LIVES IN BRIEF: a celebrated rapper, a Soviet spymaster and a fashion entrepreneur

Real name Albert Johnson, he was best known for platinum album Murda Muzik and hit track Quiet Storm, which was recorded with Lil Kim.

Prodigy was born in New York and found success in the '90s with fellow rapper Havoc in Mobb Deep. The duo's hits included Shook Ones (Part II) and Hey Luv (Anything).

Later, Prodigy also released several solo albums, including H.N.I.C. 2000, and wrote a cookbook of prison recipes, based on his time in jail. The book, Commissary Kitchen: my Infamous Prison Cookbook, was published by Infamous, Prodigy's own imprint at Brooklyn-based Akashic Books.

Prodigy served most of a his three and a half year sentence in a medium-security dorm at Mid-State Correctional Facility near Utica, New York, after a plea deal on a weapons possession charge in 2007.

Last year he said that his sentence had changed him. "It made me realise the gravity, the reality of having everything taken from you," he said. "My career, my family, my freedom."

He said of his children: "I just tell them, you know, it was horrible. You don't ever want to be in that position. Learn from my mistakes. Learn from me. You don't have go through it yourself."

The rapper's representative said in a statement that the cause of his death was not clear, but that he had been suffering from complications caused by a sickle cell anaemia crisis.

THE Soviet spymaster Yuri Drozdov, who has died aged 91, was responsible for overseeing a sprawling network of KGB agents abroad at the height of the Cold War.

In 1979, Drozdov came to head a KGB department overseeing undercover agents abroad, the job he held until resigning in 1991.

The agents who lived abroad under false identities were called "illegals" and considered the elite of Soviet intelligence.

In December 1979, Drozdov also led an operation to storm the palace of Afghan president Hafizullah Amin that paved the way to the Soviet invasion. Drozdov also founded the KGB's Vympel special forces unit.

Drozdov, a Second World War veteran, joined the KGB in 1956 and was dispatched as a liaison officer with the East German secret police, the Stasi.

In 1962 he took part in the exchange of Soviet undercover agent Rudolf Abel, convicted in the US, for downed American spy plane pilot Francis Gary Powers.

Working under diplomatic cover, Drozdov served as the KGB resident in China in 1964-1968, and in the United States in 1975-1979.

The SVR praised Drozdov as a real Russian officer, a warm-hearted person and a wise leader.

FASHION entrepreneur Carla Fendi, who has died aged 79, was one of the five sisters who transformed their family leather goods business into a global luxury fashion house.

The sisters opened the first Fendi store in Rome in 1964, and a year later took on a young designer named Karl Lagerfeld who helped to catapult the Italian brand into global fame, with a focus on designing luxury furs.

Each sister had her role, and Carla Fendi, as Fendi president, was the family business's public face until they sold to the French luxury group LVMH in 1999. She was honorary president until her death.

THE comedy writer and performer Bill Dana, who has died aged 92, won stardom in the 1950s and ’60s with his television comedy character Jose Jimenez.

Early in his career, Dana wrote jokes for Don Adams and Steve Allen, on whose show he served as head writer. It was for a sketch on The Steve Allen Show that Dana created Jose Jimenez, which eventually led to his own sitcom, The Bill Dana Show, which was shown from 1963-1965.

The character’s Spanish-accented introduction, “My name, Jose Jimenez,” became a national catchphrase. One sketch, portraying Jimenez as an unwilling astronaut, was reportedly a favourite of the Mercury Seven and showed up in the 1983 movie The Right Stuff.

In 1970, with ethnic humor drawing criticism, Dana stopped performing the character. He recorded eight best-selling comedy albums, and made many TV appearances while continuing behind the scenes as a comedy writer.