Posted on 02/09/2007 6:21:43 AM PST by presidio9
FILM footage of the final moments of Anna Nicole Smith's life has been sold for more than US$500,000 ($640,000) after a media bidding war, according to reports from the US.
FOX News has reported that Splash News and Picture Agency, a paparazzi outlet, sold the rights to the tape to an as-yet-unknown bidder.
A FOX News producer who watched the tape said the footage showed paramedics trying to administer CPR on the former Playboy Playmate's body.
The existence of the tape and the bidding war for it adds yet another bizarre twist to the sudden death of the 39-year-old star.
It has also emerged that one of the two men who claims to be the father of Smith's four-month-old daughter has asked for a DNA swab to be taken from the dead star's body to help prove his paternity claim.
With Smith's body not yet cold following her sudden death in Florida, the request was described by her lawyer to People magazine as "the lowest form of behaviour I have ever heard of".
Smith's death, the cause of which is not yet known, brought to a tragic end her chaotic life in which she rose from being a Texas stripper to one of Hollywood's richest and most notorious celebrities. She collapsed her hotel room in Florida and was taken to a local hospital where she died.
Smith had been ordered to have her baby girl undergo a paternity test as part of a lawsuit by an ex-boyfriend, Larry Birkhead.
Mr Birkhead sued Smith in October, demanding she have the paternity test because he believed he was the father of the girl. Smith had said her lawyer, Howard K. Stern, was the father of the baby.
Mr Birkhead's request for DNA swabs from Smith's body came at lightning speed.
His lawyer, Debra Opri told FOX News: "Anna Nicole Smith is dead at the age of 39 because of a lifestyle. I do not want that child anywhere near Howard K. Stern, and that's all I'm going to say about it."
Smith reported needing medical help at her Florida hotel room by a private nurse, police said. An autopsy on the body will be conducted on Friday. Mr Birkhead wants to take DNA samples before the body is handed over to Smith's family.
Her sudden death came just months after Smith's 20-year-old son, Daniel, died in the Bahamas three days after the birth of her daughter.
"I can confirm that she is deceased. It's as shocking to me as to you guys," her attorney, Ronald Rale, said when confirming her death. "I don't know anything further. (Her lawyer and husband) Howard (K. Stern) obviously is speechless and grieving."
Seminole tribal fire rescue and Hollywood fire rescue workers tried to revive her at her hotel, said Michael Bloom, president of the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Hollywood, Florida.
She was taken to Memorial Regional Hospital in Hollywood at 2.10pm, local time, and died there, police said.
Smith was born Vickie Lynn Hogan and raised in the small Texas town of Mexia, 130km south of Dallas.
She grew up emulating screen legend Marilyn Monroe.
She met elderly oil billionaire J. Howard Marshall while dancing at a Houston strip club and married him in 1994, when she was 26 and he was 89.
Marshall died the following year and Smith spent much of the following decade battling members of his family over his estate. In May 2006 the US Supreme Court ruled that Smith could pursue her case in federal court.
Smith, who modelled Guess jeans, was named Playboy magazine's Playmate of the Year in 1993 and had film roles the following year in The Hudsucker Proxy and Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult.
It will be up on YouTube within hours.
The worship of celebrities in this country is disgusting.
Are you sure it isn't video of paramedics working CPR on an inflatable sex doll?
Enriching the losing Presidential candidate in 2000! :<
Who is taking care of the baby?
Why was I not suprised that Bil O'Reilley devoted half of his program to this train-wreck last night?
He was popping the champagne cork ala Danny DeVito in "Ruthless People."
Presumably whoever took care of her when she was alive. You don't honestly think that Anna ever chaged a diaper, do you?
Disgusting. I don't understand our worship of people just for being famous. We have an army of folks (Paris Hilton,Keven Federline etc) who we obsess about for little more reason than that the they are famous. We buy magazines that are little more than grainy long distance shots of them and other famous folks (including those with actual talent) grocery shopping, or walking down the street, or at restaurants with friends. We obsess about which person we've never met might have gained weight, etc. This story takes it to another level though. We are a sick culture.
This is beyond SICK...I cannot believe how many empty souls walk the earth.
It's the same reason people can't turn away from looking at a car wreck on the highway.
The interest in the life of this woman is odd.
I am very sorry she died young, but it seems that young celebs who die early in life get a lot of attention in America.
Is he legally her husband? I read they had a "spiritual" ceremony in the Bahamas two weeks after her son died. I think ol' Howie bears watching.
When I was growing up, Mom used to say, "These are people who are famous for being well-known". We sure have a lot more of them these days, it seems.
I would doubt it -- why pay a half million dollars and then release it for free?
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