LOS ANGELES - Helmut Newton was a trailblazer in the photography world, exploring power, gender roles and an icy sexuality in his pictures.

His work appeared in magazines such as Playboy, Elle and Vogue, but he was best known for his stark, black-and-white nude photos of women. Newton, whose subjects included Paloma Picasso, Pierre Cardin and Naomi Campbell, died Friday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center after a car crash, police said. He was 83.

Newton apparently lost control of his Cadillac while leaving the famed Chateau Marmont hotel and crashed into a wall, said Officer April Harding, a police spokeswoman.

... It was unclear if Newton became ill while driving, authorities said.

The photographer, who was Jewish, was born in Germany to wealthy parents but fled his homeland at age 18 for Singapore in December 1938, a month after Nazi-led persecution programs began. He eventually settled in Australia and became a citizen, where he opened a small photography studio and changed his last name to Newton from Neustaedter.

Eventually he took up residence in Monte Carlo overlooking the Mediterranean, but spent winters in Los Angeles at the hotel.

The Bush administration said it would give royalty relief of more than $1 billion to energy companies drilling in the Gulf of Mexico to help increase domestic natural gas supplies, reduce consumers' energy bills and create jobs.

U.S. Interior Secretary Gale Norton said the plan would save Americans $570 million a year because of lower energy costs and create up to 26,000 jobs in the next six years.

But the plan also would cost the U.S. government about $1.1 billion in lost royalty fees from energy companies over the next five years, officials say.

Hollywood lost its top candidate to replace its chief lobbyist, Jack Valenti, as Rep. Billy Tauzin rejected the movie-industry job after receiving a lucrative, eleventh-hour offer to represent major drug companies, it was confirmed Friday.

The development deals a setback to the film studios' efforts to replace Valenti, who has said he wants to find a successor after 38 years as head of the Motion Picture Assn. of America. Valenti, 82, had hoped to announce who would fill his shoes as early as this month.

Sen. John Breaux (D-La.) and Rep. David Dreier (R-San Dimas) also have surfaced as potential replacements.

Valenti released a statement Friday saying Tauzin called him Thursday night to tell him he was declining a bid for his services that had been made by the MPAA. Valenti said Tauzin told him "that he was given a very, very generous offer from another enterprise."

Neither the MPAA nor Tauzin's office identified the group. But several sources said it was the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, which represents major drug companies such as Merck & Co. and Johnson & Johnson.

The pharmaceutical group, the sources said, offered Tauzin far more than the $1 million-plus annual salary that the MPAA job has paid Valenti.

... Sources among the major studios said Tauzin had been demanding from the MPAA a rich package with numerous perks, including at one point an apartment in New York, country club membership and fees for the lawyers who negotiated for him.