Anna Nicole Smith’s life ended Thursday in a sixth-floor hotel room in Hollywood, Florida.

Smith, whose final months were marked heavily by tragedy and controversy, was pronounced dead at 2:49 p.m. local time, after being found collapsed by a private nurse at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino.

She was a former Guess? Jeans model. She was a former Playboy Playmate. She was a former E! reality TV star. She was 39.

Authorities did not announce a cause of death, which proved just as sudden and shocking as the death of Smith’s own son five months earlier. An autopsy was scheduled for Friday.

Paramedics were called to the Hard Rock at about 2 p.m.

When asked by WTVJ-TV if Smith was alive when emergency responders arrived, a local fire department captain said, “No, she was unconscious and not breathing.”

By that time, Smith had already been administered CPR by a bodyguard. Paramedics performed more CPR and other life-saving techniques but could not revive her. Smith was taken by ambulance to nearby Memorial Regional Hospital, where she was pronounced dead, Seminole police chief Charlie Tiger told an afternoon press conference.

Eyewitnesses at the hospital speculated on what rescue workers already seemed to know: Smith, her body covered, was dead, even as she was taken into Memorial Regional.

Howard K. Stern, Smith’s longtime lawyer and confidant—with whom she exchanged commitment vows but did not legally wed last September—and the bodyguard were in Smith’s hotel room when rescue workers arrived.

In Los Angeles, Smith attorney Ronald A. Rale said Stern could barely speak as he phoned the lawyer with word of the death.

Smith and her entourage checked into the Hard Rock on Monday night. The party was due to check out on Friday.

On Wednesday, Smith reportedly fell ill, possibly with the flu or a fever.

It was believed Smith’s infant daughter did not travel with her mother to Florida and instead remained in the Bahamas, where Smith largely had been living since becoming pregnant last year.

Dannielynn Hope, born Sept. 7, turned five months old on Wednesday.

The girl has been at the center of a raging paternity war that pitted Smith against ex-boyfriend Larry Birkhead. Smith, who refused to discuss the baby’s paternity during her pregnancy, identified Stern as the child’s father. Birkhead maintained he is and filed a lawsuit to prove his case.

A day before Smith’s death, a judge told the former E! star to submit her daughter to a DNA test by Feb. 21 or be forced to answer before his Los Angeles court.