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Anna Nicole Smith paternity battle hots up

10/02/2007

The paternity battle over the baby of the late model Anna Nicole Smith has led a US judge to order the star's body to be preserved until a hearing later in the month.

Former Playboy bunny Smith was found to be unresponsive in her Floridian hotel room on Thursday and was later pronounced dead in hospital. The reality television star, 39, lost her 20-year-old son Daniel in September to an overdose of zoloft, lexapro and methadone.

Her five-month-old baby girl, Dannielynn Hope Marshall Stern, was born just three days before the death of Daniel.

Although Smith believed her partner and lawyer Howard Stern to be the father of her child, her former partner Larry Birkhead has demanded DNA testing as he feels he may be the father.

In a strange turn of events the ninth husband of Zsa Zsa Gabor, 59-year-old Prince Frederick von Anhalt, has told the Associated Press news agency he thinks he could also be the father of Dannielynn.

The blonde bombshell, born Vickie Lynn Hogan, was once called the "next Marilyn Monroe" for her voluptuous figure and styled herself on the troubled actress for the cover of Playboy magazine.

The actress and model rose to notoriety after her marriage to billionaire J Howard Marshall in 1994 when she was 26 and the oil baron was aged 89. Mr Marshall died about a year later and Smith was caught up in the ensuing legal battle that began for a portion of his estate.

Depending on the result of the case it is thought that, as Ms Smith's only surviving heir, baby Dannielynn could inherit a fortune of up to $470 million (£241 million).

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