Closing arguments begin in ex-Playmate lawsuit over oil estate.(The Dallas Morning News)

HOUSTON _ It started with a Hollywood flourish last September. Now, the case of Anna Nicole Smith versus the estate of oilman J. Howard Marshall II, whom she married a year before he died in 1995, is winding toward a quieter close.

Before lawyers began final arguments this week in Probate Court No. 2, Judge Mike Wood read jurors a list of 78 questions that they're being asked to decide. The only mention of Smith, who wasn't present, came in Question 66, dealing with expressed promises between husband and wife.

The other questions all pertain to the fight between Marshall's sons, Pierce and J. Howard III, over an estate valued at between $60 million to $1.6 billion.

Smith is out of the Houston fight by choice. Playboy's 1993 Playmate of the Year dropped her Texas claim after a California bankruptcy judge awarded her $475 million. She would not be involved at all in Houston but for a counterclaim by Pierce Marshall, who is appealing the California judgment.

"Finally," said lawyer Terry Giles as he began his final argument to the jury. "It's been a long time."

Only two spectators were in the courtroom Wednesday, and there were empty seats even with all the lawyers and a sprinkling of media. The turnout was a far cry from the media swarm and fan frenzy that accompanied Smith's comings and goings in the trial's early days.

Smith's attorneys said that they believed she was in California on Wednesday.