Life of Anna Nicole Smith

On Feb. 8, 2007, Anna Nicole Smith died in a Florida hospital after collapsing at a hotel. Over the past decade, the personal and professional evolution of Anna Nicole Smith has played out in the spotlight.

In 1994, Smith married Texas billionaire J. Howard Marshall II. The couple, who met at a Houston strip club where she worked, married when she was 26 and he was 89. Marshall died 14 months later, leaving behind an estate reportedly worth $1.6 million.

Within weeks of the oil baron's death, Anna Nicole Smith squared off with his son, E. Pierce Marshall, claiming that her late husband had promised her half of his estate. Marshall accused Smith of taking advantage of his father, who reportedly paid for her breast implants and spent millions on her. On television and in court, Smith denied the allegations and insisted that she loved her late husband.

Smith and her 13-year-old son, Daniel, are shown leaving the federal courthouse in Los Angeles in October 1999. Smith gave birth to Daniel when she was 16 and worked a number of menial jobs to support him before receiving her big break as a model for Playboy and Guess? Jeans.

Anna Nicole Smith's battle against E. Pierce Marshall over her late husband's estate made its way through courts in Los Angeles and Houston. Smith teamed up with her husband's other son, James Howard Marshall III, to sue E. Pierce Marshall for a portion of his father's estate. Like Smith, James Howard Marshall III claimed that his father had promised him a share of the estate, but was not included in the will.

A jury ultimately rejected her claims that she was entitled to his estate. Anna Nicole Smith cried as she testified in her 2001 probate trial in a lawsuit against E. Pierce Marshall.

Smith covered her ears as a clip from "A Current Affair" was played during her testimony in the probate trial over her late husband's estate. In July 2001, a Houston judge affirmed the jury findings that Smith was not entitled to her late husband's estate and ordered Smith to pay over $1 million in fees and expenses to her former stepson's legal team.

By the time the Houston court had ruled in the probate matter, however, Smith had already filed for bankruptcy in California. The complication sent the case to the state federal court.

In 2002, Smith's reality television show, "The Anna Nicole Smith Show," debuted on E! Networks. The following year, she became a spokeswoman for the diet supplement TrimSpa, which she said helped her to lose 80 pounds. She was later named in a class-action suit against TrimSpa.

In 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court decided to hear Smith's appeal of the 9th circuit court's decision. They ruled in her favor in 2006, overturning the judgment and saying that she could continue to fight for a share of Marshall's fortune.

Anna Nicole Smith appeared at "The Comedy Central Roast of Pamela Anderson" in 2005.

After Daniel Smith died, Anna Nicole Smith hired famed pathologist Cyril Wecht to perform a private autopsy on her son. Wecht said that Daniel Smith died from a lethal combination of methadone and two antidepressants on Sept. 10, 2006. Though Wecht acknowledged that methadone is used to treat heroin and morphine addicts, he said he had no information to conclude that Daniel was using it for either reason.

Anna Nicole Smith's son, Daniel Smith, was laid to rest in Nassau, Bahamas, on Oct. 19, 2006, six weeks after his death.

Photographer Larry Birkhead claimed he was the father of Anna Nicole Smith's infant daughter and filed a lawsuit demanding that Smith return to California to establish paternity of the child through DNA tests. In November 2006, a judge ordered Smith to submit her newborn baby to a genetic test to establish paternity.

Anna Nicole Smith's attorney and longtime boyfriend, Howard K. Stern, said he was the newborn's father. Stern and Smith exchanged vows in September 2006 in a ceremony that was not legally binding.