Claudia Cohen Dies

Claudia Cohen, a New York gossip columnist who became the subject of much gossip herself when she married into the city's elite, has died at the age of 56.

Cohen died Friday at a Manhattan hospital of ovarian cancer, said Christine Taylor, a spokeswoman for her ex-husband, the billionaire Ronald Perelman.

By the time of her death, Cohen was a millionaire socialite renowned for her contacts and East Hampton parties, but she had her start 30 years earlier as one of the first reporters for the New York Post's Page Six, dishing on the sort of people she would later invite to her parties.

Two years after her 1977 start at Page Six, she become the column's second editor, overseeing the column's coverage of such legendary locales as Studio 54.

Rest In Peace, Claudia.