The Zeitgeist Woman:

Somehow Smith tapped into her emotional

vulnerability and managed to walk

the cultural high wire

She was a celebrity, an icon,

although no one seemed to be able to say

exactly what it was that she was famous for

I think she was a 21st century conceptual artist

I mean that in all sincerity

She really captures the new

perception of postmodern culture,

the idea of being a celebrity

for being a celebrity

Her reality show was, in its way, her masterpiece

Her fame, for all her efforts to increase them, was never really about her own assets. It was about what she aspired to become.

Smith's existence, and her fame, made Americans wonder whether it was possible to become famous simply by virtue of wanting to be.

Britain discovered that it was some time after the first series of Big Brother. But America got there first.

What was it about daft, zaftig Anna Nicole Smith that fascinated us? She was such a weird mix -- a curvaceous former Playmate who channeled Marilyn Monroe but partied like Courtney Love.

"It was the combination of Bacchus meets Venus, totally eroticized," says Robert Thompson, a professor of popular culture at Syracuse University. "She was just such a great kind of cultural jester."

And yet, as clownish as Smith could appear, there is no denying the collective sympathetic gasp that swept the nation Thursday -- especially among women of about her age -- upon the news that the 39-year-old celebrity had collapsed and died in a Florida hotel room.

Text messages flew among the thirtysomethings, and girlfriends called each other to ask if they'd heard the news.

While men tended to wonder what the surprise was -- hadn't she been on a one-way trip to oblivion for years? -- women seemed to regard her as that tragic girlfriend they all knew.

The one who always hooked up with the wrong guys, drank too much at the parties and was always trying to get her life straightened out.

Berry Jordan, a British Airways cabin attendant, said she was shocked when I told her that Smith had died.

"I don't even know that much about her," said Jordan, who was born in Germany, "except that she married an old guy for 'true love.' But it's kind of sad. I think she had a lot of things happen to her."

Certainly the electronic news outlets got the message. Smith was declared dead a little before noon West Coast time, and the cable news shows instantly went all-Anna Nicole, all the time.

CNN's Wolf Blitzer, who was doing a news-making interview with Vice President Dick Cheney just two weeks ago, turned his "Situation Room'' into a wall-to-wall Smith zone.

The word on the street was that CNN had made the right call if it wanted to attract viewers.

Elizabeth Lesch, a 22-year-old graduate of Smith College, immediately said she remembered when Smith married 89-year-old J. Howard Marshall II, a billionaire she met when she was dancing at a Houston strip club.

"I can't remember high school calculus," Lesch said, "but I can remember Anna Nicole's first husband. That's really sad."

Smith's great quest was to be the Marilyn Monroe of her time, but that was never going to happen.

"Marilyn was actually a very good actress. She had a certain something," said UC Berkeley Professor Robin Lakoff, who co-authored the 1984 book "Face Value: The Politics of Beauty."

"In Smith's case, it is not beauty. Is it the tragedy of her life, that she's had hardship? Maybe she is the person who deserves credit for starting with the least and did the most with it."

Smith certainly seemed to do that. When she married Marshall at age 26, she seemed to have hit the jackpot. But bitter lawsuits over the $1.6 billion estate tied up the money, and it seemed she'd disappear into oblivion among lawyers and court appearances.

But that's not what happened. Somehow Smith tapped into her emotional vulnerability and managed to walk the cultural high wire. She was a celebrity, an icon, although no one seemed to be able to say exactly what it was that she was famous for.

"I think she was a 21st century conceptual artist," Thompson says. "And I mean that in all sincerity. She really captures the new perception of postmodern culture, the idea of being a celebrity for being a celebrity. And her reality show was, in its way, her masterpiece."

That show, which opened to huge ratings and quickly plummeted off the screen, was definitely a warts-and-all kind of production.

"The first few were delightful," Thompson said. "Giving you that great feeling of your jaw dropping. I would say that she was fascinating in small doses."

After Smith's death, many people made the inevitable comparison with Paris Hilton, another celebrity who dominates the headlines but who doesn't really seem to have a discernable skill or talent.

"I don't get it with these people," said Lakoff. "They seem to have no qualification whatsoever other than being famous."

Thompson disagrees.

"There is no such thing as simply being famous for being famous," he said. "Something got you there. Think about it. There are lots of pretty, rich people. But she became famous, as opposed to all those other wasted people at the parties."

And, to the surprise of many, Smith became a sympathetic figure. When her 20-year-old son, Daniel, died unexpectedly in September, just three days after the birth of her daughter, women found it sad and tragic.

Lesch says she was not a particular fan of Smith, but she appreciated that she "loved her son so much."

That's the person her fans saw, not the bimbo who flounced and shimmied on the red carpet of Hollywood openings, but the girl who started out at Jim's Krispy Fried Chicken in Texas and dreamed that someday she'd be a Marilyn Monroe.

On Thursday, she was -- famous, beautiful and dead before she turned 40. C.W. Nevius @ SFgate