Author, chef, TV host Anthony Bourdain dies at 61

Anthony Bourdain.
(Image credit: ANGELA WEISS/AFP/Getty Images)

Celebrated author and chef Anthony Bourdain, host of CNN's award-winning series Parts Unknown, has died in an apparent suicide, CNN reported Friday. He was 61.

"His love of great adventure, new friends, fine food and drink, and the remarkable stories of the world made him a unique storyteller," the network said in a statement. Bourdain, whom the Smithsonian once called the "the Elvis of bad boy chefs," was in France working on an episode for his show, which explored food and culture around the world, when a friend, French chef Eric Ripert, found him unresponsive in his hotel room.

Bourdain was a chef before his 2000 best-selling book Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly catapulted him to stardom. He hosted shows on the Food Network and the Travel Channel before joining CNN.

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Harold Maass, The Week US

Harold Maass is a contributing editor at The Week. He has been writing for The Week since the 2001 debut of the U.S. print edition and served as editor of TheWeek.com when it launched in 2008. Harold started his career as a newspaper reporter in South Florida and Haiti. He has previously worked for a variety of news outlets, including The Miami Herald, ABC News and Fox News, and for several years wrote a daily roundup of financial news for The Week and Yahoo Finance.