Richard Blackwell - the self-important bad boy of fashion whose nearly five decades’ worth of annual Worst-Dressed Lists could be counted upon to provide some of the meanest laughs of every new year - died Sunday of complications from an intestinal infection, said publicist Harlan Boll. Blackwell was 86.

Snide, sardonic and unrepentantly punny, Blackwell’s Lists - like “Mr. Blackwell,” as he always called himself - once inspired annual Hollywood target Zsa Zsa Gabor to hire him to design her an outfit. In one of his final assaults, in January 2007, Blackwell took aim at Britney Spears and Paris Hilton (who, coincidentally, just happens to be Zsa Zsa Gabor’s great-step-niece), and pronounced them “two peas in an over-exposed pod … style-free and fashion deprived.”

Other favorite punching bags over the years invariably included Anna Nicole Smith (”Don’t bother with a new designer, Anna,” he advised her in 2002, “just hire a structural engineer”) and Barbra Streisand (”She looks like a masculine Bride of Frankenstein”).

Poor Background

Born impoverished and illegitimate as Richard Sylvan Selzer in a seedy section of Brooklyn in 1922, the future fashion arbitrator only went as far as the fifth grade. His luck turned in 1936, when he was typecast as a Dead End Kid - as a character named “Ears,” given that his own protruded until he had them surgically altered - first on Broadway and then out West in Hollywood.

His film career, such as it was, was revived in 1944 by no less than eventual RKO Studio owner Howard Hughes, who renamed Selzer (then using the stage name Dick Ellis) Richard Blackwell and cast him as a swarthy screen hero.

The film career never took off, and Blackwell tried personal managing - until it was noticed, by 1957, that the clothes he designed for his clients often out-shined their acting.

Launched Label

With his then-business (and personal) partner Robert Spencer, Blackwell’s label was launched - and cagily promoted by his Worst-Dressed List, which he initiated as an alternative to the popular International Best Dressed List dispensed by legendary fashion publicist Eleanor Lambert.

Eventually, the outrageousness of Blackwell’s remarks gained him the publicity he sought - and the riches to purchase Renoir and Van Dyck originals.

“The year the list came out everybody was mad as hell. They said, ‘Who the hell does Blackwell think he is?’ They made me a name,” he would recall, adding, that when it would come time for his eventual funeral, “Everyone will show up to see if I am really gone.”

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Hollywood’s sardonic fashion designer Mr. Blackwell has announced his 43rd annual list of the Worst-Dressed Women of the Year, and 2002’s top pick is former Playboy pinup — now E! TV star and merry widow — Anna Nicole Smith.

“Anna’s fashion follies are the worst of the year,” said Richard Blackwell, 80, in a statement released Tuesday. (He is reportedly recovering from throat surgery.)

The effete Blackwell, born Richard Seltzer in Brooklyn, may have retired from designing, but not from proclaiming who needs to restock her closets.

“Don’t bother with a new designer Anna, ” he insists, “just hire a structural engineer.”

Smith, 35, was followed, in order, by the following:

Kelly Osbourne (”A fright-wigged Baby Doll, stuck in a goth prom gown”); Shakira (”Somebody should tell her those are probably Madonna’s old clothes”); Cameron Diaz (”Dressed by a color-blind circus clown”); Princess Anne (”Dreary, drab and dour”); “Interview with the Vampire” author Anne Rice (”A cross between Queen Victoria and the Vampire Lestat”); Donatella Versace (”Time to toss the peroxide once and for all”); Meg Ryan (”A total fashion wreck”); Christina Aguilera (”Let’s just call her the ‘Worst Undressed’ and leave it at that”); and Pink (”I’m seeing red”).

On the positive side, Blackwell saluted Reese Witherspoon, Debra Messing, Halle Berry, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Oprah Winfrey, Jordan’s Princess Firyal, Renee Zellweger, Kate Winslet, Nicole Kidman and Jennifer Aniston for their senses of style, referring to them as his “Fabulous Fashion Independents” for 2002.

Larry Birkhead has purchased a 10,000-sq.-ft., six-bedroom house in his hometown of Louisville, Ky., for himself and 21-month-old daughter Dannielynn, he tells PEOPLE.

Birkhead, 35, says the house, which has 40-ft. ceilings and is modeled after a Sicilian church, was never completed, needs a lot of work, and right now “looks like a haunted house,” but he loves it.

“When I walked in, I said to myself, ‘This is our home!’” says Birkhead.

He adds he might sell the Los Angeles house where he’s surrounded by memories of its former occupants - Dannielynn’s mother, Anna Nicole Smith, and half-brother Daniel, who both died from drug-related complications.

He adds: “There also isn’t any little friends for her to run around with - which makes the idea of Kentucky even more inviting.”

Anna Nicole Smith’s 20-year-old son Daniel died from an accidental drug overdose, according to the findings of a Bahamas jury - which recommends no criminal charges be filed.

The seven panelists deliberated less than two hours before returning the verdict on Monday, the Associated Press reports.

Daniel died Sept. 10, 2006, shortly after he arrived in the Bahamas to meet his new baby half-sister, Dannielynn, who was born in a Nassau hospital.

An autopsy whose results were announced in December determined that Daniel died as a result of a lethal combination of methadone and the antidepressants Zoloft and Lexapro.
- Stephen M. Silverman

A petition to have Anna Nicole Smith’s 18-month-old daughter Dannielynnn declared the sole heir to her estate was approved Tuesday by a Los Angeles judge.

In court papers filed in Superior Court Oct. 18, 2007, Howard K. Stern, the executor of Smith’s estate, sought to clarify Smith’s intentions in her July 2001 will, drafted five years before Dannielynn Hope’s September 2006 birth. (Smith died in February 2007.)

“We and Mr. Stern always believed that Anna Nicole never intended to disinherit her daughter,”‘ Stern’s lawyer, Bruce S. Ross, said after Tuesday’s hearing. “I’m pleased to say this chapter in the saga is closed.”

In addition to confirming Dannielynn as Anna Nicole’s sole heir, Judge Mitchell L. Beckloff’s ruling also establishes a trust on her behalf with Stern and Birkhead as its co-trustees, Ross said.

Tuesday’s ruling was first reported by TMZ.com.

Although Larry Birkhead, former lover of Anna Nicole Smith, has not updated his Web site since November - when Smith would have turned 40 - the home page underwent a moving makeover on Friday, the first anniversary of her death:

“Anna Nicole Smith

I LOVE YOU AND HOPE YOU ARE

PROUD OF OUR BEAUTIFUL BABY

GIRL. PLEASE WATCH OVER US

AND GUIDE US ON OUR JOURNEY

THROUGH LIFE. WE MISS YOU.

2-8-07

LOVE,

LARRY AND DANNIELYNN”

Kevin Federline is the new father of the year!

Just in time for Father’s Day, Prive Las Vegas will award the proud papa of four his “father of the year” status at a party he is slated to host there June 13.

Sources tell PEOPLE he will be awarded the title during a presentation at the club.

The unofficial honor is Federline’s second such recognition in a relatively short time. Last November, Details magazine also anointed him father of the year - an honor he shared with onetime Anna Nicole Smith boyfriend Larry Birkhead.
- Mark Gray