Anna Nicole Smith, 39, dies

WASHINGTON – Anna Nicole Smith, a postmodern pinup for a tabloid age, died of unknown causes Thursday in a Florida hotel room, her sudden death at 39 delivering the same shock and uproar as the celebrity life she cultivated from the hardscrabble dust of small-town Texas.

Smith was in her sixth-floor room at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Hollywood, Fla., when her private nurse called the operator for help, according to Seminole Police Chief Charlie Tiger, who said a bodyguard attempted CPR but could not revive her.

The former Playboy Playmate of the Year was rushed to a hospital, where she died at 2:49 p.m., sparking breathless live news coverage from the Indian reservation. The Broward County medical examiner planned to conduct an autopsy today.

Embroiled in an epic court feud over the hundreds of millions of dollars left behind by the octogenarian oil tycoon she married at 26 but never lived with, Smith cultivated a Marilyn Monroe image with her breathy singsong voice and va-va-voom figure. She pursued fame with a dignity-be-damned abandon, and her life unfolded in lurid headlines, tragedy and triumph in outsize measure – with so much legal drama that Smith was as likely to appear in a courtroom as a centerfold.

Her fight over the inheritance of J. Howard Marshall II took her to the U.S. Supreme Court last May. The paparazzi were waiting on the steps as Smith walked past.

Smith’s death came just five months after her 20-year-old son, Daniel, mysteriously died at her hospital bedside in the Bahamas, where Smith had given birth to a daughter whose paternity immediately became a matter of legal dispute.

Smith’s attorney, Ron Rale, told reporters in Los Angeles that his client had not felt well in recent days, suffering from flu-like symptoms.

“I don’t think anybody should have to endure what she’s endured, having lost her son, people attacking her left and right,” Rale said in confirming her death on MSNBC. “I felt like Anna was the underdog, having all of this thrust upon her. And she really just wanted to be a mom, and she was a good mom.”

It was not explained why Smith, who had been hospitalized for drug and alcohol use previously, took her own nurse to the Indian gaming resort, where hotel sources described her as a regular guest who had last visited to attend a boxing match in January. She had arrived for this visit on Monday.

Her baby, Dannielynn Hope, was not with her in Florida, police there said, and was believed to still be in the Bahamas, where Smith set up housekeeping pending a formal inquiry into Daniel’s death by the Bahamas magistrate in March. An American medical examiner hired by the family has said the death was an accident caused by the reaction of methadone and two antidepressants in his system.

An ex-boyfriend, Larry Birkhead, has filed a paternity suit claiming he fathered Dannielynn, and a Los Angeles judge had ordered Smith to have the baby undergo a DNA test by Feb. 21.

Shortly after Dannilelynn’s birth, Smith identified her personal attorney, Howard K. Stern, as the father, and the two staged a white-dress “commitment ceremony” they later admitted was non-binding. They celebrated with champagne and buckets of Kentucky Fried Chicken.

Her life had been one of extremes ever since Vickie Lynn Hogan escaped the high school dropout life of teen bride. First married to a fry cook named Billy Smith in Mexia, Texas, she later worked at Wal-Mart and waitressed at Red Lobster before heading to Houston to pursue her fortune as a topless dancer. It was as a stripper that she met Marshall, 63 years her senior.

While in Houston, a friend urged Smith to send photographs to Playboy, which featured her as 1993 Playmate of the Year, and the persona of Anna Nicole was not so much born as invented.

Smith became famous as a Guess jeans model, her curves and sleepy-eyed gaze conjuring the ghosts of Marilyn Monroe and Jayne Mansfield.

Smith and Marshall married in 1994, and his death in 1995 triggered a long contest for the estate between Smith and her 60-year-old stepson, E. Pierce Marshall. At one point she was awarded $88 million by a federal court in California but she never saw the money. The case made its way to the Supreme Court, but the stepson died before there was a resolution.

With Smith’s death, the suit is likely to continue in the name of her daughter, Dannielynn.