Best-selling author Sidney Sheldon has died at the age of 89.
The award-winning writer for Broadway theatre, films and television turned at 50 to writing novels about stalwart women who triumph in a hostile world of ruthless men.
Sheldon died yesterday afternoon of complications from pneumonia at Eisenhower Medical Centre in Rancho Mirage, California, said Warren Cowan, his publicist.
His wife, Alexandra, and his daughter, author Mary Sheldon, were by his side.