Fame

READ THE BIOGRAPHY AND USE  "IF" TO WRITE AT LEAST 5 SENTENCES ABOUT ANA NICOLE SMITH

Born Vickie Lynn Hogan on November 28, 1967, in Mexia, Texas, Anna Nicole Smith rose to fame as a model for Guess jeans and for Playboy magazine. She was even named Playboy's Playmate of the Year in 1993. The curvy blonde has also appeared in a few films, such as Naked Gun 33 1/3 and The Hudsucker Proxy, both in 1994.

A high school dropout, Smith’s dramatic life began quietly in a small Texas town. She had a difficult childhood, growing up without her father who left the family. Smith married Billy Smith when she was only 17 years old. The couple had a son named Daniel in 1984, but the marriage later broke up. Not content with small-town life, Smith dreamed of becoming the next Marilyn Monroe.

Before her big break, Anna Nicole Smith worked numerous jobs, including as a waitress and later a dancer in a strip club. While working at a club in Houston, Smith met Texas oil tycoon J. Howard Marshall II. They married in 1994. At the time, she was 26 and he was 89. The marriage ended with Marshall's death the following year. Smith spent years fighting his son, E. Pierce Marshall, in court over her husband's estate. The case went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court in 2006. The court's decision opened the door to Anna Nicole Smith collecting some money from her late husband's estate.

Despite her legal woes, Smith stayed in the spotlight. With her Marilyn Monroe-styled hair and Texas accent, she was a fixture in celebrity magazines and tabloids. In 2002, television viewers got inside look at the life of this wacky, quirky celebrity with a new series. The Anna Nicole Show, a reality program, followed her through her daily activities. At times, the show was difficult to watch as Smith seemed disoriented or confused, but the audience continued to tune in to see what Smith might do or say next. She was often shown in the company of Howard K. Stern, her attorney. While the show went off the air in 2004, Anna Nicole Smith remained popular with the American public.

Having struggled with her weight on and off for years, Anna Nicole Smith became a spokesperson for a line of diet products. She lost a significant amount of weight and returned to acting with a starring role in 2006’s science fiction-comedy Illegal Aliens. Her son Daniel also worked on the project with her.

While her professional life appeared to be on the rise, Anna Nicole Smith experienced both joy and tragedy in her personal life. She announced that she was pregnant during the summer of 2006 and gave birth to a daughter on September 7 at a hospital in Nassau, Bahamas. She named her child Dannielynn, and was thrilled to be a mother again. But her happiness was short-lived. Her 20-year-old son Daniel died only three days later from an apparent drug overdose. Later reports indicated that the interaction of methadone and two different types of antidepressants may have caused his death. Anna Nicole Smith never truly recovered from the loss.