Former Playboy Playmate and oil tycoon's widow Anna Nicole Smith died Thursday after collapsing in her hotel room. She was 39.

She was stricken while staying at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino and was rushed to a hospital. Police said the cause of death was under investigation and an autopsy would be done on Friday.

Five months ago, Smith's 20-year-old son, Daniel, died suddenly in the Bahamas just three days after the birth of her daughter. It was believed to be a drug-related death.

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 that year in The Hudsucker Proxy and Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult.

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