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Paternity war over Anna's baby
09/02/2007 15:19 - (SA)
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| Anna Nicole Smith died on Thursday 8 February 2007 after collapsing at a hotel. She was 39. (Jennifer Graylock, AP) |
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Suzette Laboy
Hollywood - As a former Playboy playmate, jeans model, widow of an octogenarian oil tycoon and reality TV star, Anna Nicole Smith's life played out like an extraordinary tabloid tale. It appears her death will too.
An emergency hearing was planned for Friday in a paternity dispute involving Smith's 5-month-old daughter, a day after the 39-year-old curvaceous blonde died after collapsing at a hotel.
Smith was stricken while staying at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino and was rushed to a hospital.
Edwina Johnson, chief investigator for the Broward County Medical Examiner's Office, said the cause of death was under investigation and an autopsy would be done on Friday.
Dr Joshua Perper, who was to perform the autopsy, said that if Smith died of natural causes, the findings would likely be announced quickly. He cautioned, however, that definitive results could take weeks.
"I am not a prophet, and I cannot tell you before the autopsy what I am going to find," he said.
Seminole Police Chief Charlie Tiger said a private nurse called emergency services after finding Smith unresponsive in her room at the hotel, which is on an Indian reservation.
He said Smith's bodyguard administered CPR, but she was declared dead at a hospital.
Sudden death of her son, Daniel
Later on Thursday, two sheriff's deputies carried out at least eight brown paper bags sealed with red evidence tape from Smith's hotel room.
Just five months ago, her 20-year-old son, Daniel, died suddenly in the Bahamas. An American medical examiner hired by the family, Cyril Wecht, said he died accidentally of a combination of methadone and two antidepressants.
His September 10 death came days after Anna Nicole Smith gave birth to a daughter whose custody remains in dispute.
The birth certificate lists Dannielynn's father as attorney Howard K Stern, Smith's most recent companion. Her ex-boyfriend Larry Birkhead is waging a legal challenge, saying he is the father.
DNA from Smith's body needed
At the hearing in Los Angeles on Friday, lawyers were expected to discuss an emergency motion filed by Birkhead's attorney seeking DNA from Smith's body, her attorney Ron Rale said. The reasons for the motion were not immediately clear, but an attorney for Stern, James T. Neavitt, was frustrated.
"There's no question about her being the mother," he said. "So what's the purpose of the DNA testing? Why do they need her DNA?"
Debra Opri, the attorney who filed Birkhead's paternity suit, said only that doctors told her to get a DNA sample, declining to elaborate.
She said Birkhead was devastated. "He is inconsolable, and we are taking steps now to protect the DNA testing of the child. The child is our No 1 priority," she said.
Through the '90s and into the 21st century, Smith was famous for being famous, a pop-culture punch-line because of her up-and-down weight, her Marilyn Monroe looks, her exaggerated curves, her little-girl voice, her ditzy-blonde persona and her revealing outfits.
Drugs suspected
Recently, she lost a reported 69 pounds and became a spokesperson for TrimSpa, a weight-loss supplement. In recent TV appearances, her speech was often slurred and she seemed out of it. Some critics said she seemed drugged-out.
"Undoubtedly it will be found at the end of the day that drugs featured in her death as they did in the death of poor Daniel," said Michael Scott, a former attorney for Smith in the Bahamas.
Rale said he had talked to her on Tuesday or Wednesday, and she had flu symptoms and a fever and was still grieving over her son.
He dismissed claims that her death was related to drugs as "a bunch of nonsense."
'She's been the underdog'
"Poor Anna Nicole," he said. "She's been the underdog. She's been besieged ... and she's been trying her best and nobody should have to endure what she's endured."
The Texas-born Smith was a topless dancer at a strip club before she made the cover of Playboy magazine in 1992.
She became Playboy's playmate of the year in 1993. She was also signed to a contract with Guess jeans, appearing in TV commercials, billboards and magazine ads.
In 1994, she married 89-year-old oil tycoon J. Howard Marshall II, owner of Great Northern Oil Co. After his death the following year, she engaged in a protracted legal fight with her former stepson, E. Pierce Marshall, over whether she had a right to the estate.
Oil tycoon court case 'would continue'
A federal court in California awarded Smith $474m (R3.3bn). That was later overturned. But in May, the US Supreme Court revived her case, ruling that she deserved another day in court.
The stepson died June 20 at age 67, but the family said the court fight would continue.
Smith starred in her own reality TV series, "The Anna Nicole Show," in 2002-04. She also appeared in movies, performing a bit part in "The Hudsucker Proxy" in 1994.
Raised by her mother, a deputy sheriff
Smith was born Vickie Lynn Hogan on Nov. 28, 1967, in Houston, one of six children. Her parents split up when she was a toddler, and she was raised by her mother, a deputy sheriff.
She dropped out after 11th grade after she was expelled for fighting, and worked as a waitress and then a cook at Jim's Krispy Fried Chicken restaurant in Mexia.
She married 16-year-old fry cook Bill Smith in 1985, giving birth to Daniel before divorcing two years later.
- SAPA
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