There has been no sign of her five-month old daughter Dannielynn at the service. Smith's mother Virgie Arthur, her boyfriend Howard K. Stern and her ex-boyfriend Larry Birkhead have been embroiled in legal disputes over who should take custody of Dannielynn, who could inherit millions of dollars.
"We want her to have a beautiful funeral, something she would have wanted," Ron Rale, an attorney for Stern, told the AP. Earlier today hundreds of islanders and tourists crowded behind steel barricades, guarded by police as guests began arriving in stretch limousines. Some of the participants gushed at the sight of the white-columned Mount Horeb Baptist Church, whose pews were festooned with pink roses.
"It's beautiful, just beautiful," said choir member Sheryl Rolle, 46, wearing a black dress and matching hat for the occasion. Gazing at the ranks of TV cameras and police dressed in white-belted tunics with blue trousers, some tourists were amazed at all the security and media. "She's got a presidential kind of media frenzy going on," said Christie Rathgaber, a 59-year-old nurse from Columbus, Ohio who happened by the scene while waiting for nearby shops to open.
"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." The burial is to be at the Lakeview Memorial Gardens, said Richard Milstein, the court-appointed advocate for Smith's 5-month old daughter Dannielynn.
A judge gave him control of the starlet's remains. Milstein reiterated in a a statement issued Thursday that both ceremonies would be closed to the public. He did not return phone messages left at his office and on his cell phone seeking additional comment.
Smith's Feb. 8 death in a hotel room at age 39 set off legal disputes in California, Florida and the Bahamas. Her boyfriend, mother and an ex-boyfriend have argued over who should get the body and who should take custody of Dannielynn, who could inherit millions of dollars.
Dr. Joshua Perper, the Broward medical examiner, said he will announce Smith's cause of death next week. "This was a complex case," Perper said.
"It was an unusual case from a medical point of view." Smith will be buried in a tiara and custom-made, beaded gown next to her 20-year old son Daniel following the service, which will feature copious amounts of pink flowers, her favorite color, said Patrik Simpson of Beverly Hills, California, who was helping to organize the memorial. "It will be a very beautiful, Anna Nicole send-off," Simpson said.
The burial at Lakeview Memorial Gardens will be much more intimate, with about 30 people, he said. Arthur had wanted to bury Smith in her native Texas, and fought last week's ruling from Circuit Judge Larry Seidlin that gave control of the body to Milstein, who agreed with Stern that the former Playboy Playmate wanted to be buried next to Daniel, who died of apparent drug-related causes last year. Perper said embalmers would have to take another look at the body to make sure it would be suitable for a viewing.
He had told Seidlin during the hearing that she was decomposing. Stern, Arthur and others have already viewed the body at Perper's office, and Simpson said the casket would likely be closed during the ceremony. Smith married Texas oil tycoon J.
Howard Marshall II in 1994 when he was 89 and she was 26. The reality TV star and Playboy Playmate had been fighting his family over his estimated $500 million fortune since his death in 1995.
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