Inside Anna Nicole Smith's secret love triangle with firefighter and aging oil baron after 'Playboy' fame
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: Anna Nicole Smith stole the hearts of many after she graced the cover of Playboy in the early 1990s. The blonde bombshell reportedly turned the head of a "handsome firefighter" who began dating her but later realized he wasn't the only man in her life.
The 1993 Playmate of the Year raised eyebrows when she tied the knot at age 26 with billionaire J Howard Marshall II, then 89, in 1994. Smith stood by Marshall during the last 14 months of his life and many accused her of marrying the oil tycoon for his money despite her maintaining that she loved him. Now, it has been claimed that the blonde bombshell was secretly dating firefighter Al Bolt who couldn't resist her charm after she became a local Houston celebrity with her Playboy debut, per excerpts from the book 'Great Big Beautiful Doll.'
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"I was attracted to her being presented as a hometown girl from Texas," Bolt said, as quoted by Radar Online. "Came up from dirt poor, made it big."
Bolt recalled that Smith's partying ways became obvious to him as their relationship progressed. At some point, he got the drift that billionaire oil tycoon Marshall was helping to fund her lavish lifestyle. She would later become the mogul's lawfully wedded wife. "She had a brand-new Toyota Celica," Bolt claimed. "And she got that before she did the Playboy layout. The money came from Marshall. I heard later that the old man liked to watch when [Smith] was with another girl. He was too old to do much for himself."
According to Bolt, Smith wanted to keep their relationship a secret from Marshall, claiming she would hush him up during phone calls. "She didn't want him to know that I was in her life," he said. Bolt and Smith parted ways after nine months. Excerpts from the book revealed that she resumed enjoying the bar scene after their break up, having made an appearance at a convention in New Orleans with her friend Missy and young son Daniel.
Joe Healy, who reportedly roped in the model as a spokesperson for his grocery store chain, remembered how she "worked well" with people all day as she signed autographs and greeted fans. However, her behavior would change and things allegedly "began to unravel at the end of the day when she started to get bored" and "wanted to start drinking."
Smith is mostly known for marrying Marshall when he was 89 and she was 26 on June 27, 1994. The pair stayed married until his demise 14 months later, but she never gained control of his estate since she wasn't included in the will.
Smith's estate eventually failed in its bid to obtain the millions she said she was promised seven years after she died at age 39, something that might be touched upon in an upcoming documentary about her life and meteoric rise to fame. The film, titled 'Anna Nicole Smith: You Don't Know Me', will be available to stream on Netflix on May 16.
“I want audiences to understand that Anna Nicole was a complex woman,” director Ursula Macfarlane told Netflix's Tudum. “She was someone who above all else wanted to be a good mother and a free-spirited exuberant woman who wanted to live life on her own terms. But her story is also a cautionary tale about how the desire for the American dream can swallow you up and spit you out, blurring your self-image and make you lose sight of your authentic self.”