The flamboyant former model Anna Nicole Smith has died near Miami, Florida at the age of 39, her lawyer has said.

Smith, a former Playboy bunny, married Texas oil billionaire J Howard Marshall II in 1995 when she was 26 and he was 89. He died a year later.

She spent years in court fighting his son for a share of his estate, and won a victory at the Supreme Court in 2006.

She was found unconscious in a hotel room and could not be resuscitated. No cause of death has been announced.