Anna Nicole Smith's will made public

By Tom Brown

FORT LAUDERDALE, Florida (Reuters) - A judge in Florida made public Anna Nicole Smith's 5-year-old will on Friday and gave the go-ahead for the former Playboy playmate to be embalmed.

The will, which Smith signed on July 30, 2001, ordered the estate distributed to her lawyer and boyfriend, Howard K. Stern, to be held in trust for her son Daniel. But it was unclear if Stern will take control of Smith's estate because Daniel Smith, her only child when she wrote the will, died last year.

Smith gave birth to another child five months ago and the child's paternity is one of several tangled legal issues the courts are working to unravel.

The will did not appear to resolve any of the issues in a legal tug-of-war between Stern, Smith's mother, Virgie Arthur, and her ex-boyfriend, Larry Birkhead.

In the Fort Lauderdale court, Circuit Judge Larry Seidlin said the embalming would take place on Friday at the Broward Medical Examiner's Office where Smith's body has been stored since she died on February 8 at a Florida casino hotel of unexplained causes, aged 39.

"I want to maintain the beauty and dignity of Anna Nicole Smith," Seidlin said.

He did not rule on who had the right to bury her, but he indicated he wanted to decide the issue at a hearing on Tuesday.

"I want to put to rest Ms. Smith's body," Seidlin said. "I want her to have the peace and tranquillity that she deserves."

SEVERAL UNRESOLVED DISPUTES

The medical examiner's office in Dania Beach, Florida, had warned that her corpse was beginning to decompose. But Smith's body has been hostage to several disputes.

Stern wants her buried in the Bahamas next to her son, who died at age 20 last year. A private forensics expert hired by Smith said her son's death was likely due to a dangerous mix of prescription drugs.

Smith's mother, Virgie Arthur, long estranged from the former topless dancer and billionaire's widow, wants her buried in her home state of Texas.

Meanwhile, Smith's estate is the subject of a paternity suit. Her estate could one day be worth half a billion dollars if a separate, decade-long courtroom battle to inherit the fortune of her ex-husband, oil tycoon J. Howard Marshall, prevails.

Birkhead, the former boyfriend, claims to be the father of Smith's 5-month-old baby, Dannielynn Hope Marshall Stern, who was born in the Bahamas three days before Daniel Smith died. Stern, however, is listed as the father on the birth certificate.

Stern's lawyers took the will to the Fort Lauderdale court on Friday.