Brooklyn-born Al Lewis (Albert or Alexander Meister, sources vary), best remembered as the 378-year-old Grandpa Munster (actually Count Dracula) on the CBS-TV show The Munsters (1964–66), died after a long illness on February 3rd, aged 95 (although some sources claimed 82). In recent years, the cigar-chomping actor had undergone three angioplasty procedures and, in 2003, surgeons were forced to amputate his right leg below the knee and all five toes on his left foot. Lewis appeared in such films as The Devil’s Commandment (aka I Vampiri), They Might Be Giants, Fright House, My Grandpa is a Vampire (aka Moonrise), Night Terror, the 1988 video compilation Grampa’s Monster Movies and the spin-off movies Munster Go Home, The Munster’s Revenge and Here Come the Munsters. He also played Officer Leo Schnauser on the 1961–63 series Car 54, Where Are You?, and his other TV appearances include The Night Strangler and episodes of Lost in Space and Rod Serling’s Night Gallery. In a varied career, Lewis also worked as a circus clown, salesman, waiter, children’s book author, basketball scout, successful restaurateur, poolroom owner, store detective and the Green Party’s political candidate for the governorship of New York state in 1998 (he lost against incumbent Governor George Pataki, but still polled 52,000 votes).
American actress Jean Byron (Imogene Burkhart) died the same day, aged 80. A radio singer before being put under contract by Columbia Pictures, she starred opposite Johnny Weismuller in Voodoo Tiger and Jungle Moon Men. Her other credits include The Magnetic Monster, Invisible Invaders and episodes of Science Fiction Theater and Batman (as the Mayor’s wife). Byron was briefly married to actor Michael Ansara in the 1950s.
Film and TV actor Franklin Cover, whose credits include The Stepford Wives (1975), died of pneumonia on February 5th, aged 77.
American character actor Phil Brown, best remembered for his role as Luke Skywalker’s doomed “Uncle Owen” in Star Wars (1977), died of pneumonia on February 9th, aged 89. Blacklisted during the communist witch-hunts of the 1950s, he moved to London to work in films and on the stage. Brown’s other credits include Universal’s Weird Woman and Jungle Captive, The Luck of the Irish, Superman (1978) and Twilight’s Last Gleaming. He also played a council elder in Battlestar Galactica: The Second Coming, a 1990 short inspired by the 1970s TV series, and appeared in episodes of Colonel March of Scotland Yard (with Boris Karloff), Hammer’s Journey Into the Unknown, Roald Dahl’s Tales of the Unexpected and Tucker’s Witch.
American actor Andreas Katsulas, who played Ambassador G’Kar of Nam in the Babylon 5 TV series and films (1993–2001), died of lung cancer on February 13th, aged 59. He also portrayed the one-armed man in the 1993 big-screen version of The Fugitive and appeared in Seduction: Three Tales from the Inner Sanctum, The Death of the Incredible Hulk and episodes oiMax Headroom, Alien Nation and Star Trek: The Next Generation (in a recurring role as Romulan commander Tomalak).
72-year-old actor Paul Carr died of lung cancer in Los Angeles on February 17th. He played Lt. Lee Kelso in the pilot for Star Trek and was Lt Devlin on TV’s Buck Rogers. Carr also appeared in episodes of One Step Beyond, Men Into Space, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Time Tunnel, The Green Hornet, Land of the Giants, Circle of Fear, The Six Million Dollar Man, Spider-Man, The Incredible Hulk and Highway to Heaven. The actor’s movie credits include Ben, The Severed Arm, The Bat People, Sisters of Death, The Killings at Outpost Zeta and Solar Crisis.
Billy Cowsill, lead singer of the 1960s family group The Cowsills, died of emphysema and osteoporosis on February 18th, aged 58. Reportedly the inspiration for TV’s The Partridge Family (with David Cassidy in the lead), the band’s hits included “We Can Fly”, “Hair” and the theme for the 1969 TV series Love, American Style. The body of Cowsill’s brother Barry was found in late December 2005, four months after he went missing from his New Orleans home in the wake of hurricane Katrina.
Emmy Award-winning American comedian and actor Don Knotts died of pulmonary and respiratory complications on February 24th, aged 81. Best remembered for his role as Deputy Barney Fife in The Andy Griffith Show (1960–68), the bug-eyed Knotts’ other credits include The Incredible Mr. Limpet, The Ghost and Mr. Chicken, The Reluctant Astronaut, I Love a Mystery (1973), Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo, Pleasantville and Disney’s Chicken Little.
Emmy Award-winning American actor and environmental activist Dennis Weaver died of complications from cancer the same day, also aged 81. Best remembered for his roles as limping sidekick Chester Goode in the CBS-TV Western Gunsmoke (1955–63) and later as fish-out-of-water Marshall Sam McCloud in a long-running series of 1970s NBC Mystery Movies (including McCloud Meets Dracula in 1977), his other credits include Touch of Evil, Way . . . Way Out, What’s the Matter With Helen?, Steven Spielberg’s Duel, Don’t Go to Sleep and episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Twilight Zone and The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries (“The Mystery of the Hollywood Phantom”).
American actor Darren McGavin, who starred as investigative reporter Carl Kolchak in the TV movies The Night Stalker (1971) and The Night Strangler (1972), as well as the spin-off series Kolchak: The Night Stalker (1974–75), died on February 25th, aged 83. His many other credits include Mission Mars, The Challenge, Steven Spielberg’s Something Evil, The Six Million Dollar Man pilot, The Martian Chronicles mini-series, Hangar 18, Firebird 2015, The Natural, Dead Heat (with Vincent Price), Captain America and By Dawn’s Early Light. On TV he played private eye Mike Hammer in the 1950s TV series of the same name, and appeared in episodes of Suspense, Tales of Tomorrow, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Alfred Hitchcock Hour, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., The Evil Touch, Fantasy Island, Tales from the Darkside, Roald Dahl’s Tales of the Unexpected, Highway to Heaven and Monsters. He also made two guest appearances on The X Files, a show that acknowledged its debt to the Kolchak series.
Jackson 5 drummer Johnny Jackson, Jr (no relation) was stabbed to death on March 1st. He was 55. A woman was arrested for his murder.
Former British child actor Jack Wild died after a long illness on March 2nd, aged 53. After receiving an Academy Award nomination for his debut as the Artful Dodger in the 1968 musical Oliver!, his career never really took off. He starred in the American TV series H R. Pufnstuff (1969) and the 1970 spin-off movie, but other film roles were sparse. He appeared in The Pied Piper (1971) opposite singer Donovan, and made a belated return to the screen twenty years later in Robin Hood Prince of Thieves. A heavy smoker and alcoholic since the age of twenty-one, he was diagnosed with oral cancer in 2000 and had an operation three years later to remove part of his tongue and vocal cords. Although he lost his voice, following the surgery he appeared on stage in a pantomime miming his role. When Daniel Radcliffe got the role of Harry Potter, Wild wrote an open letter to the teenage actor warning him of the dangers of becoming a child star.
Scottish writer and singer Ivor Cutler died on March 3rd, aged 83. He played Buster Bloodvessel in the Beatles TV movie Magical Mystery Tour.
44-year-old singer and former actress Dana Reeve, the widow of Superman actor Christopher Reeve (who died in 2004), died of lung cancer on March 6th, despite being a non-smoker.
British character actor, comedian, and radio and TV scriptwriter John Junkin died of lung cancer, emphysema and asthma on March 7th, aged 76. He appeared with the Beatles in A Hard Day’s Night, and his other credits include Vengeance (aka The Brain), How I Won the War, Wombling Free, Licensed to Love and Kill (aka The Man from S.E.X.), plus episodes of The Avengers (“Never, Never Say Die” with Christopher Lee) and Catweazle.
Character actor Kort Falkenberg, who was featured as Cadet Farren in the 1950s TV series Tom Corbett, Space Cadet, died on March 13th, aged 88. He also appeared in episodes of Men Into Space, One Step Beyond, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Quantum Leap and The Adventures of Brisco County Jr.
Oscar-winning American character actress Maureen Stapleton died of chronic pulmonary disease on March 14th, aged 80. Her many credits include The Fan, Cocoon and Cocoon: The Return, Made in Heaven and Doin’ Time on Planet Earth. She also appeared as the epon
ymous character in a 1982 TV adaptation of Ray Bradbury’s The Electric Grandmother.
80-year-old American actor and fencing expert Britt Lomond died after a long illness on March 22nd. Best remembered as the villainous Captain Monastario on the 1957 Walt Disney TV series Zorro and the spin-off feature The Sign of Zorro, he later worked behind the camera on such films as Somewhere in Time. In 2004, his Monastario character was featured on a US postage stamp.
Country music singer and guitarist “Buck” Owens [Alvis Edgar Owens, Jr] died in his sleep of an apparent heart attack on March 25th, aged 76. A pioneer of the “Bakersfield Sound”, he co-hosted (1969–86) TV’s Hee-Haw with Roy Clark. The Beatles covered his song “Act Naturally” in 1965. Owens’ first wife, country singer Bonnie Owens, died on April 24th, also aged 76.
American character actor Julian Burton died on March 27th, aged 73. He appeared in Roger Corman’s Bucket of Blood and The Masque of the Red Death, as well as episodes of TV’s Science Fiction Theatre, Thriller, The Outer Limits and Get Smart.
55-year-old cult 1970s drive-in actress Candice Rialson died of liver disease on March 31st, although her death was not announced for another five months. She appeared in Pets, Candy Stripe Nurses, Logan’s Run, Hollywood Boulevard (as “Candy Hope”), Chatterbox and Winter Kills.
Child actor Gary Gray, who appeared in MGM’s final “Lassie” movie, The Painted Hills, died of cancer on April 4th, aged 69. Gray also appeared in The Next Yoke You Hear as the son of Nancy Davis and James Whitmore.
65-year-old American singer/songwriter Gene Pitney died on April 5th, following a concert in Wales. The writer of such classic pop songs as “Hello, Mary Lou”, “Rubber Ball” and “He’s a Rebel”, Pitney launched his own singing career in 1961. His distinctive falsetto voice could be heard on such hits as “Town Without Pity”, “(The Man Who Shot) Liberty Valance”, “Only Love Can Break a Heart”, “24 Hours from Tulsa”, “I’m Gonna Be Strong” and “Something’s Gotten Hold of My Heart”.
American actress Amanda Duff [Dunne] died of cancer on April 6th, aged 92. Married to screenwriter and film director Philip Dunne (who died in 1992), she appeared in Mr Moto in Danger Island with Peter Lorre and The Devil Commands with Boris Karloff. Duff retired from acting in the early 1940s and became a successful photographer.
American country musician Gordon Terry, who appeared in Ron Ormond’s 1968 movie The Monster and the Stripper (aka The Exotic Ones), died after a long illness on April 9th, aged 74.
Singer June Pointer, the youngest member of the Grammy-winning Pointer Sisters, died of cancer on April 11th, aged 52. With her sisters Ruth and Anita, she sang on such 1970s and ’80s hits as “I’m So Excited”, “Slow Hand” and “Jump (For My Love)”. June Pointer was arrested for cocaine possession two years before her death and was sentenced to a rehabilitation centre.
German actress Christiane Maybach, who played the disembodied head in the 1959 horror film The Head (Die Nackte und der Satan), died of cancer on April 12th, aged 74. She also appeared in The Thousand Eyes of Dr Mabuse, A Study in Terror (as “Polly Nichols”), Satan’s Brew and Just a Gigolo.
Indian producer, singer and mega-star Rajkumer (Muthuraj Singanalluru Puttaswamayya) died the same day, aged 76. A champion of Kannada language films, he made more than 200 mostly historical and mythological movies and was worshipped by millions. Five people died in demonstrations following his death. In July 2000 Rajkumer and four relatives were kidnapped by the Tamil bandit, Veerappan. He was eventually released 108 days later, after a secret deal was negotiated with the authorities.
American character actor Henderson Forsythe, who portrayed Dr David Stewart on the daytime soap opera As the World Turns for more than thirty years, died on April 17th, aged 88. He also appeared in the films Dead of Night (aka Deathdream), The Cabinet ofDr Ramirez and Species II.
Italian actress Alida Valli (Baroness Alida Maria Laura Altenbur-ger von Marckenstein Freunberg), whose career spanned more than sixty years, died in Rome on April 22nd, aged 84. Born in Pula, Italy (in what is now Croatia), she began her film career at the age of nine and made her Hollywood debut in Alfred Hitchcock’s The Paradine Case (1947). Her other credits include Eyes Without a Face (aka The Horror Chamber ofDr Faustus), Antichristo, Tender Dracula (with Peter Cushing), Mario Bava’s Lisa and the Devil (aka House of Exorcism), and Dario Argento’s Suspiria and Inferno.
British film and TV actress Jennifer Jayne (Jennifer Jones) died on April 23rd, aged 73. She appeared in The Trollenberg Terror (aka The Crawling Eye), Hammer’s Hysteria, Dr Terror’s House of Horrors, They Came from Beyond Space and The Medusa Touch, as well as episodes of TV’s Invisible Man and Adam Adamant Lives! Under the pseudonym “Jay Fairbank” she reportedly scripted the anthology movie Tales That Witness Madness and the offbeat musical Son of Dracula (1974). Her last screen appearance was as a barmaid in The Doctor and the Devils.
Elma G. “Pem” Farnsworth, reputedly the first person to appear on television, died in Utah on April 27th, aged 98. Often called “The Mother of Television”, she was the wife of Philo T. Farnsworth and part of the technical team when he demonstrated his invention in San Francisco on September 7th, 1927.
Actress Alberta Nelson died of cancer on April 29th, aged 68. She was cast as the leather-clad blonde biker girlfriend of Eric Von Zipper (Harvey Lembeck) in a number of AIP’s “Beach Party” movies in the 1960s, including How to Stuff a Wild Bikini, Dr Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine and The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini. Nelson also appeared in an episode of Thriller before retiring from the screen in the early 1970s.
British magician Billy McComb, who appeared in Clive Barker’s Lord of Illusions, died on April 30th, aged 84.
American “B” movie actress Betsy Jones-Moreland died of cancer after a long illness on May 1st, aged 76. She is best known for her roles in Roger Corman’s The Saga of the Viking Women and Their Voyage to the Waters of the Great Sea Serpent, Last Woman on Earth and Creature from the Haunted Sea. She was also in the “Lizard’s Leg and Owlet’s Wing” episode of TV’s Route 66 which teamed Boris Karloff, Lon Chaney, Jr and Peter Lorre, and her other credits include TV’s My Favorite Martian, The Outer Limits and The Ghost and Mrs Muir.
Test pilot and NASA engineer Bruce A. Peterson died the same day, aged 72. In 1967, he survived a plane crash at the Dryden Flight Research Center thanks to extensive surgery. He became the model for TV’s The Six Million Dollar Man (1973–78), the opening credits of which featured the crash of Peterson’s wingless M2-F2 test aircraft.
Pro-football player turned actor Michael “Bear” Taliferro, who played with the Washington Redskins in the NFL, died of a stroke on May 10th, aged 45. His film credits include Witch Hunt and Armageddon.
Colombian-American singer Soraya died of breast cancer the same day, aged 37. She won a Latin Grammy Award for female album in 2004.
Frankie Thomas, Jr (Frank M. Thomas), who starred on live TV from 1950–55 as Tom Corbett, Space Cadet, died of respiratory failure following a stroke on May 11th, aged 85. A juvenile actor on stage and screen since the 1930s, he appeared in the serial Tim Tyler’s Luck, and played Nancy Drew’s boyfriend Ted Nickerson in the series of films made between 1938–39. He later became a recreational bridge instructor and the author of a string of mystery novels, including Sherlock Holmes Bridge Detective, Sherlock Holmes and the Golden Bird and Sherlock Holmes and the Masquerade Murders. Thomas was set to be a special guest at the 2006 World Science Fiction Convention in Los Angeles and, according to his wishes, he was buried in his Tom Corbett dress uniform on May 16th.
Prolific American character actor Byron Morrow died the same day, aged 94. Often cast as a military officer, police chief and other authority figures, he appeared in The Mysterians, Atlantis the Lost Continent (uncredited), Panic in Year Zero!, King Kong vs. Godzilla, Black Zoo, The Strangler, Cyborg 2087, The Wrecking Crew (uncredited), Disney’s The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes (uncredited), Colossus: The Forbin Project, Johnny Got His Gun, The Resurrection
ofZachary Wheeler, The Ghost of Flight 401, Fantasy Island, The Golden Gate Murders, Dark Mansions and episodes of TV’s Men Into Space, The Twilight Zone, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., I Dream of Jeannie, Get Smart, The Invaders, Lost in Space, Bewitched, Star Trek, The Wild Wild West, Night Gallery, Search, Kolchak: The Night Stalker, The Bionic Woman, The Greatest American Hero, Other-world, Highway to Heaven and Beauty and the Beast.
Actor Paul Marco, whose most famous role was Kelton the Cop in Edward D. Wood, Jr’s infamous Plan 9 from Outer Space and Night of the Ghouls, died on May 14th. He was believed to have been around 80. A former child performer alongside Shirley Temple, Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney, Marco also appeared in Wood’s Bride of the Monster and he was played by actor Max Casella in Tim Burton’s biopic Ed Wood. Marco also contributed to such documentaries as Flying Saucers Over Hollywood: The Plan 9 Companion and The Haunted World of Edward D. Wood, Jr, and more recently he recreated his Patrolman Kelton character for the direct-to-DVD movie Kelton’s Dark Corner.
Music arranger and composer Lew Anderson, who was the third person to play silent sidekick Clarabell the Clown on the popular 1950s children’s TV show Howdy Doody, died of prostate cancer the same day, aged 84.
62-year-old Norwegian-born actress Eva Norvind (Eva Johanne Chegodayeva Sakonskaya), who appeared in a number of Mexican films during the 1960s, including Facto de Sangre and Santo versus the Martian Invasion, drowned on May 14th off the coast of Zipolite, Oaxaca, when she was dragged under by a wave and thrown against the rocks. After a controversial statement over birth control ended her film career in Mexico in the late 1960s, she relocated to New York in the 1980s and developed the persona of dominatrix “Ava Taurel” in a number of short films and erotic role-playing documentaries. Her daughter, Naqilea Norvind, is an actress in Mexico.
69-year-old former milkman Freddie Garrity, lead singer with the 1960s Manchester group Freddie & the Dreamers, died in Wales of complications from emphysema on May 19th. The band’s hits include “I’m Telling You Now”, “You Were Made for Me” and “If You Gotta Make a Fool of Somebody”.
The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 18 Page 69
