KEY POINTS:
Anna Nicole Smith so idolised Marilyn Monroe she convinced herself she was the screen siren's daughter, according to a biography of the former Playboy bunny.
As Howard K. Stern, Smith's lawyer and lover, fights in a United States court to prove he's the father of her baby daughter Dannielynn, Great Big Beautiful Doll provides an insight into the life, fame and ultimately death of Smith.
The book was written in 1996 but has been updated since her death in February.
It shows Smith might not have been smart - she thought Los Angeles was in New York when Playboy first flew her out there in 1991 - but she used her story of a "small-town girl made good" to charm many rich and famous men, including Hugh Hefner, Donald Trump and of course, 89-year-old J. Howard Marshall II.
Born Vickie Lynn Hogan on November 28, 1967, in Houston, Texas, she began working in the city's topless bars in the late 1980s to support Daniel, the son from her brief marriage to cook Billy Smith.
It was there that Smith began the battle with alcohol and prescription pill addiction. Just like her idol, Marilyn Monroe (the book says Smith had convinced herself she was Monroe's daughter), Smith died of a drug overdose.
- AAP
