Yves Saint Laurent, the most influential designer in French couture in the last 50 years, died Sunday evening in Paris at the age of 71.

Sources tell People that the designer fell ill and entered a Paris hospital last week, reportedly slipping into a coma Wednesday evening. The reclusive designer has been in worsening health for months. Word of his condition began to travel when he failed to appear in Montreal for a museum retrospective which opened last Thursday.

In confirming Saint Laurent’s death to French news chain LCI, the designer’s longtime partner Pierre Berge said, the designer “knew that he had revolutionized fashion, that he had revolutionized the second half of the 20th century. His designs accompanied the evolution of women.”

Born Yves Henri Donat Mathieu-Saint-Laurent, in Oran, Algeria, on Aug. 1, 1936, the fashion designer is known for his sleek haute couture as well as his ready to wear styles, both of which embodied the best of French sophistication.

Saint Laurent first rose to prominence at the age of 22 when he succeed Christian Dior on the latter’s sudden death in 1957. Salvaging the designer’s collection, he is credited with continuing the house’s legacy as well as saving it from financial disaster.

Embroiderer Jacques Lesage, who worked with Saint Laurent for fifty years, beginning at Dior, said, “He invented everything. He reinvented everything.”

Following brief service in the French military, Saint Laurent opened the YSL label with partner Berge and quickly revolutionized French fashion, becoming the embodiment of the ’60s and ’70s with emblematic items including pop art designs and “Le Smoking,” an elegantly tailored feminine version of traditional men’s tuxedo wear.

In 1983, he became the first living fashion designer to be honored by New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. Long associated with muses Catherine Deneuve and Ines de la Fressange, Saint Laurent showed his last collection in January 2002 and has spent the past years involved with Foundation work.

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Oscar-winning director Sydney Pollack died of cancer Monday. He was 73.

Pollack, who was also an actor and producer, was surrounded by family at his home in Pacific Palisades when he passed, according to his publicist Leslee Dart. He was diagnosed with cancer ten months ago and had been undergoing treatment for the disease, she says.

Pollack was credited with directing 20 films, including seven with Robert Redford – most famously The Way We Were and Out of Africa, which won him two Oscars as director and as producer of the film, which won the best picture Oscar.

Pollack also received a best director Oscar nomination for the memorable 1982 comedy starring Dustin Hoffman, Tootsie.

He achieved more than 40 producer credits – from Presumed Innocent to last year’s Michael Clayton.

As an actor, Pollack later appeared in a number of films, including Woody Allen’s Husbands and Wives, Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut and the recent Oscar-nominated Michael Clayton. He even turned up in guest roles on Frasier, Will & Grace and The Sopranos.

For more of Pollack’s impressive body of works, check out the L.A. Times.

Pollack is survived by his wife, Claire, daughters Rebecca and Rachel, his brother Bernie, and six grandchildren.

Services will be private.

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WENN

This is totally sad… I grew up listening to Steven Curtis Chapman. My heart goes out to his family!

The 5-year-old daughter of Grammy-winning Christian music star Steven Curtis Chapman was struck and killed Wednesday by a sport utility vehicle driven by her brother, authorities said.

The girl, Maria Sue, was hit in the driveway of the family’s home Wednesday afternoon by a Toyota Land Cruiser driven by her teenage brother, said Laura McPherson, a spokeswoman for the Tennessee Highway Patrol.

The brother, whose name and exact age weren’t available, apparently did not see the girl, McPherson said. No charges are expected.

“It looks like a tragic accident,” she said.

Several family members witnessed the accident, which happened in Williamson County just south of Nashville. The girl died later at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, hospital spokeswoman Laurie Holloway said.

In a statement, Velvet Kelm, a publicist for Chapman, said Maria was the Chapmans’ youngest daughter.

Chapman, who is originally from Paducah, Ky., and his wife have promoted international adoption and have three daughters from China, including Maria. They also have three biological children.

The singer’s Web site says the couple was persuaded by their oldest daughter to adopt a girl from China. The experience led the family to adopt two more children and create Shaohannah’s Hope, a foundation and ministry to financially assist thousands of couples in adoption.

The Chapmans did missionary work at Chinese orphanages in 2006 and 2007, according to the Web site.

“After our first trip to China, my wife and I knew our lives were changing — our eyes and hearts were opening to how big God really is, and we have wanted to experience more of that,” Chapman says on the Web site.

“We’ve really wondered whether or not we should just go to China and stay there. But I don’t think so. I believe God is saying, ‘I want you to go, get your heart broken, your eyes opened, and then take this story back to the church in America and around the world.”‘

The 45-year-old singer also has released a book about being a father titled “Cinderella: The Love of Daddy and his Princess.” He has won five Grammy awards and 54 Dove awards from the Gospel Music Association, according to Kelm.

Fox

Marlon Brando’s son Christian died of pneumonia, the Los Angeles County Coroner’s office has concluded.

Christian Brando, the eldest son of the late Godfather actor, passed away in January at a Los Angeles hospital at the age of 49. An initial autopsy listed the cause of death as deferred, pending results of toxicology tests to establish whether Brando had prescription or other drugs in his system and whether a medical condition was involved.

But on Friday, the Los Angeles County Coroner’s Office assistant chief Ed Winter revealed no drugs or medication of consequence were found in Brando’s system.

Winter said, “He died of pneumonia.”

Source

Actor Stanley Kamel was found dead in his Hollywood home.

Kamel, who currently stars on “Monk,” also played mafioso Tony Marchette, the father of Rebecca Gayheart’s character Antonia, on “90210.” He ordered a hit to be put out on Dylan, but ended up killing his daughter instead.

L.A. Fire officials tell TMZ they responded to a 911 call from Kamel’s Hollywood Hills home yesterday just before 4:00 PM. They tell us their investigation is still “incomplete.”

A cause of death at this time is unknown, but the L.A. County Coroner tells us they don’t have the case. According to AccessHollywood.com, the actor was found by his longtime agents.

Source

The inquest into the death of Princess Diana in a Paris car crash in 1997 returned a verdict of unlawful killing on Monday, blaming “grossly negligent” driving by her chauffeur and pursuing photographers for the car wreck.

Diana, Princess of Wales, died in a Paris car crash on August 31, 1997.

Coroner Lord Justice Scott Baker, holding the inquest into the deaths of Diana and her boyfriend, Dodi Fayed, had earlier Monday told the 11 jurors that he would accept a verdict if nine of them agreed. The jury had been deliberating since last Wednesday, April 2nd.

The jury’s first task was to decide whether French investigators got it right within days of Diana’s death when they concluded that her speeding driver, Henri Paul, was drunk. What do you think of the Diana inquest verdict?

The second issue for the six women and five men was whether the paparazzi who chased the princess around Paris bore a heavy responsibility for the deaths.

On both counts their answer was yes.

Baker also told the jury last week to consider whether Diana and Fayed would have lived if they were wearing seat belts and whether Diana would have survived had she been taken to the hospital faster.

The jury decided that the fact that the couple were not wearing seatbelts was a contributory factor.

After the verdict had been returned, Lord Stevens, who investigated the crash for the British police during an earlier inquiry, said it had been an unprecedented inquest and that he hoped that those killed would now be allowed to rest.

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WENN

Charlton Heston, who won the 1959 best actor Oscar as the chariot-racing “Ben-Hur” and portrayed Moses, Michelangelo, El Cid and other figures in movie epics of the ’50s and ’60s, has died. He was 84.

Charlton Heston had symptoms consistent with Alzheimer’s disease.

The actor died Saturday night at his home in Beverly Hills with his wife Lydia at his side, family spokesman Bill Powers said.

Powers declined to comment on the cause of death or provide further details.

“Charlton Heston was seen by the world as larger than life. He was known for his chiseled jaw, broad shoulders and resonating voice, and, of course, for the roles he played,” Heston’s family said in a statement. “No one could ask for a fuller life than his. No man could have given more to his family, to his profession, and to his country.” Watch Heston part the Red Sea as Moses »

Heston revealed in 2002 that he had symptoms consistent with Alzheimer’s disease, saying, “I must reconcile courage and surrender in equal measure.”

With his large, muscular build, well-boned face and sonorous voice, Heston proved the ideal star during the period when Hollywood was filling movie screens with panoramas depicting the religious and historical past. “I have a face that belongs in another century,” he often remarked.

Publicist Michael Levine, who represented Heston for about 20 years, said the actor’s passing represented the end of an iconic era for cinema.

“If Hollywood had a Mt. Rushmore, Heston’s face would be on it,” Levine said. “He was a heroic figure that I don’t think exists to the same degree in Hollywood today.”

CNN