ANNA

Born and raised in Texas, Smith dropped out of high school and first married at the age of 17. Her highly publicized marriage to oil business executive and billionaire J. Howard Marshall, 63 years her senior, resulted in speculation that she married the octogenarian for his money, which she denied. Following his death, she began a lengthy legal battle over a share of his estate; her case, Marshall v. Marshall, reached the U.S. Supreme Court on a question of federal jurisdiction. In the months before her death, she was the focus of renewed press coverage surrounding the death of her son, Daniel Smith. Smith's career took off after she was chosen by Hugh Hefner to appear on the cover of the March 1992 issue of Playboy, where she is listed as Vickie Smith, wearing a low-cut evening gown. Smith said she planned to be "the next Marilyn Monroe". Smith secured a contract to replace supermodel Claudia Schiffer in the Guess jeans ad campaign in a series of sultry black and white photographs. Guess capitalized on Smith's strong resemblance to sex symbol Jayne Mansfield and put her in Jayne-inspired photo sessions. In 1993, before Christmas, she modeled for the Swedish clothing company Hennes & Mauritz H&M. She was dressed in underwear and arranged in seductive poses. She appeared on big posters in Sweden and Norway. While performing at Gigi's, a Houston strip club, in October 1991, Smith met elderly oil billionaire J. Howard Marshall and they began a relationship. During their two-year relationship, he reportedly lavished gifts on her and asked her to marry him several times. She divorced her husband Billy on February 3, 1993, in Houston.On June 27, 1994, Smith, 26, and Marshall, 89, married in Houston. This resulted in a great deal of gossip about her marrying him for his money. Though she reportedly never lived with him, Smith maintained that she loved her husband, and age did not matter to her. Thirteen months after his marriage to Smith, Marshall died on August 4, 1995, in Houston.