Anna Nicole Smith is Dead!

The voluptuous blond is in the tabloids again. Except this news is also being reported by reputable sources. Anna Nicole Smith died suddenly at the age of 39 on Thursday. Born Vickie Lynn Hogan and raised in the small Texas town of Mexia, Smith was a high school dropout. She met her first husband, Billy Smith, at the age of 17 but later split from him and moved to Houston, where she became a popular stripper.

Smith became a fixture in national tabloids over the last decade. How so?

1) Smith was chosen by Hugh Hefner to be on the cover of the March 1992 issue of Playboy Magazine as Playmate of the Year.
2) She married billionaire J. Howard Marshall in 1994, when she was 26 and he was 89. "I really love him."
3) After Marshall died the following year, she fought family members for a right to his estate. In May 2006 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Smith could pursue her case in federal court.
4) Smith's 20-year-old son, Daniel Smith, died in the Bahamas three days after the birth of her daughter.
5) She became the center of a paternity suit by ex-boyfriend, Larry Birkhead. Smith claimed her lawyer and husband, Howard K. Stern (not to be confused with shock jock Howard Stern), was the father.

An early edit to her Wikipedia entry claims "Smith was killed by Islamic Jihadists."

Early in her career, some compared Smith to Marilyn Monroe. The similarities continue to her death. Playboy centerfold. Sexy blond. Actress (one better than the other). Multiple husbands. Dead before 40. Hmm, interesting.

Now, the tabloids will have to find some other sucker to fill their pages.