Larry Birkhead looks back

Larry Birkhead looks back
Birkhead ponders the love, losses and lessons of his dizzying dash from photographer to celebrity dad

Before Larry Birkhead became a household name, he was a Manual High School student eager to learn Journalism 101.

The cardinal rule was simple: "Cover the story, don't be the story."

Then he met Anna Nicole Smith.

"I kind of became part of the story," Birkhead said, with a shy smile.

But Birkhead has also become a master at shaping that story.

He's shrewdly sold pictures of himself and Dannielynn, the daughter he fathered with Smith. He's smartly surfed tabloid interest. And later this year, the reality TV show he's currently filming about his life will air on E!

"The show's about me, so it's only right that I should have some say," he said, although he does have one concern: "The more people see, the more people might get sick of me," he acknowledged.

It's mid-December, and the 35-year-old Birkhead is seated at a window-side booth in Lynn's Paradise Cafe. If Louisvillians were sick of him, it was hard to tell -- weekend brunchgoers kept stopping at his table to say hello. Some merely pointed and stared, others sought autographs and pictures, many offered kind words of support.

Through it all, Birkhead kept talking. After months of trying to secure a sit-down, Birkhead ended up talking for five hours, his eyes constantly on the move, rarely making direct contact. "I don't get it, really. I am flattered, though," Birkhead said, blushing after an SUV full of women pulled up to the window and began snapping the former paparazzo's picture. "I just think I'm an average guy."

Average? Not too many average guys generate 3,200,000 Google hits on their name. (That's fewer than Muhammad Ali's 5 million, but more than Rick Pitino, Diane Sawyer, Bob Edwards, My Morning Jacket and Col. Harlan Sanders -- combined.)

Not all of those mentions, of course, are kind. Some of them are cruel. Others are incredibly painful. To Google Birkhead is to relive the tabloid circus that followed Anna Nicole Smith's accidental drug overdose in 2007, and the subsequent trial that proved Birkhead was Dannielynn's father.

And there are insults. "Everybody's favorite famewhoring daddy," sneers celeb blogger Perez Hilton. "Ridiculous parent," adds E! talk-show host Chelsea Handler.

"My story was like an entertainment story that became a news story because of all the tragedy," Birkhead said.

But no matter what you've heard, or what you think about Birkhead, there's a lot about this story that hasn't been told. Some of that is because Birkhead keeps his intimate circle tight, and of those contacted for this article, few would speak for the record. And some of it is because you can spend five hours across a table from Birkhead and still feel like you don't know him very well.

There are layers of truth and reality to this story that even Birkhead himself might not fully understand.
Prologue

Birkhead and his twin brother, Lewis, attended Manual High School for two years before transferring to Doss.

"Louie was mischievous," Birkhead said. "(Manual) asked us not to come back. I was crushed … because I was in the journalism program."

After graduating from Doss in 1991, Birkhead got an apartment in Lyndon. He worked four different part-time jobs while attending Jefferson Community College, where he continued his quest to become a journalist before transferring to the University of Louisville.

Birkhead "liked being a storyteller" and taught himself photography. He soaked up everything his professors said but vehemently objected when he was advised to "start small" and begin his career at a small-town paper.

"I wasn't trying to be a know-it-all, because it worked against me a couple times," he said. "When you're from Kentucky, everyone wants to go out and do bigger and better things."

His big break came in 1998 when actress Gloria Stuart made an appearance on the Belle of Louisville.

Stuart had starred alongside Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio in the 1997 film "Titanic," which "was gangbusters at the time," Birkhead said.

Full of moxie, he walked up to the actress and started interviewing her. And he had his camera ready when Stuart leaned over the railing of the riverboat and emulated DiCaprio's "I'm king of the world" pose.

Birkhead sold the photograph to USA Today.

"In hindsight, the picture was probably the crappiest I've ever taken," he recalled. "… But it's all about timing. I was the only one there."

Birkhead, who had been selling real estate, parlayed that photograph into additional freelance opportunities. "I used my situation. … I've always been a salesman. I've been able to sell myself, my product."
The A-list

He was also able to sell himself to Tricia Barnstable Brown -- but it took a bit of convincing.

In the spring of 1998, Birkhead contacted Barnstable Brown about covering the celeb-filled Kentucky Derby party she hosts with her sister, Priscilla Barnstable.

"I told her I was covering the party for USA Today … and she hung up on me," he laughed.

Birkhead attended anyway.

"I snuck in. I don't know if I ever told her that. I wouldn't advise it today. She's got (the party) locked down tighter than Fort Knox," he said.

The next year, Birkhead called again at Derby time -- "and called and called," Barnstable Brown recalled. "He said he would be covering for USA Today, Us Weekly, Rolling Stone and Country Weekly magazine!"

She brushed him off again. "Well, we thought this so incredible that we did not believe him," Barnstable Brown said. "Finally we said, 'We need proof.' "

A short while later, faxes started streaming in to Barnstable Brown's Spring Drive home with verification of Birkhead's legitimacy.

"I must say that I think Larry was monumental in moving the Derby and Derby party celebs into the national entertainment press world," said Barnstable Brown. "… Larry went from someone who could not get credentialed to someone everyone was clamoring to get to cover their party."
'My most rewarding assignment'

Birkhead continued to freelance and graduated from U of L with a degree in communications.

In 2003, he returned to the Barnstable Brown Gala. There, he took photos of Anna Nicole Smith that "landed her in a half-page article in USA Today," Barnstable Brown recalled.

It wouldn't be the last time Birkhead and Smith made headlines.

At the 2004 party, Barnstable Brown said, Smith was "so trim and so gorgeous she sucked the oxygen out of the room." Barnstable Brown's eyes kept returning to Smith -- and she couldn't believe them when suddenly, "instead of taking pictures, Larry and Anna were kissing!"

In between canoodling, Birkhead's flattering photos of Smith landed in several national publications. Her camp was so impressed, it hired him to follow her participation at Camp Kindle, a Nebraska camp for kids with HIV.

"I remember Larry calling a couple of weeks after the party and saying, 'I am leaving to cover Anna at the camp, and I will be back in 10 days,' " Barnstable Brown said. "He did not come back."

Smith hired Birkhead as her personal photographer. He followed the former Playboy model/reality-show star almost 24/7.

"At first my job was to cover her for a story, and the next thing I know I turn up in her (reality TV) show and then at her house," Birkhead told former Courier-Journal writer David Walton in October 2004 during a phone call from Smith's Hollywood home. "It's my most rewarding assignment."

Birkhead then handed the phone to Smith, who added in a Marilyn Monroe-esque purr: "Larry keeps me occupied so I don't have to worry about being lonely anymore."

Walton first met Birkhead in 1999 when Birkhead tried out for a part in the "C-Store," a comedy being filmed in Louisville.

"He always wanted to be in the center of Hollywood life," Walton said. "I always used to say, 'If Larry put half as much into being a dad as he did promoting himself, he was going to be one helluva father."

On occasion, Birkhead would call Walton from California with tips about celebrities. Eventually he phoned Walton to talk about his involvement with Smith.

"He was really happy with where he was in life, and I was happy for him," Walton said. "What I liked most about Larry was his sincerity. You never felt like he was feeding you a bunch of fluff."
Tragedy and triumph

Birkhead claims he became Smith's "boyfriend and part of her family too." He said they talked about marriage and babies, despite their sometimes tumultuous relationship.

"She told me she thought I was an angel sent to protect her. … She'd also call me the devil sometimes when we'd fight," he said. "She would let me know, 'I'm Anna Nicole, so don't get too big for yourself.' "

In February 2006, Birkhead and Smith learned she was pregnant.

Three months after learning of the big news, Birkhead and Smith had a giant blowout.

"Next thing I know, she was gone," he said. That was the last time Birkhead saw Smith alive.

Birkhead declined to talk about Smith's alleged drug use during her pregnancy or go into detail about the ensuing chain of events that would hit the media. But these are the facts:

Dannielynn was born Sept. 7, 2006, in the Bahamas. The child's birth certificate named Smith's lawyer and alleged lover, Howard K. Stern, as the father, thus sparking a paternity suit that included Birkhead and several others who claimed paternity.

Three days later, Smith's 20-year-old son, Daniel, died in his mother's hospital room of an accidental drug overdose.

On Sept. 28, 2006, Smith and Stern held a commitment ceremony off the coast of the Bahamas.

Smith was found unconscious in a Florida hotel room on Feb. 8, 2007. She died at a nearby hospital at 39.

On April 10, 2007, Birkhead emerged from a Bahamian courtroom with his hands in the air. Tests had confirmed he was the baby's father.

"I hate to be the one who told you this, but I told you so!" he told the media in a press conference played on the news networks.

"My life changed (that day), and it's never been the same," Birkhead said during the recent interview.

Soon, Birkhead the paparazzo was being chased by the paparazzi.

"I was bogged down with phone calls from the same people I'd worked with who wanted to interview me," he said.

As Birkhead waited in the Bahamas for Dannielynn to be released to him, he received an invitation to the Barnstable Brown Gala.

Birkhead and his daughter arrived in Louisville May 1, 2007, via chartered plane -- with a camera crew from "Access Hollywood" aboard. He basked in the security of family and introduced his new daughter to her relatives.

Three days later, he attended the Derby Eve gala, this time as a guest.

"Larry got the loudest cheers from the crowd that year," recalled Tricia Barnstable Brown. "When you look back, he went from Kid Rock saying, 'Buddy, enough with the photographs,' to 'Do you have enough pictures?' to 'Hey, want to hang out in my hotel after the party?' "
Epilogue

Birkhead has been savvy, shrewd, even, about selling the images of himself and his daughter to various media outlets when, where and how he chooses.

"People think I'm being an opportunistic slimeball, but put yourself in my position," he said. "We're ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances, which can be a blessing or a curse."

The belief that he's rolling in the dough is false, he claims, adding that he generates money primarily via investments and royalties on photos he's taken, many of which are of Smith. He would not comment on whether he has been paid by particular media outlets for exclusive rights to portions of his story.

Birkhead said he hopes to be able to "take some of the slime off the situation" by donating time and money to charities. Among those he's most proud of supporting: He helped sponsor the construction of a Louisville home with Habitat for Humanity, and he's auctioning off scads of Dannielynn's clothing to benefit Camp Kindle.

Dannielynn was named sole heir of Smith's estate; Birkhead and Stern, Smith's executor, are co-trustees. The partnership works well.

"I want what's best for my daughter. Howard wants what's best for Anna's daughter," Birkhead said.

"I inherited a couple of good friends, but all of (Smith's) problems too," he said. "I got all her fights, all her legal battles."

That includes a legal battle worth millions of dollars. Dannielynn could inherit the cash if the estate wins a court fight over the oil fortune of Smith's late second husband, J. Howard Marshall.

"Last year I spent over $1 million in legal fees," Birkhead said.

For the time being, Birkhead stays focused on what's ahead.

"It's harder for me to sit back and reflect (than) for me to just go through life," he said.

That includes taking the time to mourn the death of his father, Larry L. Birkhead, who died Dec. 10, 2007.

"It's almost too much for one person," Birkhead said.

Birkhead said he's been burned by friends and rarely picks up his telephone. He's hyperprotective of Dannielynn and only allows publicity of her on his terms.

In addition to the reality show, Birkhead is working on a clothing line for Dannielynn. He's also completing a calendar of Smith that he had intended to finish when he first moved into her L.A. home.

Birkhead also continues to remodel his 10,000-square-foot home in Prospect, although he still lives primarily in California. For now.

"Louisville feels like a safe haven for me. The people here know the real me," he said.

At night, Birkhead crawls into bed with his daughter and weaves elements of their day into a story that always includes Smith and Dannielynn's late brother, whose pictures are prevalent throughout the home, as are photographs of Birkhead's father.

"I look around and see all these photos of people who've been plucked out of my life. My lesson in all this is there might not be tomorrow," Birkhead said.

Fame is "kind of like Vegas. You've got to know when to cash out," he said. "You could take away the cameras. So maybe I get in a restaurant a little quicker (or) someone asks me to walk a red carpet. But if I could take back everything I lost, I'd give it all back, all of it -- except my daughter."

Reporter Angie Fenton can be reached at (502) 582-7143.