Who needs DNA tests?

A look at some well-known people who have been associated with DNA tests

A look at some well-known people who have been associated with DNA tests

•Four men - attorney Howard K Stern, photojournalist Larry Birkhead, Zsa Zsa Gabor's husband, Frédéric Prinz von Anhalt, and bodyguard Alexander Denk - are all claiming to be the father of late model Anna Nicole Smith's five-month-old daughter, Dannielyn.

A DNA test will identify the real father. Here are some other cases that have made the headlines:

•In March 2005 Britain's former home secretary, David Blunkettturned to DNA testing to settle a dispute over the paternity of Kimberly Quinn's baby son, Lorcan. Blunkett had been involved in an affair with Quinn, publisher of the political journal, The Spectator, for three years.

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However, the test showed the baby was not his, and he subsequently denied all reports that claimed he had earlier admitted to being the father.

•A public row between tennis player Boris Beckerand Russian model Angela Ermakova was also settled by a paternity test. Ermakova claimed a one-night stand with Becker resulted in the birth of her daughter, Anna, in March 2000.

Becker staunchly denied the allegations, but in February 2001 a DNA test revealed he was in fact Anna's father and he agreed to pay child maintenance. The revelation came just over a month after Becker's seven-year marriage to his wife, Barbara, with whom he has two sons, was terminated.

•In June 2002, after a lengthy dispute actress Liz Hurleyturned to DNA testing to prove Hollywood producer Steve Bing was the father of her son, Damian. Bing had publicly denied he was the father, while Hurley insisted they had been in an "exclusive relationship" for the 18 months leading up to her pregnancy.

In June, two months after the birth of the baby, a DNA test confirmed that Bing was the father.

•The French actor Yves Montandrefused to provide a DNA sample when a paternity suit was filed against him by Aurore Drossard, the daughter of a former mistress. In 1994, three years after Montand's death, the court ruled that, based on witness accounts and the strong physical resemblance between the two, she was his daughter.

But in 1997 an appeal court ordered the body to be exhumed and a DNA test proved that he was not the father.

•Historic disputes have also been resolved by DNA testing. For centuries Thomas Jefferson, who served as president of the United States from 1801-1809 and was the principal author of the Declaration of Independence, was rumoured to have had an illegitimate child with a slave, Sally Hemings.

In 1999, geneticists at Oxford University in the UK and Leiden University in the Netherlands tested blood samples taken from the descendants of Jefferson and Hemings and concluded that Jefferson was "almost certainly" the father of Hemings' youngest son, Eston.