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Famed Director Lyubimov's Health 'Deteriorating'

Celebrated actor and director Yury Lyubimov, right, pictured in his beloved Taganka Theater in 2009.

Yury Lyubimov, the well-known theater director and actor, has slipped into a coma in a Moscow hospital and his health is deteriorating.

Lyubimov, who turned 95 on Sept. 30, was hospitalized on Oct. 12 after suffering a heart attack.

Doctors said on Oct. 23 that Lyubimov was in stable condition.

But an official at Hospital No. 23, where he is being treated, said Wednesday that his health had taken a turn for the worse.

"At first he was on the way toward recovery, but recently the director's state has deteriorated," the unidentified official told Interfax.

Moskovsky Komsomolets reported Tuesday that Lyubimov had slipped into a coma and doctors had been unable to bring him out of it.

Lyubimov, the former head of the Taganka Theater, which he formed in 1964, had planned to return to work on Oct. 30 to start rehearsals for "Prince Igor" at the Bolshoi Theater, but the rehearsals were canceled as his stay in the hospital was extended, Katerina Novikova, a spokeswoman for the Bolshoi Theater, told RIA-Novosti.

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