Anna Nicole Smith makes FRONT PAGE! 2/9/07

Anna dies and the vultures circle
Fight over her kid is final tragedy in lifefilled with glamour, glitz and heartbreak
BY BILL HUTCHINSON in New Yorkand ANGELA MOSCONI in Hollywood, FloridaDAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS
Anna Nicole Smith died yesterday at age 39. Her life saw more that its share of tumult.
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Smith with baby Dannielynn and Howard K. Stern, one of the two men claiming to be the father of her child. The other, Larry Birkhead, began demanding a paternity test just hours after her death.
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Smith died after collapsing at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in South Florida, above.
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Her body arriving at the Medical Examiner's office in Broward County, Fla., yesterday.
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Anna Nicole Smith's flamboyant and turbulent life ended yesterday with her mysterious death in a Florida hotel room, but there was no rest for the buxom blond as lawyers began battling over her corpse.
The statuesque siren was not yet cold when one of the two men who claim to be the father of Smith's 5-month-old daughter, Dannielynn, demanded that a DNA swab be taken from her body to help resolve a paternity case.
The unorthodox request provoked her outraged lawyer, Ron Rale, to tell People magazine this was "the lowest form of behavior I've ever heard of."
The 39-year-old stripper-turned-celebrity's garish life went into a tailspin five months ago, ironically as her infant daughter was born.
Three days later, her 20-year-old son, Daniel, died of a drug overdose in her hospital room.
While she was grieving for one child and caring for the other, an ex-boyfriend, Larry Birkhead, claimed he was the true father of Smith's daughter, not her attorney-turned-lover Howard K. Stern. It was Birkhead's lawyer who asked yesterday that the DNA be taken from Smith's corpse.
An autopsy will be performed on the former Playmate today. Dr. Joshua Perper, the chief Broward County medical examiner who will perform the autopsy, said if her death was from natural causes, the findings would likely be announced quickly. He cautioned, however, that definitive results could take weeks.
"I am not a prophet, and I cannot tell you before the autopsy what I am going to find," he said.
"Undoubtedly, it will be found at the end of the day that drugs featured in her death as they did in the death of poor Daniel," said a former attorney for Smith in the Bahamas, Michael Scott.
Witnesses at the Florida hotel where she died reported that earlier in the week Smith needed help standing up and sitting down.
"She was completely out of it," Ron Hanson, a 57-year-old retiree, told the Orlando Sentinel.
A hotel worker who did not want to be identified said Smith was a frequent guest and "she does a lot of drugs."
"This was not the first time she passed out here," the worker said. "She has passed out numerous times in this hotel."
Late yesterday, two sheriff's deputies carried out at least eight brown paper bags sealed with red evidence tape from Smith's hotel room. WCBS-TV in New York reported that illegal narcotics and prescription drugs were found in the room, but police would not say what they removed.
Smith was dogged by rumors of drug abuse. When Birkhead filed suit in Los Angeles last October demanding a paternity test, he made explosive allegations that Smith was using methadone while she was pregnant.
Smith's fatal spiral began Wednesday when she fell and hit her head on the bathtub of her $600-a-night room at the Seminole Hard Rock Casino & Hotel in Hollywood, Fla., reported the tabloid TV show "The Insider."
The platinum blond bombshell was sick and feverish yesterday when she lay down for a nap, and never woke up.
At 1:39 p.m. yesterday, her private nurse called the hotel's front desk urgently requesting an ambulance, said Seminole County Police Chief Charlie Tiger.
A source told the TV show "Access Hollywood" that Smith apparently had choked on her own vomit. Tiger said only that Smith had been alone in the sixth-floor room before her nurse found her unconscious. A bodyguard was doing CPR on Smith when rescue personnel arrived at about 1:45 p.m., Tiger said.
Capt. Dan Fitzgerald of Hollywood Fire and Rescue said rescue workers tried to jump-start Smith's heart with an external pacemaker. He said Smith was intubated to clear her airway and an IV was inserted to administer adrenaline-type drugs, such as Narcan, which is usually given in cases of drug overdose.
Stunned hotel guests and staff watched as Smith was carried out on a gurney. "It all happened so fast," said Alan Peters, 55, of Fort Lauderdale. "Everyone was very concerned."
Fitzgerald said Smith never regained consciousness and showed no signs of life in the hotel room. She was rushed to Memorial Regional Hospital, where she was officially pronounced dead at 2:49 p.m.
The medical center also houses the Joe DiMaggio Children's Hospital, named after the Yankee great and ex-husband of Smith's heroine Marilyn Monroe.
Stern and Smith, who had been living in the Bahamas, were in Florida to pick up a yacht they had bought, sources said. They had planned to sail back today to the Bahamas, where baby Dannielynn remained in the care of friends.
Born Vickie Lynn Hogan in Texas, Smith went from stripper to Guess jeans model to star of her own reality TV show.
She made headlines in 1994 by marrying 89-year-old oil tycoon Howard Marshall, who died a year later, setting up a legal battle over his estate between Smith and his son.
A federal court in California awarded Smith an inheritance of $474 million. The judgment was later overturned, but the Supreme Court ruled in May that she deserved another day in court.
Yesterday, relatives gathered at the Montgomery, Tex., home of Smith's mother, Virgie Arthur, said they were too heartbroken to speak.
"We need time to grieve and accept this," a relative said.
With Tamer El-Ghobashy in Montgomery, Tex.Originally published on February 8, 2007