Her coffin covered in a pink rhinestone-studded blanket, Anna Nicole Smith was buried on Friday as she lived: extravagantly dressed in a designer gown, surrounded by a small cadre of competing admirers.
The reality TV star was mourned at a lavish memorial service, but while her body was laid to rest, the fight over the former Playboy Playmate's infant daughter -- and a potential multimillion dollar inheritance -- remains very much alive.
Her companion Howard Stern, her mother Virgie Arthur and her former boyfriend Larry Birkhead are battling for custody of Dannielynn, and barely put their bickering aside for the ceremonies.
PHOTO: AP
Pink roses and flower arrangements lined the aisle and adorned the altar of the Mount Horeb Baptist church, where organizers also placed two photos of Smith -- including one showing her striking a Marilyn Monroe-like pose in a shimmering white gown. Arthur, Birkhead and Stern took turns eulogizing her.
"I think she would have been very happy with it," said Kathryn Beranich of Los Angeles, a friend of Stern and Smith who helped produce the former model's reality TV show. "I think she wouldn't have been pleased with the division between her biological family and the extended family she created and loved."
Smith's casket was closed and the pews were festooned with pink flowers, said Yvonne Gibson, one of fewer than 100 guests. An organizer had said about 300 -- including an Entertainment Tonight camera crew -- had been invited.
Guitarist Slash, formerly of Guns N' Roses, was among the guests, and country singer Joe Nichols sang two songs Stern requested: I'll Wait for You and On the Wings of a Dove.
Smith was then taken to Lakeview Memorial Gardens in a mahogany coffin draped in a blanket with rhinestones spelling out "Anna Nicole," as police, dressed in white belted tunics and pith helmets, maintained order. Onlookers, mostly Bahamians, spontaneously broke out into the hymn When Peace Like a River as the white hearse arrived.
Arthur had wanted her daughter buried in her native Texas, and sought to have Supreme Court Justice Anita Adams grant her custody of Smith's body in a last-minute bid to halt the burial. But the Bahamian judge denied it, according to Lilliemae MacDonald, the judge's secretary.
When some of the several hundred onlookers saw Arthur arrive at the cemetery, they booed. But they cheered when Birkhead stepped out of his limousine. Earlier, Smith's mother was cheered by spectators at the memorial, where she arrived in a white stretch limo with an entourage of about 10 people. She waved to the crowd, and some spectators cried out ``Anna! Anna! We love you!''
"She's got a presidential kind of media frenzy going on," said Christie Rathgaber, a 59-year-old nurse from Columbus, Ohio. "I'm just incredulous at all the fuss. She was not a world figure. She was not a queen. She was not a president. She was not anything ... It's just way over the top."
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