Posted on 02/08/2007 1:17:38 PM PST by NormsRevenge
HOLLYWOOD, Fla. - Anna Nicole Smith, the former Playboy playmate whose bizarre life careened from marrying an octogenarian billionaire to the untimely death of her son, died Thursday after collapsing at a South Florida hotel, one of her lawyers said.
Smith, 39, collapsed and was unresponsive while staying at the Seminole Hard Rock Cafe Hotel and Casino, said the attorney, Ron Rale. She was rushed to a hospital.
"She checked in Monday at 8 p.m. as a guest. She was due to check out tomorrow," said Danielle Giordaano, a spokeswoman for the hotel.
Smith had been a tabloid staple even before she became Playboy's playmate of the year in 1993. Readers were fascinated by her bombshell good looks, her marriage to an elderly billionaire and subsequent court fight over his estate, her weight fluctuations, and last year, the sudden death of her 20-year-old son, Daniel Smith.
A former topless dancer, she made her name squeezing into Guess jeans. She resembled the late actress Marilyn Monroe, a similarity played up in her Guess magazine ads, billboards and department store displays.
In 1994, she married 89-year-old oil tycoon J. Howard Marshall II, the head of oil-based Koch Industries, which is part of a family fortune worth at least $400 million.
He died in 1995, setting off a feud with her former stepson, E. Pierce Marshall, over whether she had a right to his estate.
A federal court in California awarded Smith $474 million in a complicated legal twist that began after she declared bankruptcy. That was later overturned.
But in May, the U.S. Supreme Court revived her case, ruling that she deserved another day in court in her battle with her former stepson.
The justices said only that federal courts in California could deal with her case despite a Texas state court ruling that Marshall was the sole heir to the estate.
Then, the stepson died June 20 at age 67. But the family said the court fight would continue.
Daniel Smith died Sept. 10 in his mother's hospital room in the Bahamas, just days after she gave birth to a daughter.
An American medical examiner hired by the family, Cyril Wecht, said he had methadone and two antidepressants in his system when he died. Low levels of the three drugs interacted to cause an accidental death, Wecht said.
Meanwhile, the paternity of her now 5-month-old daughter remained a matter of dispute.
She was born Vickie Lynn Hogan on Nov. 28, 1967, in Houston, one of six children of Donald Eugene and Virgie Hart Hogan.
She married Bill Smith in 1985, giving birth to Daniel before divorcing two years later.
Who knows...a son dying...post partum...all the legal problems...I don't know about "loving herself." People don't take drugs because the love themselves. Believe me.
Who knows...a son dying...post partum...all the legal problems...I don't know about "loving herself." People don't take drugs because the love themselves. Believe me.
Just seeing the "Hannity and Colmes" post-mortem
Bobby Trendy!
I'd forgotten about him.
She wasn't found in bed, all posed and dressed, right?
Not that I know of...Why would you say that?
I'll stay homely (by comparison) and happy.
One of the stations over here said "found dead" rather than the FNC line of "collapsed".
Whatever, anyone dying at 39 is a tragedy.
You can only know if someone collapsed if someone else was there with her...We'll hear all the details, I'm sure. I'm watching Larry King and her estranged sister calls in...she has book coming out about about Anna called TRAINWRECK...so on top of all her other problems she has some bitchy sister profiting off of her. The sister was already talking about fighting for the baby. The baby comes with alot of money...this is going to be a mess.
I agree, but it doesn't read suicide to me. Not at all.
It reads crooked lawyer scum to me.
From what I've heard me neither.
Geraldo's banging on about "Howard K Stern will need a good lawyer".
I thought he was one.
Really? Suppose they found her lying on the floor in an unusual position. That wouldn't be indicative of her having collapsed?
LOL --- that too.
Yeah, he's a lawyer, but maybe not a good one and he'd be foolish to represent himself.
How redundant.
Hiya SO40!
Nothing about her death reads suicide. Accidental overdose if the cause of her death is a drug overdose.
LOL, I swear, I almost typed that.
I believe US law CAN reach her. She is a US citizen because her mother was a US citizen, and so are both of the wannabe fathers (at least the two who have taken legal measures to assert that claim -- number three may be the first in a long line of tag-along wannabe fathers, and I suspect even Anna Nicole didn't really know for sure who the father was). Being born there does not make the baby a citizen, though it gives her the right to register as a citizen once she's 18 or older. http://www.multiplecitizenship.com/wscl/ws_BAHAMAS.html I believe the paternity suit has been filed in a US court, and since it concerns a minor US citizen, the Bahamian government is likely to be cooperative (probably required by treaty). Since wannabe papa Stern is not a Bahamian citizen, the Bahamian government has no reason to side with him against the US government. In fact, at this point, I imagine they'd be happy to get rid of both him and the baby by sending them home on an extradition order.
I don't know, you're probably right. I was more or less trying to respond to Onyx's question about whether she was posed in a bed which would mean suicide, or collapsing meaning something else. I think you could commit suicide and still collapse. Right?
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