Mark Fineman, 51; Longtime Correspondent for The Times

WASHINGTON — Mark Fineman, a Los Angeles Times correspondent for the last 17 years, died Tuesday of an apparent heart attack in Baghdad while doing what he loved best -- chasing the big story and living on the edge.

Fineman, 51, collapsed at a checkpoint while waiting for an interview with a member of the Iraqi Governing Council. He was rushed to a U.S. military hospital nearby but could not be revived.

When he first felt ill, Fineman sought shelter in a small guard hut.

He then chatted with a Nepalese Ghurka sentry in broken Hindi, the legacy of Fineman's two tours as a foreign correspondent in South Asia.

"It was classic," said Alissa J. Rubin, a Times reporter who was with Fineman. "Mark wasn't feeling very well and he still couldn't stop himself from engaging."

Fineman won or shared numerous journalism prizes during his 29 years as a journalist, including a George Polk Award, a National Headliner Award, an Overseas Press Club award and the Amos Tuck Award.

But friends and colleagues said Fineman was driven by stories, not prizes. He was tenacious, irreverent and a powerful writer who could paint beautiful word pictures. His devotion to his craft and his boyish enthusiasm for an adrenaline-filled adventure seemed embedded in his very character.

"If you think of foreign correspondents as a type, he was Exhibit A," said John S. Carroll, editor of the Los Angeles Times. "He couldn't bear to be away from the action. He just had an intrepid spirit. He wasn't afraid to go where he needed to go to cover a story."

He was competitive to the end -- crowing in an e-mail last week that he had flown from Washington to Baghdad in only 20 hours, not the two or three days most reporters need. His last front-page story appeared the day of his death -- his 795th Page 1 byline since he joined The Times in January 1986. In all, he had nearly 2,000 bylines from dozens of countries.

Shelby Coffey III, the paper's editor from 1989 to 1997, said Fineman "had a great touch with people," while his swashbuckling style and earthy charm gave him a "wonderful Errol Flynn persona."

A tall, rangy man, Fineman had worn a Zapata mustache in his youth, but sported a long brown ponytail in recent years. He usually wore a denim shirt and a suede jacket. If he owned a tie, he never was seen to wear it.