Ex-stripper and ex-Playboy centerfold Anna Nicole Smith appeared at the US Supreme Court this week and sparked a media melee to try to get millions from her late husband’s estate, the late Texas oilman J. Howard Marshall II. The 90-year-old billionaire died in 1995 after a 14-month marriage to Smith. His estate, as estimated to be valued at $1.6 billion, is the subject of an 11-year family feud. She is on her way into a hearing to decide if she can keep the millions she says were promised to her by her late oil tycoon husband.
With a silver cross around her neck, high heels, black sunglasses and dressed in a knee-length widow’s black, the former stripper slipped in the side door of the Supreme Court and listened quietly in the back while her lawyers argued that Smith was entitled to nearly $500 million she had been promised by her octogenarian husband.
Anna Nicole, the name she adopted 13 years ago as Playboy’s “Playmate of the Year”, who married the ailing Mr Marshall in 1994 when she was a stripper, claims her husband he had promised to leave her half of his estimated US$1.6-billion ($2.6b) estate before he died in 1995. Smith was a 24-year-old topless dancer when she met the oil tycoon. He proposed marriage a week later.
Mr E Pierce Marshall, Mr Marshall’s son, contests her claims, saying that the various wills and trusts his father prepared over the years had listed him as the sole heir.
Smith had previously been awarded $474 million by a federal bankruptcy judge and later reduced by a federal district judge and then thrown out altogether by a federal appeals court on jurisdictional grounds.
Smith reportedly encountered a sympathetic audience in the Supremes with several justices expressing concern that she was kept from pursuing a piece of her late husband’s fortune. Justice Stephen Breyer said there was evidence that the son hired private detectives to keep Smith away from her elderly husband’s bedside.
Despite the technical nature of the case, Smith’s celebrity status has ensured packed courtrooms and immense public interest. She and her attorney was swarmed and shaken up by photographers and reporters, who crowded her when she arrived at the Supreme Court and she feared a repeat at the launch of her new film. As a result, Smith was a no-show at the premiere for Illegal Aliens, which she stars in and helped fund. David Giancola, the director explained that on the Supreme Court steps Smith was so crushed by media and they were very intimidated. Meanwhile, Smith’s mental state has been questioned again after she appeared for one TV interview to promote her new film wearing just her underwear and slurring her answers.
Smith cried occasionally during the proceedingsat the court. Kent Richland, her attorney said, “She was in tears a great deal of the time. And I know that happens often when she hears discussion about J. Howard.”
But her tears most likely came from Smith’s worries that she’s now gonna have to spend even more time coming on to cadaverous old coots in order to get her hands on the loot ![]()

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