"Lebanon," an Israeli film that recounts Israel's 1982 invasion of the Middle East country through the eyes of four soldiers in a tank, won the top prize at the Venice Film Festival yesterday.

The festival jury announced the Golden Lion and other prizes on the last day of the 11-day screening of films from around the world. An Iranian film about women and repression, "Zanan Bedoone Mardan" ("Women Without Men"), took the No. 2 prize, the Silver Lion.

"Lebanon," directed by Samuel Maoz, tells the story of Israeli paratroopers searching a hostile town. The conflict is seen through the binocular-aided eyes of those inside a tank, with their cramped quarters lending an anxious sense of claustrophobia to their viewpoint.

MAN WHO MADE GRAMMYS A STAR DIES

Pierre Cossette, who founded the modern Grammy Awards and produced the globally televised music awards ceremony for 35 years, died of congestive heart failure at a Montreal hospital. He was 85.

The Canadian producer's death was announced late Friday in Santa Monica, Calif., by the Recording Academy.

"It is with a heavy heart that we say goodbye to our dear friend and father of the Grammy Awards, Pierre Cossette," Academy president and CEO Neil Portnow said.

Cossette, a native of Valleyfield, Quebec, was an accomplished television and theater producer who managed some of American pop music's most influential early bands. But he is best known for guiding the Grammy Awards from its early days as a stuffy, unsuccessful production to the industry institution it has become.

HEFNER SAYS HE STAYED MARRIED FOR KIDS

Hugh Hefner said he waited more than 10 years to complete his divorce "because of the children."

"I stayed married not because it was a marriage — the marriage ended in 1998," he said. "I stayed because she wanted me to."

But now his twin boys are turning 18, so the 83-year-old Playboy magazine founder says, "Now is the time."

On Friday, Hefner filed for divorce from former Playmate of the Year Kimberly Conrad Hefner. The couple married in 1989, and were legally separated in 1998. Since then, Hefner lived with three girlfriends at the Playboy Mansion. That relationship was documented on the E! reality show "The Girls Next Door."

MAN ACCUSED OF STALKING 'THE HILLS' STAR

A Los Angeles County Superior Court judge has issued a temporary restraining order against a Northern California man accused of stalking "The Hills" star Audrina Partridge.

Zachory Loring of Petaluma is barred from coming within 100 yards of the reality TV celebrity. The order was issued Friday.

The 24-year-old Loring is accused of showing up on the doorstep of Partidge's Los Angeles home last month and handing her a stack of materials, including poems written to her and a photo of a woman being strangled. Her lawyers say he returned two more times, once staying on her porch for seven hours.

A hearing on a long-term order is set for Sept. 30.