Fashion Critic Mr. Blackwell Dies in L.A.

Mr. Blackwell, the creator of the annual Ten Worst Dressed Women list, has died. He was 86.

Mr. Blackwell died Sunday of complications from an intestinal infection, publicist Harlan Boll said.

Born Richard Sylvan Selzer in 1922, Blackwell recounted in his autobiography, "From Rags to Bitches," a troubled, poverty-ridden childhood in which he was variously a truant, thief and prostitute.

Blackwell was a little-known dress designer when he issued his first tongue-in-cheek criticism of Hollywood fashion disasters for 1960 — long before Joan Rivers and others turned such ridicule into a daily affair.

The critic acknowledged he had mixed feelings about appearing so publicly mean. Most of the women he put through the wringer, he said, were people he genuinely admired for their talent if not their fashion sense.

"The list is and was a satirical look at the fashion flops of the year," he said in 1998. "I merely said out loud what others were whispering. ... It's not my intention to hurt the feelings of these people. It's to put down the clothing they're wearing."