The Lifetime Original Movie Anna Nicole tells the rags-to-riches story of the iconic supermodel who captured the world’s attention with her beauty and unconventional lifestyle. Exploring the sordid details that created her infamous persona, from stardom to untimely death, the world premiere will be on Saturday, June 29, at 8:00pm ET/PT.
The film, starring Agnes Bruckner (Lifetime’s The Craigslist Killer, Private Practice) as cultural icon Anna Nicole Smith, Academy Award and Golden Globe®-winner Martin Landau (Ed Wood), Oscar nominee Virginia Madsen (Sideways), Adam Goldberg (Saving Private Ryan) and Cary Elwes (The Princess Bride), is from executive producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron (Lifetime’s Steel Magnolias, Oscar-winning Chicago) and Judith Verno (Lifetime’s Drew Peterson: Untouchable, The Craigslist Killer, Natalee Holloway). Directed by Mary Harron (American Psycho, I Shot Andy Warhol) and written by John Rice and Joe Batteer (Blown Away, Chasers), Anna Nicole is from Sony Pictures Television.
Anna Nicole follows the swift rise and fall of Vickie Lynn Hogan (Bruckner), a Texas high school dropout and single mother with dreams of a better life. Realizing the power of her beauty, Vickie accepts a job as a dancer at topless bar, where she changes her name to Anna Nicole Smith and first makes her mark. With a new persona and a shocking marriage to octogenarian millionaire J. Howard Marshall (Landau), Anna’s career blasts off when Playboy features her in a pictorial spread that evokes comparisons to Marilyn Monroe. But after her husband’s death, Anna’s financial support ends and her hard-partying ways, excessive drinking, drastic weight fluctuation and endless pill-popping take their toll, inevitably setting the stage for the fading starlet’s tragic descent.
Hungry for celebrity, Anna launches her own hit reality show and soon gives birth to her daughter. But her newfound happiness and positive outlook on life is shattered when her son dies of an overdose while visiting his mother and newborn sister in the hospital. Unable to overcome the devastation over his death, in a tragic twist less than one year later, Anna herself dies of a fatal combination of pills, adding her name to a long list of icons who have succumbed to the temptations of fame.
Madsen portrays Anna’s mother Virgie, Goldberg is Anna’s lawyer, Howard K. Stern; Elwes plays Marshall’s son, E. Pierce; and Graham Patrick Martin (Two and a Half Men) stars as Anna Nicole’s son, Daniel.
Anna Nicole is executive produced by Verno’s Peace Out Productions and Zadan and Meron’s Storyline Entertainment in association with Sony Pictures Television. Mary Harron (American Psycho, I Shot Andy Warhol) directed the screenplay by John Rice and Joe Batteer (Blown Away, Chasers).