturing aerial photos and video for media outlets around the globe.

   With his balding pate shining in the hot sun, Richard Milstein, the court appointed guardian ad litem for Dannielynn, pontificated to those congregating outside the church, asking for "respect and solemnity." He told the crowd, "Today we share our grief with all of you. . . . Today we come to you to carry out the final, most sacred, solemn act provided to any individual.

   "Unfortunately, in a time when life should have been reaching its highest peak for her, she received both a blessing and a curse," said Dannielynn's temporary guardian, the man that Anna Nicole never even knew. "She joyously gave birth to her only daughter, Dannielynn, and devastatingly, three days later, she lost her only son, Danny. If one were to write a Greek tragedy, one could not write a script as sorrowful and as hurtful as this."

   Like a crowd at a Roman coliseum, the spectators, held behind steel barricades, booed and cheered as guests arrived at the white columned church. Walking into the church, attendees were judged by the crowd on an unwritten set of parameters and given either a cheering thumbs-up or a jeering thumbs-down. It was a fittingly inappropriate scene for the finale of the Anna Nicole Show.

   But overall the Bahamian people themselves could not have been more gracious and endearing to their visiting guests. Many Bahamian citizens and reporters wanted to make sure their island was portrayed in the best and fullest light possible, not just by the Anna Nicole Smith saga. Fearful of becoming "another Aruba," a reference to the unsolved Natalee Holloway case, islanders were worried about how the story might affect tourism on their idyllic vacation spot. Officials handled it as best they could. There was no way they could have foreseen the crush of people who would surround every event even remotely related to Anna Nicole.

   In fact, a few days before the funeral, when I was interviewing Virgie Arthur outside the main downtown courthouse in Nassau among a pack of many other reporters and cameras, the scene turned into sheer bedlam. With no crowd control to protect her from the voracious media and onlookers, a mob scene overtook Anna Nicole's mother. The horde swarmed around her, packed in like sardines, trying to get any words from Anna Nicole's mother. It became so crowded and chaotic that my feet were literally not even touching the ground for a few seconds. There were spectators climbing on top of her limousine just to take a quick picture, just to get a glimpse.

   It had been a week not just of in-your-face maneuvering by the media, but also of a lot of behind-the-scenes negotiations among the interested parties. Howard K. Stern had been privately floating the idea to Ford Shelley that he would give up Anna's new boat and her new yet to be lived in waterfront home in Nassau in exchange for keeping "Horizons," the house in which Howard was currently living and the one Ben and Ford were trying to kick him out of.

   The night before the funeral, Howard presented Larry with a contract and tried "strong-arming" him into signing a $250,000 deal with
Entertainment Tonight
. The arrangement gave the media outlet sole access to the funeral with the proceeds supposedly going to a trust fund for little Dannielynn. Several people involved feared that even if
Entertainment Tonight
had good intentions, the parties were wary the money might not end up where Howard claimed, or he would cut a separate deal on the side.

   According to sources close to the case, Richard Milstein himself was sending around the contract to the parties. Both Virgie's and Larry Birkhead's legal teams were suspicious of Howard and, by now, also Milstein. Neither Virgie nor Larry wanted to sign the document. Milstein told the parties he also didn't want to be the one to have to sign it, leading some to think that he didn't want to get his hands dirty with any media related deal. The parties found it ironic that he personally was circulating this deal, given that he had slammed everyone in the Florida courtroom for accepting anything from the media—whether it be money, a flight, or a free hotel.

   Each of the parties worried that it would look bad to sign any media deal on the eve of Anna's funeral. But in the end,
Entertainment Tonight
had the only video cameras inside. Though Milstein had been visibly cold to Howard K. Stern during the Florida trial, by the funeral they seemed like old chums. During the service, Richard Milstein sat next to Mark Steines, co-anchor of
Entertainment Tonight.

Virgie Arthur had invited me to be her guest at the funeral, and I didn't realize until I got there that I was the
only
on-air member of the press allowed inside, besides the crew of
Enter
tainment Tonight
. But when I arrived at the bottom of the church steps, I soon discovered my name was not on "the list." Though my producer's name, unrecognizable to Howard K. Stern, had been successfully included, my name was mysteriously missing.

Ford Shelley and his family were also supposed to go to the funeral, but were told by Howard the night before that he changed his mind. Howard said the church was full, which was far from the truth. After the secret meeting in Howard's hotel room in Florida, Howard was arguing again with Ben Thompson and Ford Shelley over who owned the house, which Howard wanted to now desperately keep, even if it was only to save face with the public. Howard had in fact told Ford that he had contacts with certain Bahamian officials and Ford might be arrested if he dared step into the Bahamas. Ford was worried his family would be in danger if he came to the island, and didn't push it, therefore missing his chance to bid his final farewell to a dear friend.

   Fortunately, I was allowed to enter by the funeral official at the door, who said he knew I had been invited, as he overheard many discussions about it. He told me to enter the church and that we'd "figure it out inside." I didn't find out until later that Milstein and Howard K. Stern's attorneys had tried feverishly to remove my name, only to be overridden by the other parties who stated that the funeral should not be closed off to people they trust. I also later discovered that as part of the carefully negotiated funeral "deal," the various authorized parties agreed that two of them (of Howard, Virgie, and Larry) had to strike a name from the list in order for that person's invitation to be rescinded. Larry told me that Howard pleaded with him to strike my name, as Howard wanted
Entertainment Tonight
to have the "exclusive," but Larry insisted on keeping me on the list. And Virgie was not budging at all.

   I waited in the back of the church, and from that vantage point immediately noticed the disparity in the size of the crowd on either side of the room. The pews on the right, Howard's side, were quite full, including where they placed Larry Birkhead, Richard Milstein, and their guests. Only a handful of people sat on the left, Virgie's side, which included Dr. Perper and two others, one of them my producer. Howard, as I discovered, had convinced Larry to relinquish 45 of his 50 allotted seats so that Howard could accommodate all his guests on one side. Howard had 95 seats; Larry had 5. It was supposed to have been 50/50.

   "Anna would have wanted a huge funeral," Jackie Hatten said. "And she would have never wanted one in a foreign country where all her friends and fans couldn't go and where she didn't know anyone very well. She also would have wanted to be buried in an all-white casket with pink satin inside. . . . Why was there a brown casket and closed services if Howard was really doing what Anna wanted? If that was really the goal."

   Peter Nygard agrees. "Anna would have wanted to lie in state," he told me. "She would have wanted people walking by that casket for days."

   At the funeral I was privy to several interesting conversations, including learning that Dr. Perper told Dr. Khris Eroshevich, "What you told me was very useful" and thanking her for her cooperation in helping him reach his conclusions.

   I was also thrust into making a decision that I never imagined. The funeral was supposed to begin, and Anna's mother Virgie was still nowhere to be found. Virgie's delay made the situation in the back of the church noticeably uncomfortable and tense. Howard wanted to start, and start now. His people were beginning to make a ruckus with the funeral directors. Patrik Simpson, one of Howard's most vocal defenders and friend, was loudly asking, "Where's the bitch? Where's that bitch? Let the funeral go on without the bitch," referring to Virgie who still had not shown up. I overheard people close to Howard celebrating Virgie's absence, going so far as to say how good Howard was going to look in the press, if Virgie missed her own daughter's funeral.

   David Giancola, the director of
Illegal Aliens
, Anna's last film, told me, he was infuriated that Virgie made them sit in church and wait while Anna's body sat outside in a hearse. "Let's get her body and hijack it," he told several of Howard's friends.

   Anna's friend designer Pol Atteu and others said that was a bad idea, responding, "It's surrounded by Bahamian police."

   "Well," David Giancola said. "Anna wants to get buried."

   Ron Rale, who officially broke the news with me on air that Anna had died, came over and asked me if I knew where Virgie was or if she was even coming. He said he had heard some buzz that Anna Nicole's mother was trying to stop the burial.

   In fact, I knew where Virgie Arthur was. Virgie was at the Bahamian courthouse filing a last minute petition to put a stop to the burial. As her daughter's body lay inside a mahogany coffin in the back of a hearse parked in the hot Bahamian sun, Virgie and her attorneys were appealing to Justice Anita Allen to have Anna's body sent back to the United States.

   I stalled Ron Rale with a few questions, and then told him what I knew and had already reported publicly on the air. He ran to the front right side of the church (Howard's side) where I watched him tell Howard the news as he sat in the front pew. Ron then returned to the back of the church and asked me questions about the filing. Seeing this as an opportunity to talk face to face with Howard, I smiled and said, "If Howard wants to know, why don't you have him come back here and talk to me himself." Ron walked to the front, whispered in Howard's ear, and Howard sauntered to the back of the church, wearing ribbons of black and pink on his lapel.

   Meekly he asked, "When is she getting here? We can't keep holding this thing up." I said I didn't know, that I thought she was only a few minutes away. I truly did not know how long the hold up would be, but thought she was on her way. He then said in a huff, "We're going to set a deadline. We're not waiting." He turned to Ron Rale and gave a nod.

   "Wheels up, boys," Ron Rale said to the funeral directors. "Let's get this show on the road."

   One of the funeral directors then came over to me and whispered, "What do you think I should do? They want this to go on without her?"

   "This is only going to happen once," I said. "It would be really sad if a mother missed her own daughter's funeral." He agreed and told me he was going to try to come up with some excuse to stall the increasingly loud clamoring from Howard and his people.

   Once Virgie's courthouse pleas had fallen on deaf ears, she had gotten caught up in the traffic jam created by the highest-profile funeral the Bahamas has ever seen. When Virgie Arthur finally arrived at her daughter's funeral in a white stretch limousine, Patrik Simpson loudly announced to those of us standing in the back of the church, "The bitch is here!" But that was minor compared to what she herself heard outside.