Feb. 8 (Bloomberg) -- Anna Nicole Smith, the former Playboy magazine model whose fight to inherit a fortune took her to the U.S. Supreme Court, died today in Florida. She was 39.

Smith died after collapsing in a hotel room at the Hard Rock Cafe and Casino in Hollywood, Florida, Chief Charlie Tiger of the Seminole Police Department said at a televised press conference.

Smith was born Vickie Lynn Hogan in the small Texas town of Mexia, near Houston, on Nov. 28, 1967. She went from working at a fried chicken restaurant to being a stripper, a model for Guess? jeans and Playboy's Playmate of the Year in 1993. She was considered by many to be a Marilyn Monroe look-alike, and Smith said Monroe was her childhood idol.

Smith's marriage to J. Howard Marshall II in 1994 when he was 89 and she was 26 frequently landed her in celebrity magazines such as People and US Weekly. The Texas oil tycoon's death in 1995 touched off a decade-long struggle in the courts for his fortune as Smith battled his son, E. Pierce Marshall.

``Nobody has ever respected me and done things for me and loved me,'' she once said. ``So when Howard came along, it was a blessing. He is the only person in my life who does not care about what other people say about me. He truly loves me and I love him for it.''

Supreme Court Ruling

Smith's death comes after a year of events that kept her in the public eye.

She said that E. Pierce Marshall destroyed some documents and altered others to ensure she didn't receive the trust that she said her husband had set up for her.

Subsequently, Smith won a $474 million judgment, which was reduced to $89 million and eventually zero. She took her appeal to the Supreme Court, which reinstated her claim to a portion of the estate. Then on May 1, Smith won a Supreme Court ruling that revived her $89 million claim in a fight over the estate.

E. Pierce Marshall died June 20 of an ``extremely aggressive infection,'' according to a statement released by the Marshall family. Marshall, who served on the board of commodities giant Koch Industries Inc., lived in Dallas.

David Margulies, a spokesman for the Marshall family, today declined to discuss the family's ongoing litigation with Smith.

In Marshall versus Marshall, Kent Richland, an appeals lawyer in the appellate firm Greines Martin Stein & Richland, presented the case on Smith's behalf. He said the case was returned to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, where it is pending under appeal.

The court has procedures that would allow someone to be substituted for Smith in the case, he said. ``There are no deadlines and it's not clear how the Ninth Circuit will proceed,'' Richland said.

Family Issues

Other family issues dominated Smith's life in the past year. On Sept. 7, she gave birth to a daughter, Dannielynn Hope, at a hospital in the Bahamas. Three days later, her 20-year-old son, Daniel, died in Smith's hospital room. A toxicology report attributed his death to a mix of two antidepressant drugs and a pain reliever, the Associated Press reported.

Rival claims as to the paternity of Smith's daughter led to a legal fight between entertainment reporter and photographer Larry Birkhead and Smith's attorney Howard K. Stern, each of whom claimed to be the baby's father. Birkhead demanded Smith submit her daughter for DNA testing.

Lawsuit

On Tuesday, Smith was included in a class-action suit against Whippany, New Jersey-based TrimSpa. Smith worked as a spokeswoman for TrimSpa, which makes a weight-loss product.

The lawsuit alleges the marketing of the product, TrimSpa X32, was false or misleading. Alex Goen, chief executive officer and founder of TrimSpa, didn't immediately return a call. Smith had battled with her weight for years but had slimmed down recently, Cable News Network reported.

Smith, who checked into the Hard Rock Café hotel Monday, was found in her room today by a nurse who called the hotel operator and then called 911 at 1:38 p.m. A bodyguard administered cardiopulmonary resuscitation around 1:45 p.m.

Smith was taken to a hospital where she was pronounced dead at 2:49 p.m., Police Chief Charlie Tiger said. He declined to comment on whether the case was being treated as a crime.

``The room is in the crime lab's hands right now,'' he said.

Edwina Johnson, chief investigator for the Broward County Medical Examiner's Office, said the cause of Smith's death was under investigation and that an autopsy will be conducted tomorrow, Associated Press reported.

To contact the reporter on this story: Samantha Zee in Los Angeles at szee@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: February 8, 2007 19:51 EST