Playboy model seeks dead husband's millions

Mr Marshall was one of the richest men in Texas

By David Willis in Los Angeles

Former Playboy playmate Anna Nicole Smith, who married one of America's richest men, is in court to fight for her share of her dead husband's estate after being left out of his will.

Anna Nicole Smith at an earlier court appearance

It is billed as one of the most acrimonious inheritance battles since the death of reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes.

Lonely Texan oil tycoon J Howard Marshall was in his late 80s when he was wheeled into a Houston strip club, only to clap eyes on 23-year-old Anna Nicole who was working as a waitress.

Prince Charming

Cynics say he liked her figure almost as much as she liked the figures in his bank account. But she says they married for love.

"He was my Prince Charming, I'll never find another Howard," she told one US TV station recently.

Their unlikely union was a godsend for the tabloid TV shows.

Ms Smith soon after her husband's death

Her modelling career took off and she was named Playboy's Playmate Of The Year.

She swept the Hollywood party circuit flaunting her diamonds, while the man who paid for them was tucked up in bed.

But it is a gravy train the tycoon's younger son, Pierce Marshall, 60, hopes to send crashing into the buffers.

He says his father gave Anna Nicole lots of gifts and she does not deserve a penny from his will.

'Gold-digger'

"He's given her cars, a company. He had given incredible things that were intended to help her get ahead and survive and make money," says Mr Marshall's lawyer Rusty Hardin.

But, according to the Marylin Monroe lookalike, her sweetheart promised her half of his billion-dollar fortune in exchange for her hand in marriage.

Lawyers are bound to trawl through her colourful past and press the most commonly levelled claim that she is a world-class gold-digger.

Whether or not the court backs her claim, the case will at least shine some light on a bizarre 14 months of marriage.