Legacy Matters
Anna Nicole Smith, dead at 39 as reported by The New York Times
a former Playboy centerfold, actress and television personality who was famous, above all, for being famous, but also for being sporadically rich and chronically litigious, was found dead on Thursday in her suite at the Seminole Hard Rock Cafe Hotel and Casino in Hollywood, Fla.
They also call her
obtrusively voluptuous and almost preternaturally blonde.
One of six children born to a single mother, Vickie Hogan dropped out of high school, married a chicken fry cook she met at Jim's Krispy Fried Chicken in Mexia, Texas, gave birth to son Daniel and separated from his father, all before she was 20.
She left her son with her mother to seek her fortune as a topless dancer. With her extraordinary body and beauty, fortune she found.
She was on the cover of Playboy magazine as Playmate of the Year, took the name of Anne Nicole Smith when she signed a contract to model Guess Jeans. She became the most famous gold digger in America when married an 89-year-old oil tycoon J Howard Marshall. When her husband died 14 months later, her legal battles began.
J.Howard Marshall's estate was worth $1.4 billion.
There was no pre-nuptial agreement
Anna Nicole Smith battled Marshall's stepson Pierce for her share in the estate.
She filed for bankruptcy in 1999.
In 2000, she won a $474 million judgment in a California court that was thrown out by a Texas state court.
She appealed to a federal court, took her battle to the U.S. Supreme Court and won a unanimous decision that allowed her to continue her legal battle in federal court.
In 2006, Pierce Marshall died at 67. His widow continues the legal case in his place.
Anna Nicole gave birth in September, 2006 to a baby girl, and did not name the biological father.
Her son Daniel died 3 days later while visiting his mother and newborn sister in the hospital from a toxic combination of Zoloft, Lexapro and methadone.
Later that month, Anna Nicole and her lawyer Howard Stern exchanged commitment vows aboard a catamaran off the coast of the Bahamas. No marriage certificate was issued.
Howard Stern's name appears on the birth certificate issued in the Bahamas.
Her former boyfriend photojournalist Larry Birkhead claims he is the biological father and has filed suit to claim paternity.
Last Wednesday, a class action suit was filed against her and Trimspa for false and misleading marketing. She became the spokesman for the weight loss supplement after she lost 69 pounds.
The little baby, Dannielynn Hope Marshall Stern, is the sole heir-at-law.
Whoever is judged her father stands to control whatever the estate of Anna Nicole wins.
It will be a gargantuan battle of estate vs estate, that will take years to unravel. I expect it to be the mother of all estate battles saving Jarndyce vs. Jarndyce
Said Christopher Cline of the law firm Holland and Knight, who is an estate planning specialist,
he has never seen a case “with more moving parts.”
Outstanding questions include not only the paternity of her daughter, but if she died with a will and how her death will affect the lawsuit pending against the Marshall estate. It also wasn't clear where she legally lived when she died.
“It's a really large legal quagmire,” Cline said.
More in the you-can't-make-this-stuff-up department - her dead husband, over whose money everyone is fighting, was a former professor of trusts and estates at Yale Law School.
Update to more stuff you couldn't make up. The husband of Zsa Zsa Gabor said he had a 10 year long affair with Anna Nicole and could be the father of the baby girl. He with the title of Prince Frederick von Anhalt said Anna Nicole wanted to be a princess like Zsa Zsa. He offered to adopt her but Gabor wouldn't sign the papers!
Update 2 -comments from around the web.
many people were hard pressed to describe what exactly Anna Nicole Smith was. Actress? Model? Reality star? Rich widow? ''I don't know exactly what she did,'' said talk show host Joy Behar, hearing the news over the phone. And yet, trying to put her finger on why we watched this strange woman over the years, she came up with two things: Dysfunction. And beauty.
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''With Anna Nicole, she was pathetic but at the same time you thought, 'Gosh, if I could just scoop you up and fix things, it would be OK,''' said Jerry Herron, a professor of American culture at Wayne State University. ''You wouldn't want to scoop up Paris Hilton.'''
Ann Althouse
Ah, yes. The classic two types of hyper-sexualized women -- the kind you think you can help, who just really need you, and the ones who seem ready to crush you if you came anywhere near. Anna Nicole is to Paris Hilton as Marilyn Monroe is to Madonna.
Update 3
Her body will be preserved for 10 days ordered the judge in the hearing today on the request by putative dad Larry Birkhead for an emergency DNA Test "so no one could switch the baby."