Bettie Page, whose saucy photo spreads helped get men through, and then end, the sexual repression of the 1950s, died of a heart attack in Los Angeles. She was 85.

Before Devil Wears Prada was filmed, before Project Runway made its reality television debut, before fashion grew beyond even the prominent role she had envisioned for it, Anna Wintour was compared in the Times to George W. Bush. It was one of Maureen Dowd's absurdly tortured analogies, but one of the rare ones that…

After a long battle with cancer, science fiction's biggest crossover novelist Michael Crichton died today. Though the lanky Harvard graduate was most well known for his 1990 novel Jurassic Park, he leaves behind a sometimes controversial legacy of investigation into the most prominent scientific issues of our time. We…

You have to give it to Maer Roshan: he was persistent. The man was determined to will Radar magazine into existence, and he did it. Three times. And now, for the third time, the magazine is folding—and taking a pretty great website with it. (When RadarOnline.com returns under AMI next year, it will be unrecognizable).…

Right-leaning daily New York Sun has published its much-anticipated final issue Tuesday, succumbing to financial difficulties seven years after taking up the flag of a conservative paper of the prior two centuries. A Zionist publication founded by a breakaway faction from the Forward, the Sun ended its run at the…

The Bloomberg financial newswire decided to update its 17-page Steve Jobs obituary today — and inadvertently published it in the process. Some investors were undoubtedly rattled to see, as our tipster did late this afternoon, the Apple CEO's obit cross the wire and then suddenly disappear. Jobs's battle with…

So you spend a good decade or so of your life contributing to the Times, making a name for yourself in the Styles section before leaving for greener pastures in 2000. Then you die, tragically young, of breast cancer. Will you get a Times obit? No. Will you even be mentioned in the paper? Nope! In fact, poor Monique…

Precisely one good thing happened to America this July 4, the arbitrarily selected pretend "birthday" of our cursed nation: a vile bigot died at a very, very old age. While the country as a whole would've decidedly been better served by his having died many decades ago (we came so close!), it is at least some small…

Clay Felker, the founding editor of New York magazine, died today at the age of 80 after an extended illness. The Missouri native got his start in journalism as a magazine writer for titles like LIFE, Time, and Esquire, but he will go down in history as the man who codified a method for chronicling the elite of New…

Is this the end of Amy Sacco? We're going to say it is. The onetime NYC nightlife queen's restaurant Bette in Chelsea—formerly considered a complement to her club Bungalow 8, a food-and-fun empire that would never be destroyed—is closed. No big to-do; just a lock on the door, and the end of an era. What happened?

Wikipedia beat everyone else to the news of Tim Russert's death last Friday (see screen capture here: the hive-minded encyclopedia reported the event at 3:01 p.m EST., about a half hour before Drudge linked to a short New York Post announcement). According to the Wikipedia's "revisions," the person who reported this…

Sydney Pollack, the director, producer and actor whose 1985 drama Out of Africa earned him that year's Best Picture and Director Oscars, died today at his home in Pacific Palisades. He was 73. He had suffered from cancer for more than a year, completing his final film — the documentary Sketches of Frank Gehry — in…

Thousands of people in Jamaica turned out last weekend to celebrate the life of Bob Marley's mother, who apparently died earlier this month, in a development I totally missed. Her name was Cedella Booker, and she died at the age of 81, outliving her son by 27 years. Bob Marley, the reggae superstar who was (argument…

As has been bemoaned by dozens of bloggers eager to write dirty words, many obituaries for the late former Agriculture Secretary Earl Butz politely elided the reason he was forced to quit. Butz said, in public: "I'll tell you what the coloreds want. It's three things: first, a tight pussy; second, loose shoes; and…

Trendwatch: The AP's decision to draw up an advance obituary for 26 year old Britney Spears is being replicated for many other young, at-risk stars. The AP got caught without pre-written death stories for Anna Nicole Smith and the recently deceased Brad Renfro, but now the wire service is preparing canned obits for a…

During a rare interview in which chameleonic prankster Sacha Baron Cohen answered questions without retreating into one of his ego-protecting characters (apparently, the marketing team for Sweeney Todd felt that conducting junket appearances as singing, enormously beschlonged barber Adolfo Pirelli wasn't the way to…

Unless adventurer Steve Fossett has taken a page out of a John Grisham novel and fled from all the fame, wealth and Richard Branson in his life (and really, who would blame him), the guy's probably a goner. The government spent a month looking for him after he disappeared over the Nevada wilderness, but called off…

The nation has now had a weekend to mourn the passing of Jack Valenti, man who made possible the groundbreaking cultural artifact known as the special unrated DVD version of Turistas. Yet, beyond such obvious accomplishments, there's still so much more to know about the MPAA chief/L.B.J. confidante/ Napster destroyer.…

Pat Buckley, New York City's greatest and most forceful Canadian-born Merit smoker, died yesterday. She was 80.