[PHP-INSTALL] GD causes Apache Segmentation fault w/ PHP 4.3.9, Apache 2, RedHat AS

I have installed PHP 4.3.9 on RedHat AS with Apache 2. Any script that
accesses gd related functions causes the httpd process to die with this
error: [notice] child pid 30391 exit signal Segmentation fault (11). Phpinfo
shows gd version as "bundled (2.0.28 compatible)". All other php pages are
working fine.

Here is the config:
./configure 
--with-apxs2=/usr/sbin/apxs
--with-mysql=/usr 
--with-gd 
--with-jpeg-dir=/usr
--with-png-dir=/usr
--with-zlib-dir=/usr
--with-ttf
--with-pdflib=/usr/local
--with-mcrypt=/usr 
--with-curl 
--with-openssl

Here is a sample script I used:
<?
header ("Content-type: image/png");
$im = @ImageCreate (50, 100)
    or die ("Cannot Initialize new GD image stream");
$background_color = ImageColorAllocate ($im, 255, 255, 255);
$text_color = ImageColorAllocate ($im, 233, 14, 91);
ImageString ($im, 1, 5, 5,  "A Simple Text String", $text_color);
ImagePng ($im);
?>

I also tried building GD 2 from source and forcing PHP to compile against
those headers under /usr/local/ but php make died with some errors related
to undefined gd* functions. If it matters, I installed libjpeg-devel-6b-30
and libpng-devel-1.2.2 RPMs before building php. I'm at a loss and this
issue is delaying our launch window for an important new product that uses
jpgraph (thus gd) so any help will be greatly appreciated! Thanks.