Very few times in my life have I seen a celebrity story take over the news media like Anna Nicole Smith’s untimely death and the quest for who is the father of her infant daughter, Dannielynn.

Ms. Smith wasn’t letting the cat er, father, out of the bag either, that’s for sure.

There is even a fight over who will take custody of her body. Circuit Judge Larry Seidlin said the hearing over the final resting place of the former Playboy Playmate’s body could be drawn out.

Thursday, he ordered that additional DNA be taken from Smith’s body, saying he wanted to make sure her body wouldn’t have to be exhumed.

That, I believe, was good foresight from Siedlin and will cut down on the drama later.

I realize that, out of respect, Ms. Smith should be laid to rest. But out of necessity, they should find out who is Dannielynn’s father.

There’s is no short list of people stepping up to claim paternity. The situation would make a great Maury episode. Just line them up and take the test. Maury would find out who the father is in under an hour. Who wouldn’t tune in to watch that?

Smith’s longtime companion, Howard K. Stern, claims he is executor of her will and wants her buried next to her son in the Bahamas. He also claims to be Dannielynn’s father.

Her estranged mother, Vergie Arthur, wants her buried in Smith’s home state of Texas.

Photographer Larry Birkhead hopes DNA taken from Smith will help prove he fathered the former centerfold’s 5-month-old daughter, who we learned Friday was excluded from Smith’s will.

In California, Prince Frederic von Anhalt, the husband of actress Zsa Zsa Gabor, filed legal documents Thursday seeking a DNA test to determine if he fathered the baby. Von Anhalt has said he and Smith had a decade-long affair.

There has even been scuttlebutt that her late husband, Texas oil tycoon J. Howard Marshall II, is the father of baby. Seems Smith may have had access to some of his frozen sperm for, well, whatever.

Whatever the case, poor little Dannielynn is already the center of a huge scandal that will, more than likely, follow her throughout her life. She has been in the news more than the Brangelina and TomKat babies put together.

But such is the life for a celebrity, no matter what age.

Rest assured, the nation will give a sigh of relief when Dannielynn’s father is revealed. Then we’ll start the next drama of whether or not she will get Marshall’s millions. She may need it to get a new identity and a normal life. Or, she may turn out like her mother and seek the spotlight and capitalize on the situation.

Either way, the media will surely fill us in, repeatedly.