Russian-born actress Evelyn Kraft died of a heart attack the same day, aged fifty-seven. She appeared in The French Sex Murders, Goliathon (aka Mighty Peking Man) and in the title role of Lady Dracula, before she apparently retired from the screen in the early 1980s.
Mexican-born leading man Ricardo Montalban (Ricardo Gonzalo Pedro Montalbán y Merino) died of congestive heart failure in Los Angeles on January 14, aged eighty-eight. Best known for his role as Mr Roarke, the mysterious white-suited host of CBS-TV’s Fantasy Island (1977-84), he made more than a dozen films in Mexico before MGM brought him to Hollywood in 1947. His many credits include Alice Through the Looking Glass (1966), Escape from the Planet of the Apes, Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, Wonder Woman (1974), the two Spy Kids sequels Island of Lost Dreams and Game Over, and The Ant Bully, plus episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., The Wild Wild West, Switch, Freakazoid! and Buzz Lightyear of Star Command. In the 1967 Star Trek episode “Space Seed” he portrayed genetically-created villain “Khan Noonien Singh”, and recreated the role for the popular 1982 movie Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan.
American leading lady Susanna Foster (Suzanne DeLee Flanders Larson) died of heart failure on January 17, aged eighty-four. Brought to Hollywood at the age of twelve by MGM, she was schooled (alongside Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland) for a singing and acting career. After the studio let her go when she turned down the lead role in National Velvet (it went to a young Elizabeth Taylor instead), and a brief stint at Paramount, Universal signed her in 1941 as leverage against Deanna Durbin. Her most famous role – as Christine Dubois in the 1943 remake of The Phantom of the Opera – was reportedly turned down by Durbin. Foster’s other credits include The Climax, which starred Boris Karloff. She retired from the screen in 1945, and was reportedly found homeless and living in a car in 1982.
British stage and screen actress Kathleen Byron (Kathleen Elizabeth Fell) died on January 18, a week after her eighty-eighth birthday. She had been suffering from Alzheimer’s disease for the past five years. Best remembered for her role as the psychologically disturbed nun Sister Ruth in Powell and Pressburger’s Black Narcissus (1947), her other credits include A Matter of Life and Death (aka Stairway to Heaven, as an angel), The House in the Square (aka I’ll Never Forget You), Night of the Eagle (aka Burn, Witch, Burn! based on the book by Fritz Leiber), Hammer’s Twins of Evil, Nothing But the Night (with Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing), Craze (with Jack Palance), Disney’s One of Our Dinosaurs is Missing, and The Elephant Man, along with episodes of The Avengers, The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes, Supernatural (“Night of the Marionettes”), Blake’s 7, The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes and Frighteners.
Actor and stuntman Bob (Robert M.) May, who was under the suit of the Robot in Irwin Allen’s TV series Lost in Space (1965-68), died of congestive heart disease the same day, aged 69. Announcer Dick Tufeld supplied the Robot’s voice (“Danger, Will Robinson!”). The grandson of vaudeville comedian Chic Johnson (of Olsen and Johnson fame), May began acting at the age of two in the duo’s Hellzappopin’ comedy stage review. He also appeared in The Nutty Professor (uncredited stunts) and an episode of Allen’s The Time Tunnel (as Adolf Hitler).
British stunt co-ordinator and actor Gerry Crampton (Robert Gerald Crampton) died on January 24, aged seventy-eight. As an actor he appeared (often uncredited) in small roles in Hammer’s Captain Clegg (aka Night Creatures), Death Line (aka Raw Meat), The Bride, Willow, The Jungle Book (1994), and episodes of The Avengers, The Prisoner and Tales from the Crypt. He performed stunts for six James Bond films, Tarazan Goes to India, Psychomania (aka The Death Wheelers), Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Bride, Biggles, Willow, Batman (1989), A Connecticut in King Arthur’s Court (1989), The Jungle Book, Mary Reilly, Dragonheart, The Odyssey, Merlin, The Infinite Worlds of H.G. Wells and Revelation. He was one of the first British stuntmen to be inducted into the Hollywood Stuntmen’s Hall of Fame.
Seventy-eight-year-old American actor Darrell Sandeen died on January 26 after suffering a brain haemorrhage following a serious fall. His credits include the low-budget The Education of a Vampire (2001).
British singer-songwriter John Martyn OBE (Iain David McGeachy) died of double pneumonia on January 29, aged sixty. The respected folk, jazz and blues guitarist and singer had suffered from drug and alcohol problems for many years, and he had a leg amputated in 2003, although he continued to perform. Martyn’s best-known albums include Solid Air and Grace and Danger, and he worked with Eric Clapton, David Gilmour and Phil Collins, amongst many others.
American TV character actor and real-life cowboy Clint Ritchie died of a blood clot on January 31 following surgery to implant a pacemaker. He was seventy. Best known for playing Clint Buchanan on ABC-TV’s daily soap opera One Life to Live, he also appeared in episodes of The Wild Wild West, Batman, Land of the Giants, Ghost Story and Fantasy Island.
Lux Interior (Erick Lee Purkhiser), co-founder and lead singer of the pioneering punk-horror band The Cramps, died of a preexisting heart condition on February 4, aged sixty. The band’s 1979 debut EP was entitled Gravest Hits, and their songs include “I Was a Teenage Werewolf” and “Bikini Girls with Machine Guns”.
Veteran Hollywood actor James Whitmore died of lung cancer on February 6, aged eighty-eight. Best remembered as the heroic police sergeant battling mutated giant ants in Them! (1954), his many other film credits include The Next Voice You Hear . . ., Angels in the Outfield, Face of Fire, The Canterville Ghost (1974), The Shawshank Redemption and The Relic, plus episodes of TV’s The Twilight Zone, The Invaders, Tarzan, Planet of the Apes and The Ray Bradbury Theater.
Dependable American leading man Philip Carey (Eugene Joseph Carey) died of lung cancer the same day, aged eighty-three. After making his movie debut in the early 1950s, his films include Screaming Mimi (based on the novel by Fredric Brown), Dead Ringer (aka Dead Image), The Time Travelers, Scream of the Wolf (scripted by Richard Matheson and based on the story by David Case) and Monster (with John Carradine). He also appeared in episodes of Thriller, Kolchak the Night Stalker and The Bionic Woman, and over three decades he played Texas tycoon Asa Buchanan on ABC’s daytime soap opera One Life to Live.
Shirley Jean Rickert, who was one of the child actors in Hal Roach’s “Our Gang”/“The Little Rascals” shorts in the 1930s, died of cardiovascular disease on February 6, aged eighty-two. After appearing in more than 100 movies (often uncredited), in the 1950s she became a burlesque dancer who performed under the name “Gilda and Her Crowning Glory” because of her striking long blonde hair.
Estelle Bennett, a singer with Phil Spector’s 1960s girl group the Ronettes, was found dead in her home on February 11, aged sixty-seven. The singing trio’s hits included “Be My Baby” (described by Brian Wilson as the best pop record of all time), “Frosty the Snowman”, “Baby I Love You”, “(The Best Part of) Breakin’ Up”, “Walking in the Rain” and “I Can Hear Music” before they disbanded in 1966. The Ronettes were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2007.
Greek-born comedian, character actor and mimic Oreste Lionello died in Rome after a long illness on February 12, aged eighty-one. One of Italy’s most prolific dubbing artists, he voiced most of Woody Allen and Jerry Lewis’ performances in Italian. He also lent his voice to Mickey Mouse, Bugs Bunny, Peter Sellers in Dr Strangelove, Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins, Federico Boido in Fellini’s “Toby Dammit” episode of Spirits of the Dead, Gene Wilder in Young Frankenstein, and Robin Williams in TV’s Mork and Mindy. Lionello made his acting debut in the 1956 children’s SF TV series Il Marziano Filippo, and he went on to appear in The Beast of Babylon Against the Son of Hercules, Four Flies on Grey Velvet and The Case of the Bloody Iris.
American actor Robert [Walter] Quarry, best known for his portrayal of vampire Count Yorga in Count Yorga, Vampire (1970) and its even better sequel, The Return of Count Yorga (1971), died of a heart condition at the Motion Picture and Television Fund Hospital in Woodland Hills, California, on February 20. H
e was eighty-three. Quarry began his career as a juvenile actor (he had a small uncredited role in Alfred Hitchcock’s Shadow of a Doubt and was in A Kiss Before Dying), but after getting the role of Count Yorga, American International Pictures groomed him for a few years as the studio’s Next Big Horror Star, until the genre fizzled out in the mid-1970s. His credits include Agent for H.A.R.M., Deathmaster (as another vampire), Sugar Hill, and Dr Phibes Rises Again and Madhouse (both with Vincent Price and Peter Cushing), but, following a serious car accident in the 1970s, he ended up in such direct-to-video dross (sometimes hiding behind the pseudonym “Robert Connell”) as Moon in Scorpio, Cyclone, Warlords, The Phantom Empire, Beverly Hills Vamp, Evil Spirits, Alienator, Spirits, Haunting Fear, Teenage Exorcist, Inner Sanctum II, Cyberzone, Secret Santa, Jungle Boy, Fugitive Mind and Invisible Mom II. Quarry also appeared in episodes of the children’s TV shows Far Out Space Nuts and The Lost Saucer, plus Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. At the time of his death, the actor was set to appear in a new version of The Tell-Tale Heart.
British leading man and crime novelist Laurence [Stanley] Payne, who portrayed Sexton Blake in the long-running children’s TV series from 1967 to 1971, died on February 23, aged eighty-nine. He also starred in The Trollenberg Terror (both TV series and movie, aka The Crawling Eye), The Tell-Tale Heart (aka The Hidden Room of 1,000 Horrors) and Hammer’s Vampire Circus, as well as appearing in episodes of Colonel March of Scotland Yard (with Boris Karloff), The Saint (“The Convenient Monster”), The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes, Thriller (1974), Tales of the Unexpected and Doctor Who.
Born in Shanghai, China, British leading man Edward Judd died of bronchial pneumonia on February 24, aged seventy-six. He made his film debut in the late 1940s and his credits include Hammer’s X The Unknown and The Vengeance of She, The Day the Earth Caught Fire, First Men in the Moon, Invasion, Island of Terror (with Peter Cushing), The Vault of Horror, O Lucky Man!, The Hound of the Baskervilles (1983) and Jack the Ripper (1988), along with episodes of Invisible Man (1959), Out of the Unknown, Thriller (1974) and The New Avengers. He retired in the early 1990s and was reportedly in frail health due to his heavy drinking.
[August] Clarence Swensen, who had an uncredited role as one of twenty-five marching Munchkin soldiers in The Wizard of Oz (1939), died on February 25, aged ninety-one. He also played seven uncredited roles in the midget Western The Terror of Tiny Town and donned an ape suit to appear as a chimpanzee riding an elephant in Tarzan Finds a Son.
Carry On actress Wendy Richard MBE (Wendy Emerton) died of breast cancer on February 26, aged sixty-seven. She contributed her distinctive Cockney vocals to Mike Sarne’s #1 novelty pop hit “Come Inside” and appeared in an episode of TV’s Danger Man and the dystopian SF movie No Blade of Grass. Richards’ scenes in the 1965 Beatles’ film Help! were cut, but she is probably best remembered for her roles as Miss Shirley Brahms in the long-running BBC-TV sitcom Are You Being Served? and as matriarch Pauline Fowler in the dour soap opera Eastenders. She recreated the latter character in 1993 for the rarely-seen charity 3-D short Doctor Who: Dimensions in Time.
Veteran American actor John Alvin [Hoffstadt] died on February 27 from complications from a fall. He was ninety-one. Alvin appeared in such films as The Horn Blows at Midnight (as an uncredited angel), The Beast with Five Fingers, The Couch, The Legend of Lizzie Borden and Somewhere in Time, along with episodes of TV’s Climax! (“The Thirteenth Chair”), Rocky Jones Space Ranger, Science Fiction Theatre, Sheena Queen of the Jungle, Thriller, One Step Beyond, The Munsters, My Favorite Martian, The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (“The Very Important Zombie Affair”), Get Smart, Kolchak: The Night Stalker, The Incredible Hulk and Amazing Stories.
Sydney [Earle] Chaplin, the eldest living child of legendary comedian Charlie Chaplin, died on March 3 of complications from a stroke, aged eighty-two. He appeared in his father’s films Limelight and A Countess from Hong Kong, and his other credits include Land of the Pharaohs, So Evil My Sister and Satan’s Cheerleaders, along with an episode of TV’s The Bionic Woman.
British magician Ali Bongo (William Wallace), who became president of the Magic Circle in 2008, died of pneumonia on March 8, aged seventy-nine. An advisor to other stage magicians, he was a consultant for such TV series as Doctor Who, Ace of Wands and Jonathan Creek. He also appeared in a two-part episode of The Tomorrow People in 1975.
American actor Jack Grimes, who voiced Superman’s best friend Jimmy Olsen in various TV cartoon series during the 1960s, died on March 10, aged eighty-two. He also appeared in episodes of Inner Sanctum and Tom Corbett Space Detective (playing T.J. Thistle).
British character actor and playwright Derek Benfield died the same date, a day before his eighty-third birthday. Best known for his role as the long-suffering Robert Wainthropp in BBC-TV’s Hetty Wainthropp Investigates (1996–98), his many other credits include episodes of TV’s Return to the Lost Planet (1955), Timeslip, Out of the Unknown, Doomwatch, Hammer House of Mystery and Suspense ( “The Late Nancy Irving”), Worlds Beyond and Frightners, along with the movies I Don’t Want to Be Born (aka The Devil Within Her) and Lifeforce (based on the novel by Colin Wilson).
Welsh-born television newscaster Huw [Gruffyd Edwards] Thomas died on March 12, aged eighty-one. He reported the news from 1956 to 1964 for ITN, and also appeared as an uncredited announcer in First Men in the Moon (1964) and turned up as a newscaster in The Ghost Goes Gear (1966).
Oscar-nominated American actress Betsy Blair (Elizabeth Winifred Boger) died of cancer in London on March 13, aged eighty-five. She made her screen debut in 1947, but moved to Britain a decade later after being blacklisted for her leftwing sympathies by Senator Joe McCarthy’s House of Un-American Activities Committee. Her credits include A Double Life, The Snake Pit, and an episode of Tales of the Unexpected. She was married to Gene Kelly from 1940 to 1957, and her second husband was film director Karl Reisz (from 1963 until his death in 2002).
Silent film child actor Coy Watson, Jr (James Caughey Watson Jr) died of stomach cancer on March 14, aged ninety-six. The eldest of nine sibling actors, he earned the name The Keystone Kid after appearing in Mack Sennett’s “Keystone Cops” comedies from the age of nine months until he was twenty-two. Among his numerous credits are The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923) with Lon Chaney, Sr Watson retired soon after the advent of sound pictures and later became a news photographer and TV cameraman on the West Coast. He was also featured on a 1958 episode of NBC-TV’s This is Your Life. His father, Coy Watson, Sr, created the flying carpet sequence in The Thief of Bagdad (1924), starring Douglas Fairbanks.
Hollywood actor and political activist Ron Silver (Ronald Arthur Silver) died on March 15 after a two-year battle with oesophageal cancer. He was sixty-two. Silver began his acting career in the 1970s, and his credits include The Return of the World’s Greatest Detective, The Entity, Silent Rage, Oh God! You Devil, Eat and Run, Blue Steel, Lifepod (which he also directed), Timecop, The Arrival, Shadow Zone: The Undead Express (as a vampire), Skeletons, Ratz, The Wisher and Xenophobia. The actor turned from being a staunch Democrat to an outspoken supporter of US President George W. Bush’s Republican administration following the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington.
Canadian-born singer Edmund [James Arthur] Hockridge died the same day, aged eighty-nine. The baritone moved to Britain in the 1950s, where he starred in a number of West End musicals, including Carousel (1951). Hockridge had a number of hit records in the mid-1950s, including “Young and Foolish” and “No Other Love”, and he made fleeting appearances in a few films.
Tony Award-winning British-born actress Natasha [Jane] Richardson, a member of the legendary Richardson acting dynasty, died in a New York hospital on March 18, three days after sustaining a head injury on a beginners’ ski slope in Canada. Although she originally refused treatment after the fall, she later complained that she did not feel well. Her life support was switched off after her family had said their goodbyes. The daughter of actress Vanessa Redgrave and wife of actor Liam Neeso
n, the forty-five-year-old actress played Mary Shelley in Ken Russell’s Gothic (1986), and she also appeared in The Handmaid’s Tale (based on the novel by Margaret Atwood), a BBC-TV remake of Suddenly Last Summer (1993), and the 2005 version of Patrick McGrath’s Asylum, plus episodes of TV’s The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Worlds Beyond and Tales from the Crypt. Theatres on Broadway and in London’s West End dimmed their lights in tribute to the actress.
Dependable British character actor John [Edward] Cater died of liver cancer on March 21, aged seventy-seven. His numerous credits include The Abominable Dr Phibes, Dr Phibes Rises Again, Hammer’s Captain Kronos – Vampire Hunter (as Professor Hieronymous Grost), The Woman in Black, Rasputin (1996) and Alien Autopsy. Cater was also in episodes of Out of This World (hosted by Boris Karloff), Doctor Who, The Avengers, Department S, Orson Welles’ Great Mysteries, Thriller (1975), The 10th Kingdom and Bonekickers.
British character actor John Franklyn-Robbins, one of only a small number of actors to have speaking roles in both the Doctor Who and Star Trek franchises, died on March 21, aged eighty-four. His many films include Hammer’s Dracula A.D. 1972, Asylum (1972), Miss Morison’s Ghosts, The Plague Dogs, The Woman in Black, The Dream Stone, Dr Jekyll and Ms Hyde, A Christmas Carol (1999), C.S. Lewis: Beyond Narnia, Hogfather and The Golden Compass, and he appeared in episodes of TV’s The Avengers (“The Cybernauts”), Mystery and Imagination (J. Sheridan Le Fanu’s “The Flying Dragon”), The Champions, Doctor Who (“Genesis of the Daleks”), The Storyteller and Star Trek: The Next Generation.
Danny Wayland Seals, one half of American pop rock duo England Dan & John Ford Coley, died of complications from cancer on March 25, aged sixty-one. The pair were best known for their 1976 debut single “I’d Really Love to See You Tonight”.
American actor and singer Andy Hallett (Andrew Alcott Hallett), who portrayed the laconic green-skinned demon Lorne in the final four seasons of Warner Bros.’ Angel (2000–04), died of heart failure on March 29. The thirty-three-year-old had battled congestive heart disease for five years. He also appeared as an uncredited student in the classic “Hush” episode of the companion series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and voiced the character of the Cricket in the animated fantasy Geppetto’s Secret.
The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror Page 51
