Blond Ambition

E! Entertainment Television--home to programming about dead-celebrity gossip and recycled scandals--has bagged a live one.

She is Anna Nicole Smith, the former Guess? Jeans and Playboy pinup who more recently was seen on TV as a grieving widow testifying for her piece of a Texas oil tycoon’s fortune.

Smith, hoping to reinstate her good image and also get out of the house, will now star in “The Anna Nicole Show” for E!, which is hoping that the plus-sized actress?/model?/guinea pig? will do for ratings and press attention what Ozzy Osbourne and clan did in recent months for MTV.

Osbourne, for all his addled rock-star drooling, seems to have a good deal more show-biz savvy than Smith, who met the media on Tuesday in Pasadena at a semiannual gathering of television critics and reporters from around the country.

Seated onstage with her “cast”--lawyer Howard Stern, purple-haired personal assistant Kim, makeup artist Angie and her poodle, Sugar Pie--Smith was asked what she hoped to get out of the show.

“People will see that maybe I have a little talent and will take me serious as an actress,” she said.

Someone else asked Smith who she thought her fans were. “Large women and college boys,” she said.

Smith was wearing a Goth fan’s amount of eye makeup and had squeezed herself into a tight black dress. She talked in her sleepy Texas drawl. Smith evidently likes the color pink, which was the motif in the small ballroom, where reporters were given pink “Anna Nicole Show” notepads and Godiva chocolates. The chocolates were not pink, however.

Sugar Pie was resting on Smith’s lap, recalling FDR’s beloved dog Fala. There was a large banner featuring the tagline for her show--”It’s not supposed to be funny, it just is.” Asked whether she thought E! was making fun of her by giving her a show, Smith said: “They probably are, but just like it says ... “

She never finished the thought, leaving reporters to speculate. But in an interview in her hotel room before the news conference, Smith said she feels she’s misunderstood--as a gold digger, as a dumb blond. “People assume, assume, assume,” she said.

Smith evidently needs money, and E! definitely needs a reason to be written about, so their relationship, you see, is symbiotic. Smith is still waiting to collect on her inheritance from her marriage to the late Texas oilman J. Howard Marshall II, who died in 1995 at age 90, but the money could be tied up for years in appeals. The couple had been married only 14 months before Smith was widowed. A Texas probate court awarded her $450 million of Marshall’s fortune, but the oil tycoon’s stepson, E. Pierce Marshall, appealed.

In March, a U.S. District judge in California trimmed the award to $88 million. Marshall has once again appealed, and the case is now set for the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals--the same court that recently ruled the “under God” part of the Pledge of Allegiance was in violation of the separation of church and state.

She’s been sober since 1995, Smith said, although she’s still a social drinker. Asked what she’d been doing lately, Smith said: “I was in my bed for six months, all depressed.”

To help her cope, she had gone to a therapist but not regularly. No, she had not consulted the therapist about whether doing a show on E! was the best way to emerge from depression.

As she talked, two cameras rolled--E! crews capturing every waking moment of her life. According to E! President Mindy Herman, the Anna Nicole “E! True Hollywood Story” always prompted a spike in the show’s ratings.

“My lawyer pretty much had me locked up,” Smith said, referring to Stern, her lawyer/co-star, who is not the Howard Stern on the radio. Her 16-year-old son, Daniel, who will also be in the show, didn’t think she should do this, but “he’s just doin’ it for mama cause he loves me,” Smith said.

“The Anna Nicole Show” debuts Aug. 4. Currently in production, the show has an order for 13 episodes. Crews are shooting Smith and company at her house, a leased $1.3-million home in Studio City. The home has five bedrooms and 5 1/2 bathrooms in 4,700 square feet, with city views.

The house is not the only location for the show, however, For instance, in one episode, Smith goes bowling.

Asked what she will demand if “The Anna Nicole Show” becomes a hit by E!’s standards and she can renegotiate her contract, Smith said: “More money.”