Anna Nicole Smith Dead At 39
Investigators Checking Whether Drugs Reportedly Found In Her Room Were A Factor
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Play CBS Video Video Anna Nicole Smith Dead At 39 Former model and stripper Anna Nicole Smith led a very public life until she was found unconscious in a Florida hotel room. Kelly Cobiella reports on her life and sudden death.
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Video Anna Nicole Dies In Florida Former model Anna Nicole Smith was pronounced dead at a Hollywood, Fla., hospital after collapsing at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino. Drew Levinson reports.
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Video Anna Nicole Smith Dies Anna Nicole Smith died suddenly after collapsing in her hotel room in Florida. The former model was 39. Elisabeth Smick reports.
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Anna Nicole Smith, thrust into the spotlight by her 1994 marriage to a billionaire, held that light through an inheritance battle, new romances, a reality show, the death of one child and the birth of another. (AP Photo/Danny Moloshok)
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Anna Nicole Smith and son Daniel Smith, July 31, 2004, at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles. (Getty Images/Frazer Harrison)
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"Everyone in my life has stabbed me in my back, or said something bad about me or sued me," said Smith, in an interview with The Insider, while facing both a paternity dispute and a battle over a real estate deal gone bad. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
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Photo Essay Anna Nicole: Latest Photos The judge weeps as he announces a decision, of sorts, as to where the late model should be buried.
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Video Library Life In The Lens The late Anna Nicole Smith lived in the spotlight. Watch a video library of her clips.
Playboy founder Hugh Hefner says he considered Smith a dear friend who meant a lot to him and the Playboy family.
A former topless dancer who many times struck poses reminiscent of Marilyn Monroe, Smith first made her name squeezing into Guess jeans.
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.
Marshall 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.Video: WFOR-TV's Ted Scouten reports
But last May, the U.S. Supreme Court revived her case. The justices said only that federal courts in California could deal with her case, despite a Texas state court ruling that Marshall was the estate's sole heir.
The stepson then died in June at age 67. But the family said the court fight would continue.
In the following years, Smith was a hit on reality TV with "The Anna Nicole Smith" show on the E! cable network.
She also, on numerous occasions, used her fame on behalf of the animal rights charity PETA, at one point striking a glamour pose on a poster proclaiming: "Gentlemen Prefer Fur-Free Blondes."
Smith 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 they divorced two years later.
Smith had been estranged from her immediate family for years at the time of her death.
"Everyone in my life has stabbed me in my back, or said something bad about me or sued me," she told The Insider in an interview shot at her Bahamas home ten days ago.
Paul Marciano, C.E.O. of Guess, says he doesn't think Smith recovered from the loss of her son.
"She was a tragic figure," journalist Dominick Dunne, who writes often about the rich and famous, told TheShowbuzz.com's Muni Jaitly as the news broke that Smith had died. "And you know what, she was likable, too."
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Ex-NBA ref Tim Donaghy 
