The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror

by Stephen Jones

  Hollywood leading man Patrick [Wayne] Swayze died on September 14 after losing his two-year battle against pancreatic cancer. He was fifty-seven. A trained dancer, Swayze starred in Red Dawn, Steel Dawn, Dirty Dancing, Ghost, Tall Tale, Three Wishes, Donnie Darko, George and the Dragon, King Solomon’s Mines (2004), Disney’s The Fox and the Hound 2 and an episode of TV’s Amazing Stories.

  American character actor Henry Gibson (James Bateman), best known as a regular cast member on NBC-TV’s Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In from 1967 to 1971, died of cancer the same day, aged seventy-three. Gibson made his movie debut in The Nutty Professor (1963), and his other credits include Charlotte’s Web (1973), Halloween is Grinch Night, The Halloween That Almost Wasn’t (as Igor), The Incredible Shrinking Woman, Monster in the Closet (with John Carradine), Innerspace, The ’burbs, Around the World in 80 Days (1989), Night Visitor, Brenda Starr, Gremlins 2: The New Batch (with Christopher Lee), Escape to Witch Mountain (1995), Asylum (1997) and The Luck of the Irish. Gibson was also in episodes of TV’s My Favorite Martian, Bewitched, Wonder Woman, Fantasy Island, The Twilight Zone (1986), Knight Rider, Eerie Indiana, Tales from the Crypt, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Total Recall 2070, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Early Edition, Stagate: SG-1 and Charmed, and he was a regular voice on Galaxy High School.

  British actor John [Patrick] Joyce, who worked with Ken Campbell’s Science Fiction Theatre of Liverpool on such stage productions as the nine-hour Illuminatus! (1977) and the twenty-two hour The Warp (1979), died from oesophageal cancer on September 15, aged seventy. His film and TV appearances include Morons from Outer Space and Doctor Who (“The Daemons”), and for the last ten years of his life he worked as a dummy patient for doctors training in London hospitals.

  Busy character actor Timothy [Dingwall] Bateson died the same day, aged eighty-three. He appeared in the first British stage production of Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot in 1955, and his numerous film and TV credits include Vice Versa (1948), What a Carve Up! (aka No Place Like Homicide!), The Day the Earth Caught Fire, Hammer’s Nightmare, The Evil of Frankenstein and The Anniversary, Torture Garden, Twisted Nerve, A Christmas Carol (1984), Labyrinth, Merlin (1998), The 10th Kingdom, Terry Pratchett’s Hogfather and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (as the voice of Kreacher), along with episodes of Out of the Unknown, The Avengers, The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes, Doctor Who, Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere, Polterguests and Relic Hunter.

  Mary Travers, who sang with the 1960s American folk group Peter, Paul and Mary, died of leukaemia on September 16, aged seventy-two. The trio’s hits include “Puff the Magic Dragon”, Bob Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind” and their only #1 hit, “Leaving on a Jet Plane”.

  Six-foot, five-inch tall American stuntman and actor Dick Durock, who portrayed the heroic monster in Wes Craven’s Swamp Thing, The Return of Swamp Thing and the 1990s cable TV series, died after a long battle with pancreatic cancer on September 17, aged seventy-two. He began his career as a stunt double for Guy Williams on the final season of Lost in Space, and his other credits include Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, The Thing with Two Heads, Battle for the Planet of the Apes, The Dark Secret of Harvest Home, Doc Savage Man of Bronze, The Nude Bomb, More Wild Wild West, The Return of the Man from U.N.C.L.E.: The Fifteen Years Later Affair, The Sword and the Sorcerer, Stand By Me, Ewocks: The Battle for Endor, Howard the Duck, The Monster Squad and Remote Control, plus episodes of Star Trek, The Six Million Dollar Man, Battlestar Galactica (as the Imperious Leader), Quark, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, The Incredible Hulk, The Powers of Matthew Star, Knight Rider and Hard Time on Planet Earth.

  Prolific Spanish character actor Víctor Israel (Josep Maria Soler Vilanova) died on September 19, aged eighty. His many credits include The Sweet Sound of Death, The House That Screamed, Exorcism’s Daughter, The Light at the Edge of the World (based on the novel by Jules Verne), Murders in the Rue Morgue (1971), Necrophagus, The Witches’ Mountain, Horror Express (with Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing), The Mysterious Island (1973), Devil’s Kiss, Night of the Howling Beast and Crimson (both with Paul Naschy), El jovencito Drácula, Zombie Creeping Flesh (aka Night of the Zombies), The Sea Serpent (with Ray Milland), Más allá de la muerte and El anticristo 2, along with numerous Spaghetti Westerns and comedies.

  American actor John Hart, who took over from Clayton Moore as TV’s The Lone Ranger in 1952–53, died on September 20. He was ninety-one and had been suffering from dementia for some years. Hart appeared (often uncredited) in the serials Jack Armstrong, Brick Bradford, Batman and Robin, Atom Man vs. Superman and Adventures of Captain Africa, plus the movies Fury of the Congo, Aladdin and His Lamp, Jungle Jim in the Forbidden Land, Thief of Damascus (with Lon Chaney, Jr), The Ten Commandments (1956), Disney’s The Shaggy Dog (1959), Atlantis the Lost Continent, Simon King of the Witches, Blackenstein, Welcome to Arrow Beach, Blood Voyage (aka Nightmare Voyage), The Astral Factor (aka Invisible Strangler) and Cheerleaders Beach Party. He co-starred with Chaney, Jr again in the TV series Hawkeye and the Last of the Mohicans, and was also in episodes of World of Giants and The Addams Family. Hart reprised the role of the Lone Ranger in The Phynx (1970), plus episodes of The Greatest American Hero and Happy Days. He had a cameo role in The Legend of the Lone Ranger (1981). In later years he became a dubbing supervisor on cartoon shows.

  Former musician-turned-painter and actor Robert [Winthrop] Ginty died of cancer on September 21, aged sixty. Following The Exterminator (1980), Ginty became a direct-to-video action/horror star in such films as Warrior of the Lost World, The Alchemist, Scarab, Exterminator 2, Maniac Killer and Programmed to Kill. He appeared in episodes of Project U.F.O., Knight Rider, Baywatch Nights and the TV movie The Big One: The Great Los Angeles Earthquake before becoming a successful director on such shows as Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, Early Edition, Honey I Shrunk the Kids: The TV Show, Xena: Warrior Princess, Charmed, Tracker and the 1995 TV movie Here Come the Munsters. In 2004 he directed a rap/hip-hop musical stage version of Anthony Burgess’ A Clockwork Orange.

  Argentinian actress Inés [Escariz] Fernández, who starred in El fantasma de la opera (1955), died on September 22, aged seventy-seven.

  Lucy O’Donnell (Lucy Vodden) died of complications from lupus the same day, aged forty-seven. It was a drawing of her by nursery school friend Julian Lennon that inspired his father, John, to write the song “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” for The Beatles in 1967.

  American character actor Vincent Russo, who appeared in Screamtime and Maniac Cop 2, died on September 26, aged fifty-eight.

  British actress Margo Johns (Jessie Margaret Johns), who co-starred with Michael Gough and a giant gorilla in Konga (1961), died on September 29, aged ninety. She also appeared in Meet Sexton Blake and Murder at the Windmill (aka Murder at the Burlesque), and was married to actor William Franklyn from 1952 to 1962.

  American actor and singer Byron Palmer, who portrayed a Scotland Yard inspector in the 1953 Jack the Ripper thriller Man in the Attic, died on September 30, aged eighty-nine.

  “B” movie heroine Pamela Blake (Adele Pearce) died on October 6, aged ninety-four. A former teenage beauty queen, she appeared in The Unknown Guest and such serials as Chick Carter Detective, The Mysterious Mr M and Ghost of Zorro. Blake retired from the screen in 1953 and moved with her family to Las Vegas.

  Irish actor Sean Lawlor, who portrayed a modern-day Captain Nemo in the direct-to-video 30,000 Leagues Under the Sea (2007), died on October 10, aged fifty-five. He also appeared in Space Truckers, Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus, The Black Waters of Echo’s Pond, the fantasy short Scarecrow Joe and an episode of TV’s Night Man.

  Cynthia Ann Thompson (aka Cindy Ann Thompson), who starred in the 1985 comedy Cavegirl, died of cancer the same day, aged fifty. She was also in a handful of other films during the decade, including Ruggero Deodato’s Body Count (aka The Eleventh Commandment) and the 1988 remake of Not of This Earth.

  Thirty-three-year-old Irish boyband singer Stephen [
Patrick David] Gately was found dead in his £1 million apartment in Majorca, Spain, on October 10. A post-mortem examination revealed that he had died of a pulmonary oedema – an accumulation of fluid on the lungs. During the 1990s he was one of five members of Boyzone, who had six #1 singles in the UK. He played the lead in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat in London’s West End and, in 2008, Gately had an acting role the independent British horror film Credo (aka The Devil’s Curse).

  Italian-American crooner Al Martino (Alfred Cini), who appeared as Johnny Fontane in The Godfather, died on October 13, aged eighty-two. Martino was the first singer to top the UK charts when they began in November 1952 with “Here In My Heart”, which remained there for nine weeks (only six records have had a longer continuous run). During a fifty-year career, his other hits included “Spanish Eyes” and “The Man from Laramie”, and he also sang the theme song for Robert Aldrich’s Hush . . . Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964).

  American actress Collin Wilcox (aka Collin Wilcox-Horne and Collin Wilcox Paxton) died on October 14, aged seventy-four. Best remembered for her debut film role as the teenage girl in the 1962 version of To Kill a Mockingbird, she also appeared in The Name of the Game is Kill, Catch-22, Jaws 2, Fluke (based on the novel by James Herbert) and The Crying Child, plus episodes of TV’s Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Great Ghost Tales, The Twilight Zone, The Alfred Hitchcock Hour (Ray Bradbury’s “The Jar”), The Immortal, Ghost Story and American Gothic. When diagnosed with brain cancer, the actress arranged and attended her own memorial service.

  WWE pro-wrestler “Captain” Lou Albano (Louis Vincent Albano), who appeared in his manager Cyndi Lauper’s music videos “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” and “Time After Time”, died the same day, aged seventy-six. In 1989 he voiced Mario “Jumpman’’ Mario for TV’s The Super Mario Bros. Super Show! and had a cameo in the movie Stay Tuned.

  Irish-born actor Denys [Vernon] Hawthorne died on October 16, aged seventy-seven. He had suffered a debilitating stroke some years earlier. Hawthorne appeared in episodes of Play for Tomorrow (“Easter 2016”), The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Who (“The Trial of a Time Lord”), plus the 1988 TV movie Jack the Ripper.

  Canadian-born character actor Joseph Wiseman died in New York on October 19, aged ninety-one. Best remembered for playing the eponymous super-villain in the first James Bond film, Dr No (1962), he also appeared in a TV version of The Suicide Club (1974), plus episodes of Lights Out, Tales of Tomorrow, Suspense, Inner Sanctum, Kraft Television Theatre (“Death Takes a Holiday”), Shirley Temple’s Storybook, The Twilight Zone, Night Gallery, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century and The Greatest American Hero.

  Pie-throwing American comedian Soupy Sales (Milton Supman), who had his own children’s TV series in the 1950s and 1960s, died on October 22, following a fall at a local Emmy Awards show in New York. He was eighty-three. Towards the end of his career he appeared in the movies The Innocent and the Damned and Angels with Angles, was in an episode of the syndicated TV show Monsters, and appeared in a few episodes of Roger Corman’s Black Scorpion as Sonny Dey aka Professor Prophet.

  Moustachioed Canadian-born character actor and comic Lou Jacobi (Louis Harold Jacobovitch) died in New York City on October 23, aged ninety-five. He appeared in Little Murders, Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* *But Were Afraid to Ask, and Amazon Women on the Moon, along with episodes of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Tales of the Unexpected and Tales from the Darkside.

  American character actor and comedy magician Carl Ballantine (Meyer Kessler, aka The Amazing Mr Ballantine), best known for playing crew-member Lester Gruber in the 1962–66 TV series McHale’s Navy and the 1964 spin-off movie, died on November 3, aged ninety-two. He also appeared in episodes of Shirley Temple’s Storybook (“Babes in Toyland”), The Monkees, I Dream of Jeannie, The Ghost Busters and Fantasy Island, as well as the John Landis movie Susan’s Plan, and he contributed voices to the Freakazoid! and Spider-Man cartoon series. Ballantine was presented with a Lifetime Achievement Fellowship from the Magic Castle in Hollywood in 2007.

  British stage and screen actor David Tree (David Parsons) died on November 4, aged ninety-four. After making a number of films in the 1930s and early 1940s, he lost a hand during a training exercise in World War II and retired from acting to become a farmer. He was convinced by his friend Nicolas Roeg to return to the screen one final time in Don’t Look Now.

  British actor Edward [Albert Arthur] Woodward, OBE, died of complications from pneumonia on November 16, aged seventy-nine. Best remembered for starring in such TV series as Callan (1967–72) and The Equalizer (1985–89), he also portrayed the doomed Sergeant Howie in The Wicker Man (1973). Woodward’s other credits include Incense for the Damned (aka Bloodsuckers), 10 Rillington Place, A Christmas Carol (1984), Merlin and the Sword, Hands of a Murderer (as Sherlock Holmes), Gulliver’s Travels (1996) and Hot Fuzz, plus episodes of TV’s Mystery and Imagination, Sherlock Holmes (1968), Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1988) and Dark Realm. He was married to actress Michele Dotrice.

  Welsh-born painter, scientist and film extra Richard [Henry Louen] Jones died of complications from a genetic disorder on November 18, aged sixty-four. The four-foot-tall Jones was inside R2D2 as well as playing an Ewok in Star Wars: Return of the Jedi. He also appeared in Flash Gordon (1980) and Labyrinth.

  Hollywood “B” movie actress Beatrice [Kimbrough] Gray, the mother of child actor Billy Gray (The Day the Earth Stood Still), died on November 25, aged ninety-eight. She had uncredited roles in Laura, A Double Life and Abbott and Costello Meet the Killer Boris Karloff.

  Italian leading man Tony Kendall (Luciano Stella) died of cancer on November 28, aged seventy-three. His credits include Mario Bava’s What (aka The Whip and the Body, with Christopher Lee), The Three Fantastic Supermen, The Return of the Evil Dead, When the Screaming Stops, The People Who Own the Dark, Giant of the 20th Century and the popular Kommissar X series of 1960s spy movies.

  Spain’s great horror star Paul Naschy (Jacinto Molina Álvarez) died in Madrid of cancer on November 30, aged seventy-five. A former weightlifting champion and stunt player-turned-writer, producer, director and actor, he is best known for playing the doomed werewolf Waldemar Daninsky in a series of unconnected films that included Hell’s Creatures (aka Frankenstein’s Bloody Terror), Nights of the Werewolf, Dracula vs. Frankenstein (aka Assignment Terror), The Fury of the Wolfman, The Werewolf versus the Vampire Woman, Dr Jekyll and the Werewolf (in both roles!), Curse of the Devil, Night of the Howling Beast, The Craving (aka Night of the Werewolf), The Beast and the Magic Sword, Howl of the Devil and Lycantropus: The Moonlight Murders. Naschy’s other genre films included Jack the Ripper (1971), Dracula’s Great Love (as the Count), House of Psychotic Women, The Mummy’s Revenge, Horror Rises from the Tomb, Vengeance of the Zombies, Hunchback of the Morgue, The Hanging Woman (aka Terror of the Living Dead), Exorcism, Inquisition, Crimson, The People Who Own the Dark, Mystery on Monster Island (with Peter Cushing), Good Night Mr Monster, Panic Beats, The Beasts’ Carnival and La hija de Fu Manchú (as Fu Manchu). He also appeared (uncredited) in the I Spy TV episode “Mainly on the Plains”, which guest-starred Boris Karloff. The actor suffered a major heart attack in 1991 but made a full recovery, publishing his autobiography Memoirs of a Wolfman in 1997. More recently he appeared in a couple of low-budget American productions that did nothing for his career: Tomb of the Werewolf (as Daninsky again) and Countess Dracula’s Orgy of Blood, and he continued to work up to his death on such productions as Rottweiler, A Werewolf in the Amazon (as Dr Moreau), La herencia Valdemar and the short film La duodécima hora.

  American actress Carolyn de Fonseca, who worked in Rome voice-dubbing the English-language versions of many Italian movies from the early 1960s onwards, died towards the end of 2009. Among the numerous films she worked on (usually uncredited) are Mole Men Against the Son of Hercules, Mario Bava’s What (aka The Whip and the Body, dubbing Daliah Lavi), Hercules vs. the Moon Men, The
Last Man on Earth, Terror-Creatures from the Grave (dubbing Barbara Steele), Blade of the Ripper, Seven Blood-Stained Orchids, Torso, Spasmo, Deep Red, Suspiria, Buried Alive (1979), Antropophagus, Night of the Zombies, Burial Ground, The House by the Cemetery, Inferno, Macabre, Absurd, Murder in an Etruscan Cemetery, Piranha II: The Spawning, Ator the Fighting Eagle, The New York Ripper, Pieces, Monster Dog, Miami Golem, Phenomena, Ratman, Alien degli abissi, Bronx Executioner and Killer Crocodile II. From The Loves of Hercules (1960) onwards she was also Jayne Mansfield’s official dubbing voice in European productions, even recreating the late actress’ voice for the mondo documentary The Wild Wild World of Jayne Mansfield (1968). De Fonseca also appeared in a number of small roles in films and was married to actor/director Ted Rusoff (the nephew of AIP producer Samuel Z. Arkoff).

  Olivier Rollin, the half-brother of French director Jean Rollin, died of cancer in Paris on December 2. He appeared in Rollin’s La vampire nue (aka The Nude Vampire) and Les Raisins de la mort, also working as a production assistant on the latter film.

  British character actress Maggie Jones, who played Blanche Hunt in the long-running soap opera Coronation Street since 1974, died after a long illness the same day, aged seventy-five. She also appeared in the movie Every Home Should Have One (aka Think Dirty) and episodes of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Goodnight Sweetheart.

  Stiff upper-lipped leading man Richard Todd, OBE (Richard Andrew Palethorpe-Todd), best known for his roles in classic war films, died of cancer on December 3, aged ninety. The Irish-born Todd also appeared in Dorian Gray (1970), Asylum (1972), House of Long Shadows (with Vincent Price, Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing and John Carradine) and Incident at Victoria Falls (with Lee as Sherlock Holmes), along with episodes of TV’s Thriller (1974), Doctor Who (“Kinda”), Virtual Murder and the revival of Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased). The actor’s youngest son shot himself in 1977 at the age of twenty, and eight years later his eldest son also committed suicide after suffering from depression. Todd was named a Disney Legend in 2002 for his roles in The Story of Robin Hood and His Merrie Men, The Sword and the Rose and Rob Roy the Highland Rogue.