The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 2003, Volume 14

by Stephen Jones

  French leading man Daniel Gelin died of kidney failure the same day, aged 81. His films include Torticola vs Frankensberg, Alfred Hitchcock’s The Man Who Knew Too Much, Jean Cocteau’s The Testament of Orpheus, and Mr Frost.

  32-year-old Irish-born TV actor and former musician Glenn [Martin] Quinn, who was best known for his role as the half-demon Doyle in the first season of Angel in 1999, was found dead at a friend’s home in North Hollywood on December 3rd. A coroner’s report confirmed that he died of a heroin overdose. When Quinn’s character was unexpectedly killed off, series co-creator Joss Whedon claimed that Doyle’s abrupt departure had been part of the show’s plan from the beginning, although autopsy documents confirmed that he lost his job because of substance abuse. Quinn, who moved to America in 1988, was also a regular on Roseanne from 1990–97, and appeared in the movies Dr Giggles, Live Nude Girls and Campfire Tales. A memorial fund was established to help cover the funeral expenses of the homeless actor.

  Australian-born Mary Hansen, keyboard player and vocalist with cult 1990s band Stereolab, died on December 9th after the 36-year-old collided with a tipper truck while cycling in East London.

  American actor Brad Dexter, the least magnificent of The Magnificent Seven, died of emphysema on December 12th, aged 85. His other films include Sinbad the Sailor and Winter Kills.

  American actress turned Warner Bros. PR executive Shirley O’Hara Krims died of complications from diabetes on December 13th, aged 78. She appeared in Val Lewton’s The Ghost Ship (1943), The Falcon Out West, Tarzan and the Amazons, Duel and Future Cop.

  Canadian-born Zal Yanovsky, guitarist with 1960s band The Lovin’ Spoonful, died of a heart attack the same day, aged 57. In later years he owned a restaurant in Canada.

  55-year-old British character actor James (Anthony) Hazeldine died on December 17th after a short illness. Best known for his stage work, he also appeared in such movies as The Ruling Class and The Medusa Touch, and on TV as psychic journalist Tom Crane in The Omega Factor (1979).

  American character actor Kenneth Tobey, best remembered as the stalwart hero of The Thing from Another World and The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, died on December 22nd, aged 85. His other film credits include It Came from Beneath the Sea, The Vampire (1957), Ben, Homebodies, The Howling, The Creature Wasn’t Nice, The Lost Empire, Strange Invaders, InnerSpace, Big Top Pee-Wee, Freeway, Ghost Writer, Gremlins 2 The New Batch, Honey I Blew Up the Kid, Single White Female, Attack of the “B” Movie Monster and TV’s Terror in the Sky, while his reshoot role as a priest was cut from Hellraiser III Hell on Earth.

  50-year-old Turkish-born Joe Strummer (John Graham Mellor), a former busker and founder of the influential British punk-rock band The Clash, died of an apparent heart attack after taking his dog for a walk the same day. The Clash had hits with such songs as “London Calling” and “Should I Stay or Should I Go?” before Strummer moved on to composing scores for films like Alex Cox’s Straight to Hell and Jim Jarmusch’s Mystery Train.

  Reggie Rymal, who appeared as the 3-D bat-and-ball barker in House of Wax (1953), died of a heart attack on Christmas Day, aged 85.

  Actress Susan Marx (Susan Fleming), who was married to comedian Harpo Marx (who died in 1964), died of a heart attack on December 28th, aged 93. She appeared in The Gold-Diggers of 1937 and Charlie Chan’s Courage and, as a publicity stunt for the W.C. Fields comedy Million-Dollar Legs, had her legs insured for $1 million.

  Model Vivien Neves, the first woman to appear completely naked in a British newspaper, died in hospital of the MRSA superbug in December, aged 54. She took her clothes off for a Fisons chemicals advert in The Times in 1971 and went on to become a Page Three girl in The Sun. She was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in the mid-1970s.

  American character actress Mary Brian (Louise Byrdie Dantzler), whose career spanned the silent and sound eras, died on December 30th, aged 96. She made her debut as Wendy in the 1924 Peter Pan, and her other films include Charlie Chan in Paris and Killer at Large. She retired from the screen in 1947.

  FILM/TV TECHNICIANS

  Turkish-born French-Armenian director and former journalist Henri Verneuil (Achod Malakian), whose credits include the The Night Caller (1972), died on January 11th, aged 81. In 1996 he was awarded an honorary César, the French equivalent of the Oscar, for lifetime achievement in film.

  70-year-old director and animator Ernest Pintoff died of complications from a stroke at the Motion Picture and Television Fund Hospital on January 12th. His animated short The Critic, written and directed by Mel Brooks, received an Academy Award in 1964. He also directed the 1973 horror/Western Blade, and Jaguar Lives starring Christopher Lee. Pintoff created the credit sequences for The Six Million Dollar Man and The Bionic Woman, and directed the 1978 TV movie Human Feelings.

  38-year-old independent film-maker Ted Demme, the nephew of Jonathan Demme, died on January 14th of a heart attack attributed to drug use after collapsing during a celebrity-basketball game. His six films as a director include Beautiful Girls and Blow.

  Radio and TV writer, producer and director Mende Brown died of a heart attack on February 2nd, aged 81. In the late 1940s he produced the half-hour NBC-TV show The Inner Sanctum, based on the popular radio series. After moving to Australia from 1970 until 1991, he produced and directed such series as Little Jungle Boy and The Evil Touch, as well as the movie And Millions Will Die.

  48-year-old director Lawrence L. Simeone died on February 3rd of complications following open-heart surgery. His films include Eyes of the Beholder, Power Rangers: Turbo and The Gifted.

  TV executive Jerome H. Stanley died on February 7th, aged 80. Beginning his career at Republic Studios in 1939, he moved to television in 1956 where he supervised the development of such series as Star Trek, Get Smart, I Spy, The Monkees and My World and Welcome to It. He also executive produced the TV movie Escape.

  “Th-th-th-that’s all, folks!” Pioneering animator Chuck Jones (Charles M. [Martin] Jones) died of congestive heart failure on February 22nd, aged 89. In a career spanning over sixty years, he created more than 300 cartoon shorts featuring such immortal characters as Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Pepe Le Pew, Wile E. Coyote, Road Runner and Marvin the Martian. He directed the 1966 short Dr Seuss’ How The Grinch Stole Christmas! (narrated by Boris Karloff), Horton Hears a Who! and the feature The Phantom Tollbooth (with Abe Levitow). Jones also worked on Disney’s Sleeping Beauty (uncredited), Gay Purr-ee, Richard Williams’s A Christmas Carol, 1941, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Gremlins 2 The New Batch and Stay Tuned, and he received three Oscars and an honorary Academy Award for Life Achievement in 1996. He made cameo appearances in Gremlins and InnerSpace, and his autobiographies, Chuck Amuk: The Life and Times of an Animated Cartoonist and Chuck Reducks, appeared in 1989 and 1996 respectively.

  Welsh-born stage and film costume designer Mary Grant Price, who was married to Vincent Price from 1949 until their divorce in 1973, died after a brief illness in Los Angeles on March 2nd, aged 85. The mother of Mary Victoria Price and Jody Price, during her marriage to the actor she worked with him as an art consultant to Sears, Roebuck & Co.

  American exploitation producer and distributor Don Sonney died of heart failure on March 3rd, aged 87. As well as producing such titles as Trader Hornee and Space Thing, he distributed The Adult Version of Jekyll and Hide, She Freak, The Long Swift Sword of Siegfried and The Erotic Adventures of Zorro.

  Costume designer Shirley [Kingdon] Russell, who was married to director Ken Russell from 1957 until 1977, died on March 4th, aged 66. Her many credits include Billion Dollar Brain, The Devils, Lisztomania, Tommy, The Little Prince, Greystoke, The Bride, Fairytale: A True Story and TV’s Gulliver’s Travels (1995).

  Production executive Miriam “Mimi” Roth died of cancer on March 7th, aged 81. She started writing radio comedy for Art Carney and others before joining United Artists in 1958, becoming one of the first female executives at a major Hollywood studio. She moved into development at Playboy Productions and went o
n to teach screenwriting at USC’s film school. Her son Eric won an Academy Award for his screenplay Forrest Gump.

  Veteran American film and TV director William [Nuelsen] Witney died after a series of strokes on March 17th, aged 86. He directed or co-directed (often with John English) more than sixty serials and feature films (many of them Westerns starring Roy Rogers, Rex Allen or Audie Murphy) in a career that spanned forty years, and he is credited as the first person to choreograph screen fights after watching Busby Berkeley filming dance scenes one step at a time. His many films include SOS Coast Guard (with Bela Lugosi), Hawk of the Wilderness, Dick Tracy Returns, Fighting Devil Dogs, Dick Tracy’s G-Men, Daredevils of the Red Circle, Drums of Fu Manchu, Mysterious Dr Satan, King of the Royal Mounted, Dick Tracy vs Crime Inc., Jungle Girl, Adventures of Captain Marvel, Spy Smasher, The Perils of Nyoka, King of the Mounties, G-Men vs the Black Dragon, The Crimson Ghost, Zorro’s Fighting Legion, The Cool and the Crazy, Master of the World (with Vincent Price), Tarzan’s Jungle Rebellion and Darktown Strutters (aka Get Down and Boogie). His autobiography, In a Door, Into a Fight, Out a Door, Into a Chase appeared in 1996.

  Emmy Award-winning film and TV sound editor, Josef Erich von Stroheim, son of the silent-film director/actor Erich von Stroheim, died of complications from lung cancer on March 22nd, aged 79. A former still photographer, his many credits include The Amazing Colossal Man, Ghost of Dragstrip Hollow, Assignment Outer Space, First Spaceship to Venus, Shock Corridor, Mutiny in Outer Space, Space Monster, Destination Inner Space, Day of the Dolphin, Lady in White and TV’s Mission: Impossible and Wonder Woman.

  Film production designer Richard “Dick” Sylbert died of cancer on March 23rd, aged 73. A protégé of William Cameron Menzies, in 1954 he became art director for the syndicated TV series Inner Sanctum and went on to design such films as The Manchurian Candidate, Rosemary’s Baby, Catch-22, The Day of the Dolphin, 1990’s Dick Tracy (for which he received his second Oscar) and Mulholland Drive (in which he had a cameo as a coroner). He was vice-president in charge of production at Paramount from 1975 until 1978.

  Austrian-Hungarian screenwriter and director Billy (Samuel) Wilder died of pneumonia at his home in Beverly Hills on March 27th, aged 95. In Hollywood since 1934 (he shared a room with Peter Lorre), his many films include Double Indemnity, The Lost Weekend, Sunset Boulevard, The Seven Year Itch, Some Like It Hot, The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes and Fedora. The winner of six Oscars, in 1960 he was the first film-maker to win three Academy Awards in a year.

  Special effects director Thomas “Glen” Robinson died the same day, aged 87. He received a special Academy Award for his work on Logan’s Run, and his other credits include The Bamboo Saucer, Earthquake, King Kong (1976), Meteor, Flash Gordon (1980), Island Claws and Amityville II The Possession. He retired in 1983.

  Pioneering TV director Clark R. Jones, who re-staged Mary Martin’s Broadway hit Peter Pan for television in 1955, died of complications from emphysema on March 28th, aged 81.

  Theatrical and entertainment attorney Albert E. Martin died on March 31st, aged 80. Although his clients included Errol Flynn, Harold Robbins and producer Edward R. Pressman, his favourite credit was having arranged the sale and distribution of Ed Wood’s Plan 9 from Outer Space.

  Former AIP producer/scriptwriter Louis M. “Deke” Heyward died of pneumonia on April 3rd, aged 81. In the 1950s he was the first writer for the interactive TV cartoon show Winky-Dink and You before becoming vice-president of production at AIP from 1963 until 1973. He scripted such AIP releases as Pajama Party, Spy in Your Eye, Ghost in the Invisible Bikini, Dr Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine, City Under the Sea (aka War-Gods of the Deep) and Mario Bava’s Dr Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs and Planet of the Vampires, and produced much of the studio’s European output, which included House of 1,000 Dolls, De Sade, Witchfinder General, Curse of the Crimson Altar (aka The Crimson Cult), Scream and Scream Again, The Oblong Box, The Haunted House of Horror (aka Horror House), Wuthering Heights, The Vampire Lovers, The Abominable Dr Phibes, Cry of the Banshee, Murders in the Rue Morgue, Whoever Slew Auntie Roo? and Dr Phibes Rises Again. In recent years Heyward’s autobiography, The Way it Happened, was serialized in Filmfax magazine. Heyward was a cousin of Irving Thalberg, and his son Andy created Inspector Gadget.

  Pioneer TV creator-producer Roy Huggins (aka “John Thomas James”), whose shows include Maverick (1957–62), 77 Sunset Strip (1958–64), The Fugitive (1963–67) and The Rockford Files (1974–80), died the same day, aged 87. He is also credited with creating filmed television and the movie-of-the-week concept. A 1961 episode of his series Bus Stop dealt with a psychopathic killer. Huggins’s second wife was former actress Adele Mara.

  French-born cinematographer Thierry Pathé (Thierry Christian Charles Franc), the grandson of film pioneer Charles Pathé, died in New York City of cancer on April 6th, aged 61. His credits include Cauldron of Blood (starring Boris Karloff) and the Batman TV series. He later became a teacher at NYU.

  40-year-old Carla Fry, vice-chairman of physical production at New Line Cinema, died after a long illness on April 23rd. Her credits include The Mask, The Hidden II, Se7en, Dark City, Blade, Lost in Space, the Mortal Kombat franchise and The Lord of the Rings trilogy.

  Ruth Handler (Ruth Mosko), the co-founder of toy company Mattel and creator of Barbie, died of complications from colon cancer surgery in Los Angeles in April, aged 85. Handler designed the fashion-conscious doll in 1959, and although it spawned a billion-dollar industry, feminists complained that the toy was an undesirable role-model for girls. Barbie and boyfriend Ken were named, respectively, after their creator’s daughter and son (who died of a brain tumour in 1994). Handler, who also suffered from breast cancer, had a second lesser-known career designing prosthetic breasts for women who had undergone mastectomies.

  Former BBC-TV producer John Nathan-Turner, who worked with six of the seven Time Lords on more than 130 episodes of Doctor Who from 1980–89, died of liver failure after a brief illness in a Brighton hospital on May 1st. He was 54. Blamed by fans for ultimately destroying the once-popular series, Nathan-Turner originally joined the show as a floor assistant in 1969. He also produced the short-lived spin-off series, K9 and Company (1981).

  Pioneer British television special effects supervisor Bernard Wilkie died on May 2nd, aged 82. As co-founder of the Visual Effects Workshop at the BBC (where he worked from 1948 until his retirement in 1978), he contributed to such programmes as Nineteen Eighty–Four (1954), Quatermass 2 (1955), Quatermass and the Pit (1958-59) and Doctor Who.

  American scriptwriter and producer John Kohn died of cancer on May 4th, aged 76. His credits include an Oscar nomination for his 1965 adaptation of John Fowles’s The Collector with longtime collaborator Stanley Mann, which he produced along with The Magus, The Strange Vengeance of Rosalie and Theatre of Blood (starring Vincent Price). He was head of production at EMI from 1979–83.

  Set decorator and producer Jacques Mapes died the same day, aged 88. He began his career in 1939 as assistant art director on The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

  American-born Michael Todd, Jr., the stepson of Elizabeth Taylor and producer of the only feature ever shot in “Smell-o-Vision”, also died on May 4th at his home in Ireland. The 72-year-old had been suffering from lung cancer. The son of legendary Hollywood producer Mike Todd (Avrom Goldbogen, who was killed in a plane crash in 1958), he made Scent of Mystery (aka Holiday in Spain) in 1960, starring Denholm Elliott, Peter Lorre and an uncredited Taylor as a corpse, which piped smells into the cinema through tiny tubes beneath the audience’s seats. Unfortunately, critics thought the film stank.

  Film director and former child actor George Sidney died of complications of lymphoma in Las Vegas on May 5th, aged 85. The director of a number of Our Gang comedy shorts at MGM in the late 1930s, he also directed the 1941 Pete Smith Speciality 3-D short Third Dimensional Murder, which featured Ed Payson as the Frankenstein Monster. Sidney went on to direct many musicals, including Viva Las Vegas starring Elvis
Presley. He also founded and financed Hanna-Barbera Productions in 1944.

  Italian director/producer Edmond Amati died the same day, aged 82. Best known for his spaghetti Westerns, he also produced When Women Played Ding Dong, A Lizard in a Woman’s Skin, The Crimes of the Black Cat, The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue (aka Don’t Open the Window), Strange Shadows in an Empty Room and Holocaust 2000 (aka The Chosen) amongst many other titles.

  British TV producer and executive Stella Richman died on May 24th, aged 79. During her early career as an actress, she appeared as a hospital ward sister in the BBC-TV production of The Quatermass Experiment.

  Martial arts director Chang Cheh died of pulmonary disease on May 22nd, aged 77. His numerous films include 5 Deadly Venoms, New One-Armed Swordsman, Ten Fingers of Steel and Girl With the Thunderbolt Kick.

  Hollywood producer and screenwriter Herman Cohen died of throat cancer on June 2nd, aged 76. He is best known for launching the teenage-horror sub-genre at AIP in 1957 with I Was a Teenage Werewolf (in which he had a cameo and also co-scripted under the pseudonym “Ralph Thornton”). It cost less than $100,000 to make and grossed more than $2 million at the box office. Cohen’s other credits include Bride of the Gorilla, Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla, The Ghost Ship (1952), Target Earth, I Was a Teenage Frankenstein, Blood of Dracula, How to Make a Monster, The Headless Ghost, Circus of Horrors, Konga, Horrors of the Black Museum, Black Zoo, A Study in Terror, Berserk, Trog and Craze. In 1981 he formed Cobra Media, a domestic distribution company.

  89-year-old Lew Wasserman, a media mogul who successfully ran Universal/MCA for four decades, died of complications from a stroke the same day. Wasserman was also president of Revue Productions, whose many TV shows include Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1955-62).

  Television producer/director William P. D’Angelo, whose credits include Batman (1965–68) and The Monster Squad (1976–77), died of pancreatic cancer on June 8th, aged 70.