Anna Nicole Smith knew how to not go unnoticed. She had a life embroiled in scandals. She was born in a small Texas town, she was a very young single mother. But behind that humble origin, she dreamed big, very big.
At the age of 26, in 1995, she married an 89-year-old oil magnate, who died a year after marrying her. In addition, she ended up without an inheritance after a long legal fight. According to Forbes, Howard Marshall was worth $12 billion. The case is reflected in a series that Netflix released a month ago.
Anna Nicole Smith, whose real name was Vickie Lynn Hogan, was born on November 18, 1967 in Houston, Texas. Her life was full of drama. She dropped out of high school, married at 17, had her first child at 18, and separated at 19.
Smith worked at Walmart and Red Lobster before landing the job that would change her life: a dancer at Gigi’s Cabaret. She recounted that there she met her future husband, Howard Marshall, then 86, who was wheeled into the club one night in 1991 to watch her undress. Marshall was depressed, his friends say, after the deaths that year of two central women in his life: his wife, Bettye, and his mistress, Lady Walker, 51. He referred to her death as “the most tragic thing that happened to me.”
By his late 80s, Marshall was wealthy, after years of success. His big money moves came in the 1950s and 1960s. Almost all of this history took place before he was born Anna Nicole Smith. The businessman’s fortune was valued at 12,000 million dollars.
Smith said Marshall spent around $1,000 on her the first night they met. The next day, she invited her to meet him in a hotel room for lunch. After that, he gave her an envelope full of cash and told her that she didn’t have to dance at the club again.
Marshall had a crush on her and spent, he said, $1.7 million on her in 1992 (about $3.8 million in today’s dollars), including paying for another breast augmentation surgery. He even put her on Marshall Petroleum’s payroll as a consultant, a rumor that sounded absurd but was confirmed when Smith declared it income in legal documents years later.
At the same time, Smith’s modeling career was heating up. She had submitted photos of herself to Playboy magazine and caught the eye of Hugh Hefner. She graced a magazine cover in 1992 and was named Playmate of the Year in 1993. His reward from her? A Jaguar convertible, 00,000 and a 10-page spread in the June 1993 issue.
Smith eventually divorced her first husband, paving the way for her to marry Marshall, then 89, in 1994 when Smith was just 26. She wore a 22-carat diamond, reportedly valued at $107,000, to the wedding chapel ceremony at the Houston drive-in. Marshall was led down the hall after her.
The marriage only lasted about 13 months. Marshall died in 1995 at the age of 90. His estate was worth $.6 billion at the time, about $3.2 billion in today’s dollars.
When the businessman died, he did not provide for Smith in his will or trusts, a move that Marshall’s son, E. Pierce Marshall, would characterize as helpful. Smith, however, claimed that although Marshall had left her out of her will, he had planned to take care of her, including promising to give him half of her estate.
Court cases can sometimes make for strange bedfellows, which happened here. Pierce would benefit from his father’s death under the will, but Marshall’s other son, J. Howard Marshall, III, was, like Smith, left out of the will. Marshall had never forgiven his namesake for backing William and Frederick Koch for control of Koch Industries, leaving J. Howard III to nothing. As a result, Smith and J. Howard III teamed up to fight Pierce for what they claimed were their respective fair shares.
The matter reached a Texas probate court, which after a six-month trial ruled in favor of Pierce, one of the late millionaire’s sons.
Smith, however, did not stop. On January 25, 1996, the former bunny filed for bankruptcy in California, claiming she had over $1,000,000 in debts that she couldn’t pay. Included on the list of creditors were several law firms, Harry Winston, Neiman Marcus and a nearly $850,000 judgment awarded to MarÃa Antonia Cerrato in a sexual harassment, sexual assault and false imprisonment lawsuit.
Cerrato, who had been the babysitter for Smith’s son, had alleged that Smith sexually assaulted her during a business trip to Las Vegas. Smith countersued but did not follow up, so a judge ruled that Smith had to pay Cerrato.
The idea of ​​the bankruptcy court is to protect the debtor and make sure that creditors are paid what is owed to them to the extent possible. That means that when you file bankruptcy, you must list your debts, what Smith did, and his assets. Smith didn’t have many assets compared to his debt, listing about $2.7 million in real and personal property compared to nearly $9 million in potential liabilities. She included one more asset in her petition: her alleged interest in her late husband’s estate.
Meanwhile, Pierce, the millionaire’s son, struck back, suing Smith for defamation and other reparations in Texas. When he learned of the bankruptcy, he dismissed his Texas defamation suit and sought relief in bankruptcy court, a move he probably later regretted. He alleged misconduct on Smith’s part. In response, Smith countersued, alleging that Pierce interfered with his right to take ownership of the Marshall estate. The legal documents set the stage for a lengthy court case in California.
Just over two months later, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously in Smith’s favor. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg delivered the Court’s opinion, with Justice Stevens concurring (meaning she agreed with the result but she had something to add). In particular, the Court found that “the probate exception reserves to state probate courts the probate or annulment of a will and the administration of the decedent’s estate…But it does not preclude federal courts from deciding matters outside those limits.” and within federal jurisdiction.
That mattered, Ginsburg wrote, because Smith’s claim did not “involve the administration of an estate, probate, or any other purely legal matter.” Instead, Smith was “triggered by Pierce’s claim in bankruptcy proceedings” and was seeking a judgment against Pierce, not probate or an annulment of a will. With that, on May 1, 2006, the Supreme Court reversed the findings of the Ninth Circuit and remanded the matter for review.
There were countless legal actions, courts and two appeals to the Court for more than 10 years.
Marshall’s son Pierce died on June 20, 2006. His widow, Elaine Marshall, stepped into his shoes to see the affair, which was more than a decade old, through to completion.
Smith died on February 8, 2007 from an accidental overdose of prescription drugs. She was 39 years old. She left behind a young daughter, Dannielynn Birkhead (her eldest son Danny died of a drug overdose in 2006), and the matter went forward in Birkhead’s name.
As before, the courts could not agree. And so, on September 28, 2010, the Supreme Court again agreed to hear the case. This time, the case title was a bit different: Stern v. Marshall. Stern, a lawyer, claimed to be the father of Smith’s daughter Dannielynn, even adding Stern to his last name, until a paternity test proved otherwise and discovered the father was Larry Birkhead (many men had claimed to be the father). , including Zsa Zsa Gabor’s husband, Prince Frederic von Anhalt). Despite his lack of paternity, Stern represented Dannielynn in battle against Pierce because she was the executor of Smith’s estate.
In June 2011, a divided Supreme Court ruled against the estate, 5 to 4. The question was, again, narrow: did the bankruptcy court have jurisdiction to address Smith’s counterclaim?
By statute, a bankruptcy judge can only “submit proposed findings of fact and conclusions of law to the district court.” The bankruptcy court concluded that Smith’s counterclaim was a central proceeding, while the district court disagreed.
Ultimately, the Supreme Court concluded that while the statute allows the bankruptcy court to enter a final judgment on Smith’s counterclaim, “Article III of the Constitution does not.” With that, the Supreme Court dismissed the bankruptcy court filing. And Smith’s daughter got nothing.
Throughout the process, the Marshalls remained wealthy. In 2020, Forbes named the Marshall family to the list of America’s Richest Families. With a net worth of $18.5 billion, they were ranked 14th on the list.
Smith’s bankruptcy case was finally closed on October 24, 2022, more than 25 years after it began.
