Thread: Wife No. 1 outlives, outclasses her rival

http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/ ... 8904c.html

Wife No. 1 outlives,
outclasses her rival

Maybe if she had stayed off the booze and pills, Anna Nicole Smith might have lived as long as her sugar daddy's very first wife, who remains full of vigor and verve at 102.
"She was still dancing up until about two weeks ago when the weather went bad," a caregiver for Eleanor Stevens reported yesterday. "But I would guess she is going to go back at it."

This quiet and devout first wife of J. Howard Marshall outlived the longtime mistress who became the second wife, as well as a subsequent mistress who died from "complications related to face-lift surgery."

With the deaths of her husband at 90 and now of his third wife, Anna Nicole Smith, at 39, Stevens is the last one standing, or in her case, ballroom dancing. You could say that Stevens won, but she is too cultivated to characterize it that way. She does not seem to make comments of any kind to the press and was described as "resting" when a reporter called yesterday.

"A refined, genteel, spiritual and religious woman," court papers note.

She was 26-year-old Eleanor Pierce when she married a Yale-educated lawyer-turned-oilman named J. Howard Marshall in 1931. They had two sons. The 30-year marriage ended in divorce in 1961, the settlement later deemed equitable.

In December 1961, 55-year-old Marshall married Betty Bohannon, apparently his mistress for nearly three decades. Marshall was minus a mistress, and he eventually filled that vacancy after visiting what he termed a "t---- bar" in 1982. There he met Diane (Lady) Walker.

"Lady Walker was one of the strippers who took everything off for J. Howard in return for his generous dollar bills," court papers note. "Thus, at the age of 78 he began his pursuit of Lady Walker."

Marshall showered Walker with some $15million in gifts. She took to sporting solid gold fingernails and so much jewelry that she gave Mr. T pause when she chanced to encounter him in Las Vegas.

"I take my hat off to you, Lady," the TV star supposedly said. "I've never seen anybody outdo me."

On July 9, 1991, Walker suffered fatal complications during plastic surgery. Marshall's second wife died from Alzheimer's disease that same year, leaving him in despair with a double vacancy.

That October, Marshall's driver took him to a topless bar called Gigi's in an effort to cheer him up. What court papers describe as a "period of deep despondency" magically ended when Marshall spied Anna Nicole Smith.

"While [Smith] danced, J. Howard tried to grab her breast," court papers would state. "Thus began J. Howard's aggressive pursuit of [Smith's] affection."

By the end of the week, J. Howard began asking Smith to fill both vacancies by becoming his wife, as well as his mistress.

"His proposals occurred frequently," court papers report. "He started buying her rings that increased in size and value."

Perhaps the gift dearest to Smith's heart was the lease to the house where her idol, Marilyn Monroe, lived and died. Smith and Marshall were married on June 27, 1994, at the White Dove Wedding Chapel in Houston.

Marshall attempted to adopt Smith's son from her first marriage, but the father balked. The couple tried to have children of their own, via what Smith described in court as "the normal way."

"When that did not work, J. Howard went to a fertility doctor," court papers report.

The efforts were for naught when Marshall fell ill. He died the following August at age 90, leaving a legacy of lives that court papers describe as "intertwined in need, driven by greed and lust."

Among those deposed in the legal battle between Smith and Marshall's younger son over the estate was the first wife. Eleanor Stevens had remarried a man of that surname and became a minister. Court papers report that the then-97-year-old "inquired of counsel how long the deposition would last, because she did not want to miss her dancing lessons later that day."

This was not the sort of dancing that brought Lady Walker and Anna Nicole Smith to J. Marshall's urgent attention. This was ballroom dancing, as befitted a cultivated minister of late vocation, and Stevens kept at it until two weeks ago. She is expected to resume when the weather turns nice, 102 years old and the last one dancing.

Originally published on February 13, 2007

Great lady and very impressive 102 and still dancing.

Think I'll wait for the movie