at 18:53 on October 3, 2006, EST.
By LEE-ANNE GOODMAN


Anna Nicole Smith. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
(CP) - It has all the features of a salacious Hollywood biopic: a famously endowed pin-up queen weds an elderly multimillionaire and spends years fighting his family for a portion of his estate, loses her beloved son mysteriously just days after giving birth to a new baby, then exchanges non-legal vows with her longtime lawyer and alleged father of the infant girl while still in mourning.

If that isn't enough drama, now allegations of drug addiction have been thrown into the mix - not surprising given some of Smith's more infamous public appearances over the past few years.

Photojournalist Larry Birkhead, an ex-boyfriend of Smith's who claims he fathered the newborn Dannie Lynn Hope, has filed suit in a Los Angeles court demanding Smith return to the United States and submit the baby to a paternity test.

Smith was served with court papers Monday in the Bahamas, Birkhead's lawyer, Debra Opri, told The Associated Press.

The lawsuit contains allegations, untested in a court of law, that Smith is a methadone addict and that her lawyer and boyfriend, Howard K. Stern, has been enabling her habit.

Methadone was one of three drugs in the bloodstream of Smith's late son, Daniel, 20, who died of a heart attack in his mother's Bahamian hospital room on Sept. 10, three days after Dannie Lynn's birth. Three people were reportedly in the room when he died: Smith, her baby, and Stern.

Birkhead accuses Smith of holing up in the Bahamas to keep Dannie Lynn from being subjected to drug testing. His petition demands that both Smith and her daughter undergo blood tests.

Opri says Birkhead is seeking full legal and physical custody of the child.

"The public will be very surprised when they learn the details of the lifestyle this baby is going to be faced with if she remains in the current situation," she said.

It's yet another time a Smith saga has enthralled the masses.

The Texas-born Smith, 38, shot to stardom in 1993 when Playboy magazine named the buxom blond its Playmate of the Year. Ever since, Smith has been the subject of tabloid fascination thanks to her fluctuating weight and her marriage to entrepreneur J. Howard Marshall, 63 years her senior.

That marriage resulted in a lengthy and ongoing legal battle over his estate after his death. The case reached the U.S. Supreme Court in February, and in May, Smith won the right to pursue her claims in federal court.

Before the tragedy of her son's death, however, Smith's antics were largely entertaining, most notably when she appeared - seemingly sloshed - at the American Music Awards in 2004.

"Do you like my body?" a cooing and barely coherent Smith asked the cheering crowds.

Her reality show, "The Anna Nicole Show," also provided a glimpse into the private life of a woman who often seemed completely out of it, though endearingly absurd, funny and loving to her son.

Smith seemed to be returning to raunchy form even after the death of Daniel Smith, with reports surfacing Tuesday that she'd sold photos of herself to Getty Images while exchanging vows with Stern in a non-binding commitment ceremony in the Bahamas two weeks after Daniel Smith's death. One of the photos is rumoured to show her holding her newborn baby while donning pasties.

It's not the first time she's made money from her son's death. On Sept. 18, Getty Images sold the last photos taken of Daniel Smith alive at his mother's bedside to "In Touch Weekly" and "Entertainment Tonight" for at least US$650,000.

Elaine Lui, the woman behind Lainey's Entertainment Update (www.laineygossip.com) and a correspondent on CTV's "ETalk Daily," says she finds the entire Smith saga depressing.

"This whole sad story is really just about all the shady characters she's chosen to surround herself with," Lui says. "I don't feel she's in control of her life. Her dumbness is almost like a numbness for living. She just doesn't seem to care that she's surrounded herself with sleazeballs. I don't even want to write about it because it's not fun gossip, it's sad, terrible gossip."


©The Canadian Press, 2006

The entire thing is sad.

Mazurack said:

Somebody needs to rescue that baby. I shudder to think what she'll be like in fifteen years.

Kid didnt deserve that shit. Crazy bitch.

uPtoWnNY said:

Yes, and someone needs to get Anna some mental/substance abuse help.

Sad.

DarkKnight1 said:

Hell yeah. Shows you what happens when people have kids that shouldn't. I felt really bad for her son. Seemed like a nice kid who got caught up in her stupid lifestyle. Can't someone slap some sense into that pea-brain and tell her to change her lifestyle for her baby's sake?
[Edited 10/3/06 22:02pm]

AP said:

But, you'll talk about it instead... Riiiiight....