Oilman Wanted Inheritance for Wife, Lawyer Says

A lawyer for the late billionaire J. Howard Marshall II testified Thursday that the Texas oil baron wanted to leave money to his Playboy Playmate wife, Anna Nicole Smith, after he became angry with his son for interfering.

Glen Johnson, in videotaped testimony shown during a U.S. Bankruptcy Court trial over Marshall’s estate, also said that the oilman’s son, E. Pierce Marshall, was determined to prevent Smith from inheriting the money.

Howard Marshall died in 1995 at the age of 89. Smith, whose legal name is Vickie Lynn Marshall, was 26 when she married the tycoon in 1994.

Smith says she was fraudulently left out of his will and has asked a judge to award her roughly half of her late husband’s estate--or between $556 million and $820 million.

Pierce Marshall, 60, is also fighting Smith--an actress, the 1992 Playboy Playmate of the Year and a former Guess Jeans model--over the estate in a Texas probate court.

Both attended the trial Thursday, sitting on opposite sides of the small courtroom.

“The overall tenor of remarks [from Pierce Marshall] was that to the extent that he could help it, she would never get anything, that she had gotten enough already,” Johnson said. “If there was going to be any attempt by Vickie [to claim part of the estate] there was going to be World War III.”

Johnson said that when Pierce Marshall learned of his father’s substantial gifts to Smith, he had a guardian appointed for the estate, a move that angered the oilman.

“He was angry with his son for interfering with his relationship with Vickie,” Johnson said. “He said that hurt him very much.”