Playboy - Playboy Model Cast In Anna Nicole Smith Film

A former Playboy model will portray the late Anna Nicole Smith, a former playmate herself, in a new movie of her life.

Willa Ford will play Smith, who died from an accidental drugs overdose on February 8th this year, in the upcoming biopic entitled Anna Nicole.

Ford, 26, is the self confessed "bad girl of pop" and was most recently seen on ABC's Dancing with the Stars last year. She has previously appeared alongside the Pussycat Dolls.

The film, to be directed by Hawaiian director Keoni Waxman will portray Smith's life from the age of 17 up until her death 22 years later, taking in her marriage to oil tycoon J Howard Marshall and the births of her children Daniel and Dannielynn.

Anna Nicole is one of two projects currently in the works about Smith, with Kurt Cobain's widow Courtney Love being lined up to play the model in a separate film.

On Tuesday DNA revealed that former boyfriend Larry Birkhead, one of two men to claim paternity, was the father of eight-month-old Dannielynn, who could one day stand to inherit Marshall's billions.