Playmate, stripper, widow. And now, thanks to the judge, $449m richer

The girl married well, after all. Very well indeed. Anna Nicole Smith, a former stripper, has been awarded $449m (£321m) by a court in Los Angeles - her rightful share, a judge ruled, of the fortune left by her late husband, the Texas oil baron J Howard Marshall.

The girl married well, after all. Very well indeed. Anna Nicole Smith, a former stripper, has been awarded $449m (£321m) by a court in Los Angeles - her rightful share, a judge ruled, of the fortune left by her late husband, the Texas oil baron J Howard Marshall.

The ruling by the US bankruptcy judge, Samuel Bufford, brings startling vindication to Ms Smith, 32, who met Mr Marshall in a topless club where she was working in Houston in 1991. The couple married in 1994. He was 89, she was 26.

Since Mr Marshall's death in 1995 - just 14 months after the wedding - Ms Smith has been battling with his sons for a slice of the industrialist's fortune, which she contends was $1.6bn. She was never named in any will left by her husband, who was confined to a wheelchair throughout the marriage.

The Texas-size war with her stepchildren, which has been grabbing headlines since its start, is not over. Ms Smith, who was named Playboy's playmate of the year in 1993 and went on to become an occasional actress and a model for Guess? jeans, is also suing the younger son, Pierce Marshall, 61, in a probate court in Houston, arguing that he has defrauded her out of a massive inheritance. That trial got under way yesterday.

Judge Bufford said that the final award to Ms Smith may change according to what unfolded in Houston.

Ms Smith, using her married name, Vicki Marshall, told the court she was without funds only because Pierce Marshall had illegally blocked her inheritance. She said she married the elder Marshall after he repeatedly told her that on his death she would get half his fortune. "This was one of the ways he wanted to hurry me up and marry him. He loved me and I loved him,'' Ms Smith said. Often clutching a picture of Mr Marshall, she described a loving and physically fulfilling marriage.

The judge ruled late on Wednesday: "The damages are $449,754,134, minus... any amount that Vicki Marshall actually recovers in the pending probate court action in Texas'' and estate taxes. He also said Ms Smith might be due punitive damages against Pierce Marshall. "There is no doubt in this case that [Ms Smith] had an expectancy to receive a substantial portion of [Mr Marshall's] wealth after his death,'' the judge ruled.

Lawyers for Pierce Marshall told the court his weak but sexually active father had indeed lavished the former stripper with jewellery and other gifts but that his generosity stopped there. Whatever promises he may have made to her, the nonagenarian never made anything official about an inheritance in any of his six wills. After the ruling, an effusive Ms Smith publicly voiced her satisfaction. "I'm so excited,'' she told KPRC-TV in Houston. "I hope it ends up like my husband wanted it to. I hope it ends up that I get everything that he wanted me to have."

Pierce Marshall said in a statement that he would appeal. "This extraordinary decision is a miscarriage of justice that is not supported by the facts and will not stand up on appeal," he said.

Ms Smith's lawyer said the ruling was certain to help her chances in the Houston trial. "Does that change things? Oh, I think it does,'' Philip Boesch said. "It's pretty powerful language and it's telling of the damages done to her."

Pierce Marshall is simultaneously embroiled in a probate battle in Houston with his brother, Howard Marshall III, 63. He was also cut out of the will and claims his younger brother poisoned their father against him after a disagreement within the family firm, Koch Industries, in 1980.

The case is complicated by uncertainty over the exact value of the elder Marshall's estate at the time of his death. The multiply-married tycoon was popularly known as the "richest man in Texas".

Pierce Marshall will tell the court that his estate was worth between $40m and $60m, not the $1.6bn cited by Ms Smith.

His lawyers in the Houston trial are expected to say Ms Smith is avaricious. She was a favourite among punters at Rick's Cabaret strip club in Houston, when she met Mr Marshall. But according to one lawyer who will represent Ms Smith at the trial, the portrait is wrong. "This is not about a gold-digger sucking money. This is about a relationship that was very profound," Tom Cunningham said.