Anna Nicole's other life
When they first met, the then Vickie Lynn Hogan and Sandi Powledge were just friends. But over time that friendship turned into a tumultuous love affair.
By PEGGY O'HARE
Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle
Long ago, before blond bombshell Anna Nicole Smith left Houston to find international fortune and fame, she fell in love with a girlfriend who would become her closest companion for three years.
Before stardom ever cast a spotlight on the fallen actress and model, before Smith vaulted into the upper stratosphere of wealth by marrying an 89-year-old Houston oil tycoon, before allegations of drug abuse and gold digging ran rampant, it was just Sandi and Vickie.
Vickie Lynn Hogan, which was Smith's real name, was just a stripper in those days. But she aspired to be a model, and she was poised on the cusp of stardom, soon to win recognition on the pages of Playboy and several high-profile advertising gigs that would plaster her buxom image on billboards and pin-ups across the country.
Sandi Powledge was the furthest thing from glamour — unpretentious, grounded, fun-loving and real.
They met in a gay bar in northwest Harris County in 1991 and would become lovers. It was an exhilarating time, one that Powledge, now 46, remembers fondly, even as she mourns the death of the woman she once loved.
Powledge's recollections evoke a picture of a woman far more vulnerable and human than Smith ever let on during her moments in the public eye.
"I don't know if she ever believed anyone really loved her," Powledge said sadly, recalling her tumultuous relationship with the famous model and TV star during a recent interview in the small northeast Texas town of Winnsboro. "She was just hungry for love, hungry for approval — just like a bucket with a hole in the bottom."
Although the women had not spoken in 12 years by the time Smith, 39, died of undetermined causes in a Florida hotel room on Feb. 8, Powledge is grieving as if their last contact had occurred yesterday.
She is tormented by thoughts of the emotional turmoil she is certain Smith felt at the death of her 20-year-old son, Daniel, and wonders if the famous star had anyone she could truly depend on or turn to in her darkest hours.
"I feel a lot of guilt that I wasn't there," said Powledge, with tears streaming down her face. "You think even though you don't talk, you can always have a time to make things right. ... You always think there's time.
"She was a kind, loving, caring person who didn't know how to handle what happened to her. When I look back, I'm going to remember how she was with me. ... I've got a lot of great memories."
From the beginning, their relationship defied convention. Powledge, the plainer looking and less feminine of the pair, was pursued by Smith, a stunning beauty who turned heads even back then.
Noticing the numerous women fawning over Smith in the Hill, a gay bar on Kuykendahl, Powledge was polite, said hello, but showed little interest during their first introduction 15 years ago. But Smith, it seems, noticed her. She sent Powledge a dozen roses at work and called repeatedly to ask her out.
At first, Powledge wouldn't go because, she said, she was scared. After awhile, she gave in.
"I guess I was afraid she'd stop asking me," she mused.
For their first date, Smith, then 23, showed up at Powledge's house in a working-class area on Aldine Westfield Road in a stretch limousine. She brought a change of clothes for Powledge to wear before they went to an upscale steak house on FM 1960.
"She wanted to take me somewhere nice, and I was just in jeans. Maybe she thought I didn't have anything nice to wear. ... She brought a dress, shoes, a bra and panties. Everything fit. I don't know how she knew my size," Powledge said.
They had a wonderful time. Smith was quite unlike the TV personality she would later project. Instead of the dingy blonde who would pout and flaunt herself for the cameras, Powledge remembers a woman who was generous, funny and insecure.
"She was quiet. She was shy. I was so nervous to see her, but then I'd see she was shaking. She would grin a lot. ... I think she was a little more insecure than I thought she would be," said Powledge, who was 30 when their romance began.
"There was a mutual attraction and a caring," she said. Smith was "just innocent. She just seemed like a kid to me. She was so young — very beautiful. She wore very little makeup, just natural. I think that's when she looked her best."
After their first date — captured for posterity in a picture that shows Smith sitting on Powledge's lap at the Hill following their dinner — the women saw each other all the time.
Powledge recalls their first year together as one filled with happiness. The two exchanged vows of commitment on the diving board at Smith's home in Spring, and Smith gave Powledge a diamond ring. Smith avoided wearing a ring herself because of the questions it might raise, Powledge said.
They shared some wild times, frequently going out on drinking binges and not knowing how to get home. Smith once stopped her car and asked a passing jogger to drive them home after a particularly lively spell of inebriation.
The pair also got tattoos to declare their love for one another. Smith paid for a tattoo of her face and name to be inked across Powledge's shoulder blade, strategically placed to cover another woman's name there. Smith later received a tattoo of Powledge's initials below her bikini line, unable to display such art anywhere else on her body because of her career as a model.
Powledge blushes, giggles and covers her face with her hands when asked if Smith reciprocated her affections in the bedroom.
"She was very considerate. Very sweet. Very," she said bashfully.
One day in March 1992, Smith beckoned Powledge to the car. "I want to show you something," Smith told her. The blond beauty drove to a convenience store and purchased a Playboy magazine, showing Powledge the first pictures that would skyrocket her to fame.
Smith would soon be named the magazine's Playmate of the Year and would go on to become the face for Guess? Jeans in a high-profile advertising campaign that would catapult her image and 5-foot, 11-inch frame before millions.
"Look, look," she would nudge Powledge, as they drove by one of the many billboards featuring Smith's face.
Powledge likens those heady days to a fairy tale.
"I went grocery shopping in limousines. My lover was Playmate of the Year. I got my nails done every week. It was a different world," Powledge said. "All of a sudden, it's not your world — she just let me share hers for a little while."
The early days of their relationship — and Smith's first modeling gigs — were captured in a photo album Powledge made.
It includes pictures of their days together in Houston, a shot of them kissing on a bed, shots of Smith posing topless on her baby grand piano and on horseback at her ranch in the Cypress-Rosehill area and scenes of Smith at work — posing in a bathing suit on the beach, getting her makeup done and lounging about with a tiger.
Powledge soon followed Smith to New York, where they stayed in an apartment with Smith's young son, Daniel. For four months, Powledge accompanied her girlfriend to her public appearances and runway shows and watched her sign autographs.
She was fond of Daniel, who had an innocence like his mother in those days and was always full of questions.
At Smith's cajoling, Powledge wore wigs and dresses to give herself a softer look in New York — a move that Smith felt was necessary to hide the true nature of their relationship, Powledge recalls.
But Smith was incapable of monogamy. She was bisexual, not exclusively lesbian, Powledge said — and Powledge would soon discover evidence that Smith had been with others, finding photographs of her with men.
Still, Smith expected exclusivity from Powledge and gave her a pager and cellular phone so they could remain in constant contact even while Smith was out of town.
"She told me, 'I'd better not hear music in the background when I call you.' She didn't want me at a club with my friends when she's going off doing her thing," Powledge said.
Powledge said she could not understand Smith's insecurity, especially given her exceptional beauty and success.
"Here I am dating the Playmate of the Year — please! What in the world is there to be insecure about? She's gorgeous, I love her, she makes me laugh," Powledge said.
Smith's infidelity became a source of fights. Smith's aunt, Elaine Tabers, who along with her husband lived with their famous niece at the ranch in the Cypress-Rosehill area, would often persuade Powledge to make peace.
"Elaine would always tell me, 'Don't say anything. If you love her, leave it as it is,' " Powledge recalled. "She'd tell me to hang on and work this out."
But there were other concerns, as well. Even in those early days of fame, Smith had a taste for pills and alcohol, Powledge said.
"I'd say, 'Can't we just have a night without it?' She'd say, 'Yeah.' But as the night wore on, I could always tell by her slur or the look on her face," said Powledge, who would later struggle with drugs herself, long after breaking up with Smith.
"At the time, I didn't have a problem. I could drink or not drink," Powledge said.
Always in the background during this time, lavishing attention and gifts on Smith, was J. Howard Marshall II.
As Marshall, a wealthy oil tycoon, became older and sicker, Smith began seriously considering his marriage proposals. She asked Powledge for her opinion.
"I think she cared about him like a grandfather, like a dad. He was good to her, and he loved her. She loved him — I just don't know to what extent," Powledge says today.
Powledge recalls Smith showing off her bridal gown as she prepared for her 1994 nuptials, even while Powledge continued to wear the ring Smith had given her.
As Smith grew more famous and left town more often, their contact grew less frequent, and Powledge tired of waiting for her. She moved back to her hometown of Winnsboro, 100 miles east of Dallas, without telling Smith, sparking a fight. Smith angrily demanded that Powledge return to Houston to see her, and Powledge did, driving 260 miles through a violent rainstorm with her brother.
The final blow came before Smith married Marshall, when Powledge drove six hours down to Houston to see Smith in a hospital following a surgical procedure.
Also in the hospital room that day was Smith's boyfriend Clay Spires. Powledge demanded that Smith make one of them leave. Later in the weekend, back at Smith's home in Spring, Powledge discovered evidence that led her to believe Smith had slept with Spires. The two women fought and Powledge left. They never spoke again.
"It was just too much. I had a life up here; I had my painting business. I was tired of being at her beck and call," Powledge said. "I'm there every time she says jump. You've got to step back at some point and say, 'Sandi, where's your dignity?' "
After their breakup, Powledge said, she wasn't with anyone else for a long time. Over the years, she kept tabs on Smith's life through the media — by glancing at magazines in the store, watching the occasional TV news story.
Memories, of course, lingered. Even today, a song from The Bodyguard soundtrack, Whitney Houston's Run to You, which Smith considered "her" song for Powledge, still makes her cry.
Through the years, she never thought of her former girlfriend as Anna Nicole, only as Vickie.
"Anna Nicole wasn't mine," Powledge said. "I think that name change is what changed everything. That's when everything started changing."
The prospect of a brief reunion surfaced years later, she said, when Powledge was subpoenaed during the infamous 2000 civil trial regarding Marshall's estate following his death at age 90. Smith drew widespread media coverage for her colorful courtroom behavior during the trial, as she fought Marshall's son, E. Pierce Marshall, for half of her late husband's millions.
Powledge said she was not summoned to Houston to answer questions, but was interrogated in her home county about when her relationship with Smith had ended and if Smith had led Marshall to sign a will in California. Told at one point that Smith might attend her deposition, Powledge said she became so nervous that she threw up in the bathroom. But Smith never appeared.
As Smith soared to greater and greater fame, especially during her two-year reality TV show on the E! network, Powledge's life took a turn for the worse.
"I lost my way and kind of lost my mind," she said.
Powledge battled a five-year drug addiction, selling everything she owned and wasting away to 100 pounds. She later moved into a Salvation Army facility, where she lived for a year while going through a recovery program, and she says she is now sober. She is between homes, staying with friends and relatives, and is working toward rebuilding a stable life.
When Smith's son died from a combination of drugs in the fall of 2006, Powledge knew her former girlfriend had suffered a loss she probably could not survive. Powledge thought about reaching out to her, but worried she wouldn't be able to break through Smith's considerable entourage to make contact. She no longer had good phone numbers for two of Smith's aunts in Texas who had been like family to her during her romance with the famous model.
"I know she missed Daniel terribly. I can't imagine what she was going through," Powledge said. "He was everything to her."
No matter what the cause of Smith's death is ultimately determined to be, Powledge shares others' assessment that she likely died of a broken heart.
Powledge's mother broke the news of Smith's death, which she said was far better than learning about it on TV. In the days that followed, she avoided most of the media coverage probing every aspect of the case.
"It makes me sick," she said of the media frenzy. "Let her rest. They just wore her down. ... I'm tired of seeing people with their opinions who didn't even know who the hell she was."
She wishes they had somehow renewed contact and said the many years that passed since their breakup don't make the blow of Smith's death any easier to absorb.
"I truly believe and know in my heart that she loved me," Powledge says today. "But I'm not sure she believed I loved her. Was I just someone else that deserted her?
"It hurts me. It's like, was there anyone there that could support her? Was there anyone there she could really turn to? ... I don't know who was there in the end who really loved her. Where did the comfort come from? Was there any? I wish I knew."
peggy.ohare@chron.com
Houston Chronicle 2-23-07
Linear Mode
