CNN —Writer and illustrator Laurent de Brunhoff, who continued his father’s legacy by producing dozens of original books for his “Babar the Elephant” series, has died aged 98. De Brunhoff died at his home in Key West, Florida on Friday following a recent stroke, his wife, the critic and author Phyllis Rose, told CNN via email. “The start — (the) very start of Babar — was a bed(time) story from my mother,” de Brunhoff told CNN in an interview, aired in 2003. Children's author and illustrator Laurent de Brunhoff working at his home during a BBC television interview in 1969. A later series, “Babar,” premiered in 1989 on CBC in Canada and HBO in the US (HBO is owned by CNN’s parent company, Warner Bros.

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Persons: Laurent de Brunhoff, Babar, De Brunhoff, Phyllis Rose, Brunhoff, Jean, “, Babar —, ” de Brunhoff, ” De Brunhoff, Arthur, ” “, ”, de Brunhoff, Malcolm Winton, Jean de Brunhoff’s, Ariel Dorfman, ” Dorfman, Ranger, ’, “ Babar, Badou ”, Oscar, Whit Stillman, Mary Ryan, illustrator’s Organizations: CNN, BBC, Radio Times, National Geographic, “, NBC, CBC, HBO, Warner Bros, Disney Junior Locations: Key West , Florida, France, Paris, Chilean, Africa, Canada