Hugo-nominated SF writer, poet and costumer Betsy Curtis (Elizabeth McGee), whose stories appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Analog, Amazing, Galaxy, Infinity, Marvel Science Stories, Worlds of If and elsewhere during the 1950s-1970s, died in her sleep on April 17th, aged 84.
Former child actor Howard Merrill, who scripted radio’s Sherlock Holmes series during the 1940s, died on April 20th, aged 85. His TV writing credits include Get Smart, The Invaders and Gilligan’s Island.
Joan Harrison (Joan Marion Merkler) the wife for forty-eight years of SF writer Harry Harrison, died of cancer on April 21st, aged 72.
British comics artist Denis McLoughlin died on April 22nd, aged 84. He created the character of time-travelling spaceman Swift Morgan (1948-54) for publisher T.V. Boardman. His later strips include Saber Lord of the Jungle (1967–69) and The Green Lizard (1977).
Nebula and Hugo Award-winning SF writer George Alec Effinger was found dead in his New Orleans apartment on April 26th, aged 55. After suffering health problems for many years, he apparently died of internal bleeding, caused by an addiction to a common antacid which exacerbated his stomach ulcers. Effinger began writing in the early 1970s, and his books include What Entropy Means to Me, The Wolves of Memory, The Nick of Time, The Bird of Time, When Gravity Fails, A Fire in the Sun, The Exile Kiss, three Planet of the Apes television novelizations and two computer game tie-ins which pitted Sherlock Holmes against Fu Manchu. His third wife was writer Barbara Hambly.
79-year-old film and TV scriptwriter/producer Robert L. Joseph died the same day of injuries suffered after a fall. In the late 1950s he wrote several episodes of the unsold Boris Karloff anthology series The Veil, and his movie credits include Door-to-Door Maniac (1961) and the TV miniseries World War III.
British author John Middleton Murry, Jr., who wrote science fiction under the name “Richard Cowper”, died of a massive stroke on April 29th, aged 75. His best-known books include Breakthrough (1967), Kuldesak, Clone, The Twilight of Briareus, Time Out of Mind and the “Corlay” trilogy: The Road to Corlay, A Dream of Kinship and A Tapestry of Time. His short fiction was collected as The Web of the Magi and Other Stories and The Tithonian Factor and Other Stories, and he also wrote two autobiographies in the 1970s under the pen-name “Colin Middleton Murray”.
Comics artist Tom Sutton was found dead in his Massachusetts apartment on May 1st, aged 65. He began his career in the mid-1960s working for Warren Publishing’s Creepy, Eerie and Vampirella titles. At Marvel he was an inker on Conan the Barbarian and a penciller for Planet of the Apes, and he also drew Star Trek for DC Comics. Sutton wrote and illustrated Skywald’s Frankenstein comic under the pseudonym “Sean Todd”.
Comic-book writer and editor Robert Kanigher, who created the characters of Sgt Rock and the Metal Men, died on May 6th, aged 86. He began his career scripting the Blue Beetle for Fox Features Syndicate in the 1940s. He soon moved to All-American Comics, where he wrote Captain Marvel. When that company merged with DC Comics in 1946 he worked on such titles as The Atom, The Justice Society of America, Wonder Woman, Hawkman, The Flash and Green Lantern. Kanigher wrote the 1943 book How to Make Money Writing for Comics, and he retired in the 1980s.
70-year-old Otis Blackwell, who wrote such songs as “Don’t Be Cruel”, “All Shook Up” and “Return to Sender” for Elvis Presley (who he never met, despite sharing co-writing credits), died in obscurity in Nashville of a heart attack the same day. A stroke eleven years ago had left him paralysed. He also wrote “Great Balls of Fire” for Jerry Lee Lewis and more than 1,000 other songs.
Children’s book writer Albert Stoffel also died on May 6th, aged 92. He wrote the syndicated Bugs Bunny comic strip for many years.
Hugely influential Los Angeles SF fan Bruce E. (Edward) Pelz died of a massive pulmonary embolism on May 9th, aged 65. A co-chairman of the 1969 and 1972 World SF Conventions, he also founded BoucherCon and the California Loscon. The tireless Pelz invented the controversial Retro-Hugos and the Rotsler award for fan artwork, and at the time of his death had the biggest collection of fanzines in the world, with an estimated value of $750,000. The collection was subsequently donated to the University of California, Riverside Library.
75-year-old Austen Kark, who assisted his father Major Norman Kark (who died in 2000) in editing the London Mystery Magazine in the 1950s before joining the BBC World Service, was killed in the Potters Bar rail crash on May 10th. His wife, novelist Nina Bawden, was also injured in the same accident.
Veteran Disney animator and writer Bill Peet (William Bartlett Peet), who worked on Pinocchio, Fantasia, Dumbo, Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan and Sleeping Beauty, and scripted 101 Dalmatians and The Sword in the Stone, died of complications from pneumonia, cancer and heart problems on May 11th, aged 87. In his 1989 autobiography, he claimed that he drew Captain Hook to look like Walt Disney, with whom he did not get along. He left Disney in 1964 to become an award-winning writer of thirty-five children’s books, which he illustrated himself. Bill Peet: An Autobiography was published in 1989.
Mad magazine artist Dave Berg died of cancer on May 16th, aged 81. In the 1940s he inked Will Eisner’s comic strip The Spirit and, after working with Stan Lee at Timely Comics, he moved to Mad in 1956, where his series “The Lighter Side of . . .” began in 1961. He also wrote and illustrated seventeen paperback collections of his work.
American-born songwriter Sharon Sheeley, who was with her boyfriend Eddie Cochran in 1960 when he was killed in a car crash in England, died of a cerebral haemorrhage in Los Angeles on May 17th, aged 62. Her many hits include “Poor Little Fool” (written when she was just sixteen), “Something Else” for Cochran, “Hurry Up” for Ritchie Valens, “(He’s) The Great Impostor” for the Fleetwoods, and “Trouble” for the Kalin Twins.
Idiosyncratic British film writer and critic Raymond Durgnat died of cancer after a short illness on May 19th, aged 69. A regular contributor to Films and Filming during the 1960s, his books on the cinema include the critical analysis A Long Hard Look at Psycho (published posthumously) and volumes on Alfred Hitchcock, Georges Franju, Luis Buñuel and Jean Renoir.
Composer, arranger and orchestrator Sidney Fine, whose many credits include TV’s Thriller and Disney’s Lady and the Tramp, died of pneumonia on May 20th, aged 97.
American television personality David Yellen died of Parkinson’s disease on May 25th, aged 86. In the 1940s he scripted episodes of the Superman radio show and directed a revival of the stage play Arsenic and Old Lace starring Bela Lugosi in 1949.
96-year-old newspaper columnist Mildred “Millie” Wirt Benson, who wrote the first twenty-three Nancy Drew mystery books under the pseudonym “Carolyn Keene”, died of a heart attack on May 28th after falling ill at her desk. Paid only $125 per volume with no royalties for any of the spin-off books, movies, TV series or board games based on her creation, she was bound by an agreement with the publisher not to reveal her identity until it came out in a court trial in 1980 after the publisher’s daughter claimed to be the series’ author. Benson also wrote the Penny Parker mystery series.
Television scriptwriter Herbert Finn died the same day of respiratory failure, aged 89. His many credits include The Flintstones and Gilligan’s Island.
Publisher Noel Young, whose Capra Press published such authors as Ray Bradbury, Peter S. Beagle, Colin Wilson and Ursula K. Le Guin, died of Alzheimer’s disease in California on May 31st, aged 79.
Los Angeles SF writer and fan Donald L. (Lewis) Franson died of heart failure on June 5th, aged 85. His stories appeared in Science Fiction Stories, If and Analog, and he co-wrote A History of the Hugo, Nebula, and International Fantasy Awards (1978) with Howard Devore.
American literary critic and biographer R. (Richard) W. (Warrington) B. (Baldwin) Lewis died on June 13th, aged 84. His Pulitzer Prize-winning biography Edith Wharton was published in 1976.
Television scriptwriter Robert W. Lenski died of cancer in Los Angeles on June 19th, aged 75. His TV films i
nclude Maneaters Are Loose!, The Dain Curse and The Aliens Are Coming.
Italian film composer Carlo Savina died on June 21st, aged 83. His numerous credits include Hercules (1957), Hercules Unchained, The Wonders of Aladdin, Goliath and the Vampires, Son of Hercules in the Land of Fire, Crypt of Horror (aka Terror in the Crypt), Hercules, Samson and Ulysses, Castle of the Living Dead, Juliet of the Spirits, Malenka the Niece of the Vampire (aka Fangs of the Living Dead), Night of the Devils, Eye of the Spider, Night of the Damned, That Cursed House Close to the Mushroom Bed, The Legend of Blood Castle and Mario Bava’s Lisa and the Devil (aka The House of Exorcism).
Brazilian writer of magic realism Roberto Drummond died the same day, aged 68.
Science fiction poet Robert Randolph Medcalf, Jr. died in his sleep on July 3rd, aged 52. His poetry appeared in Amazing and Eldritch Tales, and in 1981 he founded Quixsilver Press, which published his collection Strange Things Happen.
English-born geologist and palaeontologist William A. (Anthony) S. (Swithin) Sarjeant who, as “Anthony Swithin”, published the lost-world quartet “Perilous Quest for Lyonesse” in the early 1990s, died in Canada on July 8th, aged 66. In 1989 he co-authored Ms Holmes of Baker Street.
American science fiction author Laurence M. Janifer (Laurence Mark Harris) died in his sleep of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease on July 10th, aged 69. His stories (often published under pseudonyms or in collaboration with other writers) appeared in Astounding, Analog and Cosmos, and as “Mark Phillips” he co-wrote the 1962 novel Brain Twister (aka That Sweet Little Old Lady) with Randall Garrett. In the 1970s he published three books about interplanetary detective “Gerald Knave”.
Television writer Alvin Sapinsley, who scripted such teleplays for Boris Karloff as Sting of Death and Even the Weariest River in the mid-1950s, died of pneumonia on July 13th, aged 80. He also wrote the TV movies Moon of the Wolf and Sherlock Holmes in New York, plus episodes of Tales of Tomorrow and Rod Serling’s Night Gallery (H.P. Lovecraft’s “Pickman’s Model”).
Author, editor and scientist Kathleen M. Massie-Ferch, who co-edited the DAW Books anthologies Ancient Enchantresses and Warrior Enchantresses with Martin H. Greenberg, died of breast cancer on July 15th, aged 47.
Clark Gesner, composer-lyricist of the Broadway musical You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown, died of a heart attack in New York on July 23rd, aged 64. Based on Charles M. Schultz’s Peanuts comic strip, the show ran for nearly 1,600 performances in 1967.
White supremacist William L. (Luther) Pierce died of cancer the same day in West Virginia, aged 68. The former rocket scientist’s 1978 novel The Turtle Diaries, about a group of neo-Nazis overthrowing the US government, was credited by Timothy J. McVeigh as inspiration for the Oklahoma City bombing.
Screenwriter Robert J. Easter, whose credits include the early slasher film The Toolbox Murders, died of complications from melanoma on July 24th, aged 57.
Grammy-nominated Walt Disney composer Norman “Buddy” Baker died on July 26th, aged 84. He scored around forty feature films and 125 TV shows, including Zorro, The Monkey’s Uncle, The Gnome-Mobile, Charlie and The Angel, The Shaggy D.A., The Devil and Max Devlin and the Oscar-winning Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day. He also composed the music for a number of Disney theme park attractions, including the Haunted Mansion, Country Bears Jamboree and the hugely irritating It’s a Small World.
58-year-old American artist Ron(ald) [Bob] Walotsky died unexpectedly of complications from kidney failure and a ruptured colon on the night of July 29th following a brief illness. Best known for his 500-plus book covers (including Carrie by Stephen King, Queen of the Damned by Anne Rice and the Avon paperback editions of Roger Zelazny) and work for The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Amazing Stories and Heavy Metal, his art was collected in Inner Visions: The Art of Ron Walotsky (2000). He was Artist Guest of Honour at the 1996 World Fantasy Convention.
Walt Disney animator Fred Rice died the same day, aged 85. He began his career working with Walter Lantz at Universal before joining Disney, where he contributed to Fantasia, Pinocchio and Dumbo. He left the studio in 1953 for Capital Records, where he designed album covers.
British books editor Lionel Trippett, who worked for such imprints as Arrow and Mayflower, died on July 31st, aged 66. In the early 1970s he published several horror anthologies edited by Michel Parry plus SF novels by David Garnett and Avram Davidson.
67-year-old Dave (David) [Gerald] Van Arnam, co-chairman of NYCon III in 1967, died of a heart attack on August 3rd. He co-wrote the TV novelisation Lost in Space (1967) with “Ron Archer” (aka Ted White). His other books include Sideslip (also with White), The Players of Hell, Star Gladiator, Star Barbarian, Star Mind, Wizard of Storms, Lord of Blood and Greyland.
49-year-old film journalist Randy Palmer died on August 8th in Virginia from injuries received in an automobile accident the previous week. Palmer began writing for Famous Monsters of Filmland and became an associate editor of the magazine in the early 1980s (he actually edited the final issue of the original run), along with other Warren titles such as Creepy, Eerie and Vampirella. His articles also turned up in Cinefantastique, Fangoria, Little Shoppe of Horrors and Filmfax, and he was the author of the books Paul Blaisdell, Monster Maker: A Biography of the B Movie Makeup and Special Effects Artist and Herschell Gordon Lewis, Godfather of Gore: The Films.
86-year-old television writer Norman Jolley died of cardiac arrest on August 13th, following surgery for pancreatic cancer. A former actor, he became the head writer for the live-action children’s TV series Space Patrol (1950–55), also playing the villainous Agent X in several episodes. His other scripting credits include The Monolith Monsters and TV’s Science Fiction Theater.
Film and TV scriptwriter Dean Riesner (aka “Dean Franklin”), the son of silent-film director Charles Riesner, died on August 18th, aged 83. Best known for his collaborations with Don Siegel and Clint Eastwood (including the first Dirty Harry movie), his credits include Play Misty for Me, John Carpenter’s Starman and TV’s The Outer Limits. A former silent child star (billed as “Dinky Dean”), he was married to Maila Nurmi, better known as TV horror host Vampira.
Nebula Award-winning American screenwriter Stanley R. Greenberg, who is credited with creating the “docudrama”, died on August 25th from a brain tumour, aged 74. His credits include the scripts for Skyjacked and Soylent Green.
TV writer and producer Robert E. Van Scoyk, whose credits include Wonder Woman and Murder She Wrote, died of complications from diabetes on August 26th, aged 74.
Dutch SF fan and editor/translator Jo Thomas died of kidney cancer on September 10th, aged 59. He was also Head of Programming at ConFiction, the 1990 World SF Convention in The Hague.
American SF and mystery author Lloyd Biggle, Jr. died after a twenty-year battle with leukaemia and cancer on September 12th, aged 79. He started publishing in 1955, and his books included the “Jan Darzek” sequence (All the Colors of Darkness, Watchers of the Dark, This Darkening Universe, Silence is Deadly and The Whirligig of Time), along with such space operas as The Angry Espers, The Still Small Voice of Trumpets, The World Menders, Monument, Alien Main and The Chronocide Mission. He was a founding member of the SFWA and also founded The Science Fiction Oral History Association in 1975.
Science fiction author and gravitational physicist Robert L. (Lull) Forward died of inoperable brain cancer on September 21st, aged 70. He began writing short stories under the name “Susan Lull” in 1979, and his first novel, Dragon’s Egg, appeared under his own name in 1980. His other books include a 1985 sequel, Starquake!, plus Flight of the Dragonfly (aka Rocheworld), Martian Rainbow, Timemaster, Camelot 30K and Saturn Rukh (which formed the basis of two episodes of the Dan Dare Pilot of the Future animated TV series).
Ivor A. Rogers who, with his wife Deborah Webster Rogers, wrote J.R.R. Tolkien: A Critical Biography (1980), died of a heart attack on September 25th, aged 72.
Australian SF author and journalist Wynne [Noel] Whiteford died
on September 30th, aged 86. His publishing career stretched from 1934 up to his most recent novel, The Specialist, in 1990.
Walter H. Annenberg, who created TV Guide in 1953 and later became a multi-billionaire, died of complications from pneumonia on October 1st, aged 94. From 1969–75 he was the US ambassador to Britain and, according to Forbes, was the thirty-ninth wealthiest American.
Author, teacher and vampire expert Raymond T. (Thomas) McNally died of complications of cancer on October 3rd, aged 71. His most famous work was the controversial In Search of Dracula: A True History of Dracula and Vampire Legends (1972), written in collaboration with Radu Florescu. Updated in 1994, it was the first book to attempt to link the mythical vampire with the 15th century historical personality Vlad Tepes, or Vlad the Impaler. His other books include A Clutch of Vampires: Things Being Among the Best Vampire Stories from History and Literature, Dracula Was a Woman: In Search of the Blood Countess of Transylvania, and In Search of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde: The True-Life Origins and Cultural Impact of the Classic Horror Story. In 1996, McNally also released a CD-ROM entitled Dracula: Truth or Terror.
British TV scriptwriter and novelist Wilfred Greatorex died on October 14th, aged 80. Among the shows he created scripts for were LWT’s The Frighteners (1972–73) and the BBC series 1990 (1977–78) starring Edward Woodward.
The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 2003, Volume 14 Page 63
