Exclusive: Judge's Wife: People Say He Should Have His Own TV Show

Feb. 22, 2007 — -- Not since Judge Ito has a black robe so thoroughly failed to contain the colorful personality of the man beneath it.

For more than a week, Florida circuit court Judge Larry Seidlin has run the Anna Nicole Smith court hearing with a jarring combination of comic wisecracks, stunningly personal commentary and naked emotion.

And while the judge has declined to speak to reporters, his wife talked to the ABC News Law & Justice Unit.

"People who know him, and people who meet him on the street all say the same thing, 'You should have your own television show,'" Seidlin's wife, Belinda, said Thursday night.

The judge has garnered almost as much attention as Anna Nicole Smith herself.

As he read his ruling Thursday -- giving custody of Smith's body to a court-appointed guardian for her 5-month-old daughter Dannielynn -- he wept.

Earlier in the week-long hearing, Seidlin told one high-strung blonde lawyer that she was beautiful, and took cell phone calls from his wife. He shared his morning exercise routine with the courtroom and the cameras.

And then there were the inadvertently humorous moments during the hearing.

At one point, referring to a dress being made for Smith's burial, Seidlin's face soured as he expressed his general discomfort over funeral details.

"This is the one area I always ran away from -- the death," Seidlin said.

It prompted amused attorney Stephen Tunstall to note wryly, "But you're a probate judge," referring to the type of judge whose job is to deal with wills.

"I don't think him to be crazy at all,'' said Belinda Seidlin. "I find him to be brilliant, and that's tough to say when you're married to someone for a long time."

The couple met when she was 16 and he was in his 20s. They married seven years ago.

Belinda Seidlin said the Smith case affected her husband very deeply and very personally.

"He was exhausted at night," she said. "He would work on the case, sit around and think about it, write things down. He's a very tough guy, but certain things [about the case] really affected him -- this child, particularly, and the way the mother passed away … really everything."