PinkLady

Singer, dancer and one-time Playboy magazine model
Willa Ford will star as the late Playboy Playmate
Anna Nicole Smith in a biographical film about the billionaire's widow that starts shooting next week.

A publicist for Ford, best known for her hit single "I Wanna Be Bad" and a stint on the ABC television show "Dancing with the Stars," confirmed a report in Wednesday's Daily Variety that she was signed to play the title role in the film, "Anna Nicole."

Like Smith, who sprang to fame as a model for the Guess? fashion line and as Playboy's Playmate of the Year, Ford once posed nude for the men's magazine.

Variety said the independently produced movie would cover Smith's life from the age of 17 until her February 8 death in Florida from an accidental overdose of prescription drugs, five months after giving birth to a baby girl, Dannielynn.

Ford, 26, a Florida native, began singing at age 8 in a children's choir and released her first album, "Willa Was Here," in 2001, billing herself as the "bad girl of pop."