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Anna Nicole's Funeral Details Released

Friend Says Services Will Be 'Over The Top'

POSTED: Thursday, March 1, 2007
UPDATED: 6:43 am CST March 2, 2007

Details have been released regarding the burial Friday of former Playboy Playmate Anna Nicole Smith.

Accoring to Richard Milstein, the attorney who was appointed guardian to Smith's 5-month-old baby, Danneilynn, the starlet's funeral in the Bahamas will begin at 10:30 a.m. EST.

"I kindly request that the members of the media help me to uphold the decorum and dignity that should be maintained throughout this process, for the sake of Dannielynn and the memories she will have of her mother's funeral," said Milstein.

Police officials are giving a stern warning to anyone, the media and spectators, who may cause disruptions, instituting a zero-tolerance policy. Anyone attempting to follow or photograph the escort or anyone interfering with the progress of the vehicles during the escort process will be arrested, warned the Miami-Dade Country Sheriff's Dept. Smith's body will be flown by private plane from Miami International Airport to Nassau, Bahamas.

Once arriving in Nassau, Smith will be transported to the Mount Horeb Baptist Church, where the service is expected to begin at 10:30 a.m. A private service for family is expected at 11:30 a.m. Smith will then be laid to rest next to her son, Daniel, at Lakeview Memorial Gardens.

Smith's companion, Howard K. Stern, the man requesting paternity testing, Larry Birkhead, and Smith's mother Virgie Arthur are expected to attend the funeral. Playboy founder Hugh Hefner is also rumored to be making plans to attend the former model's services.

Smith will be buried in a custom-made gown next to her 20-year-old son following an "over the top" memorial service with a tightly controlled guest list, said a friend helping to organize the memorial.

The memorial service, with about 300 guests, will feature large amounts of pink flowers, her favorite color, and singing from a well-known performer whose name organizers aren't ready to disclose, said the friend, Patrik Simpson of Beverly Hills, Calif.

"It will be a very beautiful, Anna Nicole send-off," Simpson told The Associated Press in an interview Wednesday night in the Bahamian capital of Nassau. "Of course it will be over the top because it's Anna Nicole."

Simpson's partner, Pol Atteu, has designed more than a dozen gowns for Smith, including the one in which she was to be buried in a "very elegant" casket that will most likely be closed, he said.

He declined to describe the dress.

Smith, 39, died in a Florida hotel on Feb. 8 -- setting off a battle over her burial and for custody of Dannielynn between her partner, Howard K. Stern, her mother, Virgie Arthur, and ex-boyfriend Larry Birkhead.

Arthur had wanted to bury Smith in her native Texas. But Stern insisted Smith wanted to be buried next to her son, Daniel, who died of apparent drug-related causes as he visited his mother three days after she gave birth to Dannielynn in the Bahamas.

The wrangling over Smith's body ended Wednesday when a Florida appeals court upheld a judge's ruling that allowed Smith to be buried in the Bahamas and Arthur decided not to appeal that decision.

Wayne Munroe, the Bahamian attorney for Smith's estate, said the Florida court ruling was "common sense."

"Everyone in this whole saga knows what her wishes were about every aspect of her affairs -- custody, property, everything," Munroe told the AP. "But people are steadfastly trying to get their wishes met and not hers. Nobody seems to care about this woman's wishes."

A Bahamian court has scheduled a hearing in the custody dispute for mid-March.

Smith married Texas oil tycoon J. Howard Marshall II in 1994 when he was 89 and she was 26. She had been fighting his family over his estimated $500 million fortune since his death in 1995, and her baby daughter could inherit millions.

Simpson said each "faction" -- Stern, Arthur and Birkhead – had to submit a guest list in advance and each would be limited to 100 people at the church service.

"It will be something very beautiful, very private, very over the top and very pink," he said.

The burial at Lakeview Memorial Gardens & Mausoleums will be much more intimate, with about 30 people, he said.

At Daniel's funeral, Smith and Stern erected a large green tent that blocked the media and other spectators from the service. Organizers of the former pinup's service are expected to do the same.

Simpson, a 38-year-old model talent scout who was friends with Smith for the past five years, said he and his partner plan to place photos of themselves with their 15-year-old daughter, who sang at Daniel's funeral, inside her casket, and other close friends also will likely add photos.

He recalled Smith as a warm and generous person who always remembered their daughter's birthday and other special events.

"She was just a good friend, a good mother, a great person," Simpson said. "She had a heart of gold and would give you the shirt off her own back."

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