Anna Nicole Smith

Anna Nicole Smith (born Vickie Lynn Hogan) was a model, actress and television personality best known for her Playboy career and reality series The Anna Nicole Show. Smith was born in Houston, Texas, and raised primarily in the small town of Mexia, Texas. She dropped out of high school in her sophomore year and later earned her GED while working various jobs, including as a waitress at a local restaurant.

Smith rose to fame in 1993 when she was named Playboy’s Playmate of the Year. Her resemblance to Marilyn Monroe and work as a model for Guess jeans brought her further attention. She transitioned into acting with roles in The Hudsucker Proxy (1994) and Naked Gun 33⅓: The Final Insult (1994). From 2002 to 2004, she starred in her own reality series, The Anna Nicole Show, which aired on E! and documented her eccentric day-to-day life.

In 1994, she married 89-year-old billionaire J. Howard Marshall. Their union sparked a lengthy and widely covered legal battle over his estate following his death in 1995. Smith had two children: son Daniel Wayne Smith (born in 1986), whom she shares with Billy Wayne Smith, and daughter Dannielynn Birkhead (born in 2006), whom she shares with Larry Birkhead. Daniel died at age 20 of an accidental overdose days after Dannielynn’s birth.

Smith died on February 8, 2007, at age 39 from an accidental prescription drug overdose.