Playboy Playmate

Yvette Vickers, an early Playboy playmate whose credits as a B-movie actress included such cult films as "Attack of the 50-Foot Woman" and "Attack of the Giant Leeches," was found dead last week at her Benedict Canyon home. Her body appears to have gone undiscovered for months, police said. Vickers, 82, had not been seen for a long time. A neighbor discovered her body in an upstairs room of her Westwanda Street home on April 27. Its mummified state suggests she could have been dead for close to a year, police said.

A roundup of entertainment headlines for Tuesday. The Rock somehow found out about Osama Bin Laden's death before everyone else. ( Bleacher Report ) "Book of Mormon" leads the Tony nominations. Matt Stone and Trey Parker don't have much time to celebrate, the new season of "South Park" has just begun. ( Los Angeles Times ) David Boreanaz decided to go rogue and announce the new season of "Bones" himself. ( Los Angeles Times ) Bravo is the best network for product placement.

Anna Nicole Smith's late oil-tycoon husband spent well outside his personal means to give the former Playboy playmate expensive presents, his son testified Friday. E. Pierce Marshall, 63, said his father was unable to pay for $1 million worth of Harry Winston jewels and tried unsuccessfully to pay for them with a business loan. "He said 'The jewels are just going to have to go back,' " Marshall said.

Yvette Vickers, an early Playboy playmate whose credits as a B-movie actress included such cult films as "Attack of the 50-Foot Woman" and "Attack of the Giant Leeches," was found dead last week at her Benedict Canyon home. Her body appears to have gone undiscovered for months, police said. Vickers, 82, had not been seen for a long time. A neighbor discovered her body in an upstairs room of her Westwanda Street home on April 27. Its mummified state suggests she could have been dead for close to a year, police said.

The stepson of Anna Nicole Smith denied Thursday that he had a hand in cutting the former Playboy playmate out of an inheritance of millions from his late oil tycoon father. Pierce Marshall, 63, testified in U.S. District Court that his father decided how his estate would be divided despite his own role as co-trustee in the elder Marshall's living trust. Marshall is appealing a previous decision to award Smith more than $400 million of his father's estate.

A roundup of entertainment headlines for Tuesday. The Rock somehow found out about Osama Bin Laden's death before everyone else. ( Bleacher Report ) "Book of Mormon" leads the Tony nominations. Matt Stone and Trey Parker don't have much time to celebrate, the new season of "South Park" has just begun. ( Los Angeles Times ) David Boreanaz decided to go rogue and announce the new season of "Bones" himself. ( Los Angeles Times ) Bravo is the best network for product placement.

In defense of dumb blonds ... A 26-year-old Playboy playmate with an eighth-grade education marries an uncommonly rich 89-year-old oilman. He dies a year later, and she makes a claim to part of his fortune. You've already chosen sides, haven't you? Maybe that's what E. Pierce Marshall was counting on as he contested Anna Nicole Smith's claim to part of his late father's fortune. She was nothing but a gold digger, Pierce Marshall claimed, and his father, J. Howard Marshall, had no intention of leaving any of his estate to the former stripper with the Marilyn Monroe fixation.

In the end, the drug trial surrounding Anna Nicole Smith's death came to revolve around the fame that trailed the late model and Playboy Playmate throughout her life. The hope of landing in their famous patient's inner circle was powerful enough to motivate doctors to whip out their prescription pads and write out orders for huge quantities of highly addictive drugs, prosecutors said. Defense attorneys claimed that were it not for Smith's celebrity, their clients would never have been charged in the first place.

A sex video made by actor Colin Farrell and a Playboy Playmate surfaced Tuesday on the Internet despite a court injunction blocking its release. Word about a website carrying the video featuring Farrell and his then-girlfriend, Nicole Narain, Playboy magazine's Miss January 2002, rapidly spread on the Internet through other websites, including IDontLikeYouIn ThatWay.com, which also posted what it said were video stills of the Irish actor and Narain engaged in sex acts.

There's a general belief that women with brains wish they had beauty and that women who are beautiful wish they had smarts. And that it's a rare woman who has both, especially if "smarts" include technological savvy. Gillian Bonner is one of those women. A Playboy Playmate and interactive entertainment entrepreneur whose monthly column about digital culture debuts Tuesday on the Playboy Web site (http://www.playboy.

In the end, the drug trial surrounding Anna Nicole Smith's death came to revolve around the fame that trailed the late model and Playboy Playmate throughout her life. The hope of landing in their famous patient's inner circle was powerful enough to motivate doctors to whip out their prescription pads and write out orders for huge quantities of highly addictive drugs, prosecutors said. Defense attorneys claimed that were it not for Smith's celebrity, their clients would never have been charged in the first place.

The nightclub industry is dog-eat-dog even during the best of times, but in L.A. recently, some promoters are throwing in red meat. In an obvious but hard-to-beat bid to lure fickle clubbers to their high-dollar bottle service tables inside beautifully rendered bars, club owners are turning to former Playboy pinups and adult-film actresses to help get bodies in the door. When local DJs or the ubiquitous "bikini fashion show" fail to pull in the masses, an edgy flier featuring a racy adult star can cut through the clutter on Facebook and Twitter, where the battle for club-goers' attention really takes place long before slinking past velvet ropes at night.

Partners beware. Although Paris Hilton's career was launched by an illicit sex tape, hunky Irish bad boy Colin Farrell is trying to squash a video of himself performing various sex acts with a former girlfriend. On Monday, Farrell, the 29-year-old star of such films as "Alexander" and "Minority Report," sued former girlfriend Nicole Narain in Los Angeles Superior Court in an attempt to halt the distribution of a sex tape made 2 1/2 years ago and "the intimate matters depicted on the videotape."

In defense of dumb blonds ... A 26-year-old Playboy playmate with an eighth-grade education marries an uncommonly rich 89-year-old oilman. He dies a year later, and she makes a claim to part of his fortune. You've already chosen sides, haven't you? Maybe that's what E. Pierce Marshall was counting on as he contested Anna Nicole Smith's claim to part of his late father's fortune. She was nothing but a gold digger, Pierce Marshall claimed, and his father, J. Howard Marshall, had no intention of leaving any of his estate to the former stripper with the Marilyn Monroe fixation.

Anna Nicole Smith's late oil-tycoon husband spent well outside his personal means to give the former Playboy playmate expensive presents, his son testified Friday. E. Pierce Marshall, 63, said his father was unable to pay for $1 million worth of Harry Winston jewels and tried unsuccessfully to pay for them with a business loan. "He said 'The jewels are just going to have to go back,' " Marshall said.

The stepson of Anna Nicole Smith denied Thursday that he had a hand in cutting the former Playboy playmate out of an inheritance of millions from his late oil tycoon father. Pierce Marshall, 63, testified in U.S. District Court that his father decided how his estate would be divided despite his own role as co-trustee in the elder Marshall's living trust. Marshall is appealing a previous decision to award Smith more than $400 million of his father's estate.

Partners beware. Although Paris Hilton's career was launched by an illicit sex tape, hunky Irish bad boy Colin Farrell is trying to squash a video of himself performing various sex acts with a former girlfriend. On Monday, Farrell, the 29-year-old star of such films as "Alexander" and "Minority Report," sued former girlfriend Nicole Narain in Los Angeles Superior Court in an attempt to halt the distribution of a sex tape made 2 1/2 years ago and "the intimate matters depicted on the videotape."

The nightclub industry is dog-eat-dog even during the best of times, but in L.A. recently, some promoters are throwing in red meat. In an obvious but hard-to-beat bid to lure fickle clubbers to their high-dollar bottle service tables inside beautifully rendered bars, club owners are turning to former Playboy pinups and adult-film actresses to help get bodies in the door. When local DJs or the ubiquitous "bikini fashion show" fail to pull in the masses, an edgy flier featuring a racy adult star can cut through the clutter on Facebook and Twitter, where the battle for club-goers' attention really takes place long before slinking past velvet ropes at night.

There's a general belief that women with brains wish they had beauty and that women who are beautiful wish they had smarts. And that it's a rare woman who has both, especially if "smarts" include technological savvy. Gillian Bonner is one of those women. A Playboy Playmate and interactive entertainment entrepreneur whose monthly column about digital culture debuts Tuesday on the Playboy Web site (http://www.playboy.