Amazing...seems the Bigger the Pie
the Less there is to Go around........
Tuesday, Oct. 3, 2000
Former Playmate Weeps at Start of Trial
HOUSTON (Reuters) - Former Playboy Playmate Anna Nicole
Smith, who is suing for half of her late 90-year-old husband's
billion-dollar estate, wept in opening arguments at the lawsuit
on Monday as her attorney told a Texas jury she was not a ``gold
digger'' who took advantage of a sick, old man.
Smith, 32, repeatedly brushed tears from her eyes and put
her face in her hands as attorney Tom Cunningham spoke of her
late husband J. Howard Marshall's love for his young wife. They
married in June 1994 when she was 26 and he was 89 after meeting
at a Houston topless bar where she was a dancer.
``Mr. Marshall called her 'my precious package, my lady love,
the love of my life,''' he said. ``He loved his wife and wanted to
take care of her.''
Marshall, who made his fortune in the oil business, died in
August 1995 at the age of 90. Smith and Marshall's eldest son,
Howard Marshall III, have been fighting ever since for a share
of the $1.6 billion estate, currently in the hands of younger
son Pierce Marshall.
Smith has said Marshall promised her half of his money to
marry, but Pierce Marshall said she was in none of the six
wills.
Last week, a Los Angeles bankruptcy judge presiding over a
federal version of the Texas lawsuit said Smith, whose real name
is Vickie Lynn Marshall, was entitled to $450 million. The
ruling will be appealed, Pierce Marshall said.
His attorneys, who were to make their opening arguments on
Tuesday, have said that Smith was a gold digger who took
advantage of a sick, old man.
But Cunningham said Smith brought comfort to Marshall at a
time when he was depressed because his wife and mistress -- the
latter also a topless dancer -- had died and his sons were
fighting over money.
``Mr. Marshall was adrift because his family was at war and
he had nobody to love,'' he said.
The old man, who by this time was wheelchair-bound, began
going to topless bars in search of consolation, and there, at
Rick's Cabaret in 1991, he met Smith.
Marshall lavished her with jewels, cars and houses and began
peppering her with marriage proposals that Smith resisted for
two years, Cunningham said.
``They will say she is a gold digger, but gold diggers don't
wait,'' he said.
In the end, Smith, who was Playboy Playmate of the Year in
1993, married Marshall in a secret ceremony on June 27, 1994, in
Houston.
Pierce Marshall, 61, so opposed their matrimony that he
posted armed guards in his father's bedroom to make sure Smith
never stayed more than 30 minutes, Cunningham said.
Smith wept hardest when Cunningham recounted the story of
how in January 1995 she saved Marshall's life with
mouth-to-mouth resuscitation when he choked on chicken soup as
she spoon-fed him.
Smith, who is not expected to testify until late October,
told a Houston television station last week, ``No one ever took
care of me in my whole life, and this man did and I loved him
for that.''
Howard Marshall III, 63, is suing his brother in conjunction
with Smith on grounds that he was excluded from the will after
Pierce lied to his father during a 1980 business dispute |
