NEWSMAKERS

NEWSMAKERS

Acclaimed playwright Edward Albee dies

NEW YORK

Three-time Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Edward Albee has died in suburban New York City at age 88.

Albee challenged theatrical convention in masterworks such as “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” and “A Delicate Balance.”

Personal assistant Jackob Holder says Albee died Friday at his home on Long Island. No cause of death has been given.

Albee had been arguably America’s greatest living playwright after the deaths of Arthur Miller and August Wilson in 2005.

Sharp-tongued humor and dark themes were the hallmarks of Albee’s style. In more than 25 plays Albee skewered such mainstays of American culture as marriage, child-rearing, religion and upper-class comforts.

Gibson’s girlfriend is pregnant with star’s ninth child

LOS ANGELES

Mel Gibson is preparing to be a dad for the ninth time.

PEOPLE magazine was the first to report Friday that the actor-director’s girlfriend, writer Rosalind Ross, is pregnant. Gibson’s publicist Alan Nierob confirmed the report.

No further details about the pregnancy were immediately available.

Gibson, who won an Oscar for directing “Braveheart,” has seven children from his marriage to his ex-wife, Robyn Moore. Their youngest child is 17.

He also had a 6-year-old daughter with ex-girlfriend Oksana Grigorieva.

Gibson’s latest directing effort, the World War II drama “Hacksaw Ridge,” debuted earlier this year at the Venice Film Festival and is due in theaters on Nov. 4.

Associated Press