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Anna Nicole Still Headed for Auction Block

Fri., Apr. 13, 2007 8:43 AM PDT by Gina Serpe

Everyone else has told their side of the Anna Nicole Smith saga—now, despite protests against it, it looks like it's Smith's turn.

An online auction of two diaries written by Smith in the early '90s, along with other Smith-related memorabilia, will go ahead as planned Saturday despite claims made by her companion Howard K. Stern that the diaries were stolen and should be returned to the late model's estate.

Doug Norwine, the director of Dallas' Heritage Auction Galleries, which is hosting the sale, has maintained that the diaries, canceled checks, shopping receipts and ID cards that comprise the auction were all legally obtained and purchased from an anonymous German businessman, who himself purchased them on eBay for more than $500,000 last month.

However, Norwine did admit to E! Online that he is aware of "some stolen diaries floating around, but we have been told that those diaries were stolen from Anna Nicole's Bahamas home after her death. Obviously these are not those diaries."

Norwine said that his batch of personal works dates, in a "well-documented" fashion, back to 2004.

"We have good reason to believe that all of the items in this auction were abandoned by Ms. Smith in the house where she filmed [E! reality series The Anna Nicole Show] after the cancellation of said show," he said. (E! Online is a division of E! Networks.)

Norwine also claims attempts were made to return the memorabilia to Smith in 2004, who "in the presence of at least one witness instructed the caller to keep them or throw them away." Nonetheless, Stern has opted to sic his newly hired lawyer, L. Lin Wood, on the auction.

"On behalf of the estate, Mr. Stern hereby requests that the diaries be returned to him immediately," Wood said in a letter to Norwood Wednesday. "Make no mistake: these items were stolen from Ms. Smith by one or more thieves.

"Ms. Smith's Estate intends to vigorously pursue the return of the diaries, will take whatever means necessary to secure their return, and will hold to account those persons and entities that have profited through their reprehensible acts at the expense of the Estate."

Strong-worded as the letter may be, Norwine said he will not back down from launching the sale unless he is legally obliged to do so.

"So far, we do not believe that Mr. Stern has provided sufficient evidence of theft, such as a police report," he told E! Online. "Unless we get an injunction or court order, Heritage plans to proceed with the auction as scheduled."

The Heritage lot includes not only the handwritten diaries, penned between 1992 and 1994 and featuring Smith holding forth on sex, food and late octogenarian oil tycoon hubby J. Howard Marshall II, but several other personal mementos as well.

Among the ephemera: a personal check for $21.75 written out to Federal Express in 1992, which will open at $400; a Bloomingdale's receipt for nearly $17,000 signed by "Vickie Smith," which will start at $600; and a Texas-issued ID card of Smith's with an expiration date of 1994, which will start at $3,000.

Opening bids for each of the journals has been set at $26,000, though Norwine expects them together to fetch well over $100,000.

The auction is scheduled to begin Saturday at 1 p.m. The diaries are expected to go on the auction block sometime between 3 and 5 p.m.

Meanwhile, Hollywood is also prepping to hawk another Smith-related curiosity to the highest bidder next month—Artists View Entertainment announced it will release Smith's final feature film, Illegal Aliens, at the Cannes Film Market this spring.

Running concurrently with the Cannes International Film Festival, the market is the buyers' and sellers' frenzy in which producers try to find studios to distribute their films. Illegal Aliens, which not only stars Smith but was produced by both her and her late son, Daniel, already has a U.S. DVD release date for May 1.