Anna Nicole Smith dies at 39
ANNA Nicole Smith, the troubled former Playboy Playmate, died last night after collapsing in her hotel room in Florida.
The actress - who gained international renown in 1994 when aged 26 she married 89-year-old Texas oil tycoon J Howard Marshall II - was found lying “unresponsive” in her room at the luxurious Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Hollywood, near Fort Lauderdale.
Smith, 39, had a history of drug problems and lost her 20-year-old son Daniel to an overdose just five months ago.
Police chief Charlie Tiger said Smith’s private nurse had called the hospital operator from her sixth-floor room to summon emergency services.
A bodyguard tried to revive her and when paramedics from the Seminole Fire-Rescue service arrived they attempted cardio-pulmonary resuscitation and inserted a breathing tube in an attempt to revive Smith, but she did not respond.
She was taken to the nearby Memorial Regional Hospital and at 2:49pm hospital staff told police she was dead.
“I can confirm that she is deceased. It’s as shocking to me as to you guys,” her lawyer Ronald Rale, told reporters. “I don’t know anything further.”
Edwina Johnson, chief investigator of the Broward County Medical Examiner’s Office, said the cause of death was under investigation and an autopsy was expected to be carried out today.
The news followed several years of turbulence and tragedy for the tortured blonde, who gave birth to a baby girl last September and named the child Dannielynn in honour of her son, who died of a methadone and anti-depressant overdose while staying in his mother’s hospital room in the Bahamas as she recovered from the birth.
Smith’s legal adviser and new husband, Howard K Stern, who she wed weeks after her son’s death and who claimed to be the baby’s father, was said to be “speechless and grieving,” last night.
It is believed that he had been staying with her at the hotel.
For many years Smith had been embroiled in a protracted legal battle with the family of her first husband, J Howard Marshall II, over his estate.
Compounding her legal difficulties, she had been ordered by a judge to co-operate with paternity tests in a case brought by Larry Birkhead, a photographer who claimed that he had been involved in a sexual relationship with her around the time she fell pregnant and that Dannielynn is his child.
After the paternity suit was served, and before Smith had even buried her son, she hastily married Mr Stern on a yacht in the Bahamas, and registered him as the baby’s father.
Smith was also suffering from financial difficulties including a legal tussle over ownership of the house where she has been living in the Bahamas.
And on Tuesday, Smith and the diet products company TrimSpa Inc, for which she is a spokeswoman, were sued, accused of false or misleading marketing.
ANNA Nicole Smith, who modelled her early “look” on Marilyn Monroe, first burst on to the US national consciousness after she married the Texas oil tycoon J Howard Marshall II in 1994, when she was 26 and a topless model and he was wheelchair-bound and 89.
Mr Marshall died the following year, leaving Ms Smith in a protracted battle with his family for his $1.6billion estate.
A Texas court, where Ms Smith gave evidence, dressed in a pink top emblazoned with the word “Spoiled”, ruled she was entitled to nothing - and despite subsequent appeals that temporarily offered her hope of a windfall, her claim remains in stalemate.