Anna Nicole Smith, ex-Playboy model dies at 39

Anna Nicole Smith, the voluptuous ex-Playboy model whose life provided regular fodder to yellow journalism died Thursday at the age of 39 after apparently collapsing in a Florida hotel room.

Smith, who worshiped Hollywood legend Marilyn Monroe as her deity, and wanted to be the next Monroe, also resembled her idol in her untimely death. Monroe was 36 when she died of an overdose of sleeping pills.

She was stricken while staying at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino and was rushed to a Hollywood, Florida, hospital where she was declared dead.

A private nurse called 911 after finding Smith unresponsive in her sixth-floor room at the hotel, which is on an Indian reservation, Seminole Police Chief Charlie Tiger said.

The cause behind the sudden death of Smith is under investigation, said Edwina Johnson, chief investigator for the Broward County Medical Examiner's Office. An autopsy was scheduled for Friday to determine the cause of death.

The results of the autopsy would probably be announced quickly if her death was from natural causes, Dr. Joshua Perper, the chief Broward County medical examiner who will conduct the autopsy, said. However, definitive results could take weeks, he cautioned.

"I can confirm that she is deceased. It's as shocking to me as to you guys," Smith's attorney, Ronald Rale, said. “Her lawyer and husband, Howard K. Stern obviously is speechless and grieving," Rale added.

Smith, who drew comparisons to such legendary beauties as Marilyn Monroe due to her penchant for white dresses and sleepy bedroom eyes, had lost her 20-year-old son from her first marriage just five months ago.

Daniel, Smith’s son from her first marriage Bill Smith, died on September 10 in Smith's own hospital room in the Bahamas, just three days after she gave birth to a daughter, Dannielyn Hope Marshall Stern.

Cyril Wecht, a pathologist hired by the model, said he apparently died from a drug overdose. The medical examiner had said that Daniel had methadone and two antidepressants in his system when he died.

Smith suffered another blow when she ordered to have her five-month-old baby girl undergo a paternity test as part of a lawsuit by ex-boyfriend, Larry Birkhead, who two weeks after the birth claimed that he was the father. However, Smith had said Howard K. Stern was the father.

On Wednesday, the day before her death, a judge had set a February 21 deadline for completion of the paternity test, which would determine who is the biological father of Dannielynn.

Smith was born Vickie Lynn Hogan on Nov. 28, 1967, in Houston, Texas, one of six children of Donald Eugene and Virgie Hart Hogan. Her half-sisters are Donna Hogan and Amy Hogan.

Smith first gained popularity as Playboy magazine's 1993 Playmate of the Year and then increased her public presence with a series of glossy ads for Guess?, a popular American name-brand clothing line that uses a question mark as its emblem. She starred in a short-lived cable television reality series, The Anna Nicole Show, from 2002 to 2004.

Smith's career and public image suffered as she gained lot of weight. Recently, she had slimmed down to her former shape that led her to become the spokeswoman for the weight loss product TrimSpa.

She married Bill Smith, a cook at the small time diner where she used to work in 1985 and became mother of a baby boy in 1986. She divorced him two years later.

She became the talk of the town when she married 89-year-old oil business executive and billionaire J. Howard Marshall, who was 63 years her senior. Her highly publicized marriage to Marshall aired speculations that she married the octogenarian merely for his money, however, Smith denied.

According to insiders, Smith had other relationships and was generally indifferent to Marshall, with whom she never lived. With Marshall’s money, Smith had cosmetic surgery to meliorate her looks.

Within weeks of her husband's death, Smith began a lengthy and ongoing legal battle against his son, E. Pierce Marshall for half of her late husband's $1.6 billion estate. Her case, Marshall v. Marshall, reached the U.S. Supreme Court in February last year on a technical question of federal jurisdiction.

Her alleged romantic interests included bodybuilder Clay Spires, Scott Baio, John Travolta's nephew Rikki, and real estate magnate Jonathan McManus.