Don Surber of the Charleston (W.Va.) Daily Mail calls our attention to a timely article about Playmates who die young:

"The selection of Anna Nicole Smith as a Playboy Playmate in 1992 made her a member of an exclusive sorority. Her death at 39 put her in a more grisly club -- Playmates who haven't reached their 50th birthday."

This tragic roster most famously includes the very first Playmate (Marilyn Monroe, who died at 36) and 1980 Playmate of the Year Dorothy Stratten, who was murdered at age 20 by her estranged husband. The movie "Star 80," starring Eric Roberts in the role of Stratten's deranged ex, is a frightening examination of the nexus of beauty, sex and fame. As with the excesses of starlets like Britney Spears, the death of Anna Nicole (real name, Vicki Lynn Hogan Marshall) exposes the false promise of fame.

Both Britney and Anna Nicole achieved every starstruck kid's dream of being rich and famous, only to discover that (a) it doesn't magically guarantee happiness, and (b) there's no easy way out of the fame game.

In show business, generating publicity is essential to making money, so being stalked by paparazzi -- and having your every personal problem chronicled in the celebrity press -- is part of the job. (If the paparazzi ever stop paying attention, you know your career is in trouble.)

It's undoubtedly worst for those whose primary claim to fame is being young and sexy.

That package comes with an expiration date, creating market pressure to capitalize on the commodity while it's still hot.

Dying young has obvious advantages in this respect -- Marilyn Monroe is forever a bombshell blond, not a gray ghost.

The continuing tabloid TV talkfest about Ann Nicole Smith demonstrates the ironic fact that fame turns people into products, and even death doesn't stop the selling of sex.

-- Robert Stacy McCain, assistant national editor, The Washington Times