Anna Nicole Smith Dies

HOLLYWOOD, FL -- Former Playboy playmate, model, and reality TV star Anna Nicole Smith, 39, died Thursday after being found unconscious in her hotel room at the Hard Rock Cafe and Casino in Hollywood, Florida.

"I can confirm that she is deceased. It's as shocking to me as to you guys," Smith's attorney, Ronald Rale, told Reuters. "I don't know anything further. [Her lawyer and husband] Howard [K. Stern], obviously, is speechless and grieving."

A Hollywood, Fla., fire department spokesman told MSNBC TV that the actress collapsed in her room and was unresponsive when the rescue unit arrived on the scene. Smith was transported to Memorial Regional Hospital shortly after 2 p.m. EST and her attorney confirmed that she had died nearly an hour later.

On Tuesday, Smith and the diet products company TrimSpa Inc., for which she is a spokeswoman, were sued in a class-action lawsuit alleging their marketing of a weight loss pill is false or misleading.

Smith was also involved in a paternity suit with former boyfriend Larry Birkhead regarding the parentage of her daughter, Danielynn, and was order by a judge to have her daughter undergo paternity testing.

Smith's son, Daniel Wayne Smith, died at age 20 just days after the birth of Smith's daughter. Pathologist Cyril Wecht said a lethal dose of methadone and antidepressants caused cardiac dysrhythmia, leading to his death.

Smith got married to Texas oil tycoon J. Howard Marshall II in 1994, when she was 26 and he was 89. When he died the following year, a feud started with Marshall’s son, Pierce Marshall, over her entitlement to the tycoon’s estate.

Smith first won a $474 million judgment, but another court nullified the ruling and left her with nothing. The U.S. Supreme Court later ruled that Smith could continue to pursue the fortune in federal courts in California.