Anna Nicole Smith

    BEIJING, Feb. 9 (Xinhuanet) -- Anna Nicole Smith, 39, the former Playboy model and wife of an 89-year-old tycoon, died Thursday in a hotel in Florida.

    Smith recently said that she had been suffering from depression and may have been taking anti-depressants. Only days ago, the heiress had been ordered by a judge to submit her baby daughter to a DNA to end a dispute over the identity of the father.

    Smith checked into the Hard Rock Caf¨¦ hotel Monday and then was found in her room Thursday by a nurse who called the hotel operator and then called 911.

    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, according to media reports.

    Smith was born in a small town in Texas 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 married Texas oil tycoon J. Howard Marshall II in 1994, when she was 26 and he was 89. He died the following year. Since then, she has feuded with Marshall's son, Pierce Marshall, over her entitlement to the tycoon's estate.

    In May 2006, she confirmed she was pregnant and four months later gave birth to a daughter. In the same month, her 20-year-old son, Daniel Smith, died suddenly at her bedside in a Bahamas hospital.

    It is believed that Daniel decided to spend the night in the same room as his mother and newborn sister when he suffered what is believed to be a massive heart attack.

    (Agencies)

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