Title: Bombshell: Anna Nicole Smith comes clean on dad, sex symbols, hell and drinking beer Texas style. (Playmate of the Year) (Cover Story) (Interview) Authors: Foster, R. Daniel Citation: Los Angeles Magazine, Jan 1994 v39 n1 p20(4) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Subjects: Fashion models_Interviews People: Smith, Anna Nicole_Interviews Reference #: A14693282 ======================================================================== Abstract: Playmate of the Year Anna Nicole Smith is proud of her generous proportions, 39-28-39, and believes that her figure harkens back to the grand sex symbols of the 1950's such as her idol, Marilyn Monroe. Smith believes the naked body is beautiful and is proud of her Playmate status. ======================================================================== Full Text COPYRIGHT Los Angeles Magazine Inc. 1994 Forget that waif Kate Moss. Clocking in just shy of six feet, with Jessica Rabbit proportions (39-28-39), Anna Nicole Smith's Texas-built, beef-fed figure - reminiscent of her idol Marilyn Monroe's - is fast eclipsing.the wasted look. Her motto? "Eat!" A former breakfast cook from Mexia, Texas (population 7,000), Smith was going nowhere with jobs like Red Lobster waitress and Wal-Mart cashier in Houston. Then she spied an ad for a Playboy shoot, and she was off, landing a 1992 March cover, a May centerfold and ultimately 1993's Playmate of the Year. But the real exposure came when she was nabbed as the post-Claudia Schiffer Guess? jeans model. And next month, Smith makes her bow on celluloid both as Fred Ward's naughty girlfriend in Naked Gun 33 1/3 and with Paul Newman in The Hudsucker Proxy. I spoke to Smith about drinking beer Texas style, her long-lost dad, an orthodontia fetish, Adam and Eve and going to hell. (Hint: She doesn't want to.) You're from a real "show-off" state. After modeling in the city, are you still a Texas gal? Well, I grew up in a small town, where there was totally nothing to do. All the kids would go up and down the drag and talk and drink beer. I did it, too - me and my friend Jo Lynn. Everyone in Texas drinks beer. I drink it when I go home. I've got a ranch there, where I can chase the chickens and pigs and play in the mud and run the horses. But I think Mexia is a place to grow up in and then retire. I don't think there's a middle. So should just get out? Yeah. You should get out during the middle part 'cause all women do is get pregnant. Real young girls get pregnant and have babies. So, apparently, you escaped all of that. I did? No, I got pregnant there and had a baby. But I wanted to get pregnant. Luckily, I got out when I did or I'd probably have five kids now. I got married at 17. But my husband was really physically abusive and jealous and would never let me go out. And I thought, Well, if I was to have a baby, I would never be lonely - because he was at work all day. So I just kind of flushed my pills down the toilet. And then I got pregnant and had Daniel. I left my husband when my son was six months old. Before you got pregnant, you weighed only 125. But then you shot up to 211. What did you learn from - I just always felt fat -and that was when I weighed 125. My bones used to stick out so bad in my jeans. I looked really disgusting. I would never get that small again. Now you're made a career out of being larger. You have that '50s Jayne Mansfield look. More and more women are coming out about their weight. I get thank-you letters all the time. Or they stop me on the street and say, "I'm so Glad you're here - that you weigh as much as you do. Finally, there's a woman and not a waif." I used to dress up like Marilyn Monroe. I have all her songs and movies. Most men, I think, like a womanly figure. So you message to women is? Eat! I eat whatever I want. I ate everything when I got pregnant. I didn't care. Your success has come so fast. Are you being spoiled by all the attention? Oh, no, I like it. I love the paparazzi. They take pictures, and I just smile away. I've always liked attention. I didn't get it very much growing up, and I always wanted to be, you know, noticed. Your parents divorced when you were an lnfant. Does that have to do with the attention you missed? I always wanted a father. I used to try to find him by looking him up in the phone book. You were reunited with him lost year. I found out he lived an hour away, in Huntsville. I was scared to call him because of all the bad things my mom used to say. But I found out she was really the bad one. I was real emotional and cried when we met. I said, "You're my daddy!" It filled a kind of hole. Yeah, I always wanted a father. He's really nice. He makes art out of driftwood - that's what he does for a living. Had he already seen your centerfold? Yes. He said, "Oh, my gosh, I've looked at you." I just laughed. He laughed, too, and his face turned all red. It was funny. Your son is now seven - the age when kids' reasoning ability kicks in. Does having a mom who's a Playmate confuse him? No. He's seen everything - even my videos. He just thinks, It's Mom. He's more like a father or a husband. He says, "Mom, if you don't call me by this time, I'm going to be very worried." And if I don't call him, he's at the door, shaking, crying because he's afraid that something happened to me. He's so protective. Maybe he hasn't quite grown out of his Oedipus complex. Define the word Oedipus. In Greek mythology, Oedipus killed his father and married his mother. I don't think there will be a problem there. But I imagine you're very close. Do you - Very close. He's slept with me since birth. And if he's not sleeping with me, I'm like - [shivers]. Hmmm, you must want him to have a father - because you didn't how one. I wish he could have one. Not that I haven't looked and tried. Men are intimidated. They don't really approach me. Why do you think that is? I don't know. But I wish they would quit it. I guess they're scared of rejection. I don't know what men think. I'm afraid that if they really get to know me, they might not think of me as, you know, this beautiful woman. What's your ideal man? The Marlboro man. I just love cowboys. I love all kinds of men. But they've got to love my son, because we come as a package. I understand you have a teeth fetish. Yeah, I love men with braces. If I see someone with braces, I'll just stare at their mouth, like m a daze. What about your own looket You've had this ongoing feud with Liz Smith about whether those are, um, real. Well, it's not a feud. I mean, she was always good to me. And then I was upset that she would say something like that without ever finding out the facts. People are always going to talk. Have you ever had any "alterations"? I haven't had silicone implants, no. You've had something else? I was pregnant and gained all that weight. When I went back down, my nipples kind of pointed downward, so I had them moved from here to here. I see ... Sex sells. Are you comfortable being at the center of that kind of marketing effort? Why not? It's fun. I was worried about it at first, because I have this thing about going to hell. I don't want to go. I always used to think, Am I going to hell for this? God is not going to like this. I talked to a lot of people, and they said, "Adam and Eve was born naked. God thinks your body's a beautiful thing." So that helped me to do it. You believe in hell? I believe in hell - and heaven. And what would put someone in hell? Being Playmate of the Year? I don't think so. I thought about it for a while - just thinking back to Adam and Eve and how they were naked and how God loved their bodies. They never had clothes until she ate that stupid apple. [Laughs.] So, describe hell to me. I think you burn eternally. You just burn forever and ever and ever. And what's heaven like? I think heaven's a beautiful place. Gold. You walk on gold floors. Belief in heaven and hell seems sort of black and white. You could do something wrong and out of the blue be damned forever. isn't that kind of a cruel system? It's cruel. But, you know, you've gotta be a good person.