French-born producer, director and screenwriter Albert Band (Alfredo Antonini), the father of Full Moon producer Charles Band and composer Richard Band, died of complications from a stomach blockage and lung infection in Los Angeles on June 14th, aged 78. After collaborating with John Huston in the early 1950s, he went on to direct or produce Face of Fire, I Bury the Living, Hercules and the Princess of Troy, Mansion of the Doomed, Dracula’s Dog (aka Zoltan . . . Hound of Dracula), Metalstorm The Destruction of Jared-Syn, Troll, TerrorVision, Ghost Warrior, Ghoulies II, Robot Jox, The Pit and the Pendulum (1990), Honey I Blew Up the Kid, Pet Shop, Oblivion, Doctor Mordrid, Trancers III, Robot Wars, Prehysteria, Prehysteria 2, Castle Freak, Oblivion 2: Backlash and Dragonworld.
Veteran film director John Frankenheimer died of a massive stroke due to complications from spinal surgery on July 6th, aged 72. His nearly five-decade career began in live TV (and included a 1959 adaptation of The Turn of the Screw with Ingrid Bergman), and he later moved to films, where he directed The Manchurian Candidate, Seven Days in May, Seconds, The Extraordinary Seaman, 99 & 44/100% Dead and Prophecy. In 1996 he replaced Richard Stanley on the troubled version of The Island of Dr Moreau. He also directed the 1992 Tales from the Crypt episode, “Maniac at Large”. At the time of his death he was preparing to direct a prequel to The Exorcist.
Ward Kimball, one of the legendary “Nine Old Men” at Disney, who helped modernize the look of Mickey Mouse in 1938 and created Jiminy Cricket for Pinocchio, died on July 8th, aged 88. While working at Walt Disney Studios from 1934 until his retirement in 1973, he was a directing animator on such classic cartoons as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Fantasia, Dumbo, Peter Pan, Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland, Mary Poppins, Bedknobs and Broomsticks and The Reluctant Dragon. Two shorts he created for Disney won Academy Awards, and in the 1950s he wrote and directed three influential Disney TV shows about space exploration: Man in Space, Man and the Moon and Mars and Beyond.
Disney’s camera department head and technical innovator Charles Richard Grills died on July 12th, aged 89. His many credits include Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Pinocchio, Bambi, Sleeping Beauty and numerous others.
British costumier Monty Berman, who worked on the James Bond films amongst many other titles, died after a short illness on July 15th, aged 90.
Film editor Harry Donald Gerstad, who won a second Oscar for his work on High Noon, died on July 17th, aged 97. His many credits include The Spiral Staircase (1945), Unknown Island, Rocketship X-M, The 5,000 Fingers of Dr T, The Alligator People, The Magic Sword, Batman (1966), Ben, plus the 1950s TV series The Adventures of Superman and its feature compilations.
Disney architect Carl Denney, who helped design Sleeping Beauty’s Castle and other theme-park attractions, died on July 20th, aged 95.
59-year-old veteran record producer Gus Dudgeon and his wife Sheila were killed when their £80,000 Jaguar XK8 careered off a British motorway and landed upside down in a drainage ditch on July 21st. Among the many acts Dudgeon produced were Elton John (“Rocket Man”), XTC, Chris Rea, The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, the Rolling Stones, the Beach Boys, Joan Armatrading and David Bowie’s Space Oddity album.
Hollywood animal trainer Frank Freeman (aka “Frank Inn”) died on July 27th, aged 86. He handled Astra the dog in The Thin Man movies as well as training Benji, Lassie, and Arnold the Pig in TV’s Green Acres. He also worked on the musical Doctor Doolittle (1968).
Australian writer and director Colin Eggleston died in Geneva, Switzerland, on August 10th, aged 61. After various TV work, he made his feature debut with Fantasm Comes Again (1977) under the pseudonym “Eric Ram”. His other films include the cult success Long Weekend, Innocent Prey, Sky Pirates and Outback Vampires (aka The Wicked).
Exploitation film producer/director Doris Wishman died of complications from lymphoma the same day, aged 82 or 90 (reports vary). Her numerous credits (often under various pseudonyms) include Deadly Weapons and Double Agent 73, both starring the aptly named Chesty Morgan, Nude of the Moon, Each Time I Kill, Satan Was a Lady, and A Night to Dismember. She was the cousin of Amicus producer Max Rosenberg and, incredibly, she had a new film awaiting release at the time of her death.
British-born film editor and director Peter [Roger] Hunt, who cut the first five James Bond movies and who directed the 1969 entry On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, died of heart failure on August 14th in Santa Monica, aged 77. After starting as a clapper boy at Denham Studios in 1947, he was an assistant cutter on Stranger from Venus (1954) and other films before editing the first 007 outing, Dr No (1962). Hunt is also credited by some with suggesting Sean Connery for the starring role. He went on to edit From Russia with Love and Goldfinger, and was supervising editor on Thunderball and You Only Live Twice, serving as second-unit director on the latter. He also edited The Ipcress File and was production associate on Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. His other directing credits include the live-action/animated Gulliver’s Travels (1977), Hyper Sapien, Twisted Nightmare and the TV movies The Beasts Are on the Streets, It Came Upon the Midnight Clear and The Last Days of Pompeii (1983).
American television director John Peyser, whose credits include episodes of The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Shazam!, Tales of the Unexpected and numerous other shows, died in his sleep on August 16th, aged 86.
88-year-old British-born film director J. (John) Lee Thompson died in British Columbia, Canada, on August 30th of congestive heart failure. A former boxer, actor and playwright, his numerous credits include Cape Fear (1961), What a Way to Go, Eye of the Devil (aka 13), The Chairman (aka The Most Dangerous Man in the World), Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, Battle for the Planet of the Apes, The Reincarnation of Peter Proud, The White Buffalo, Happy Birthday to Me, 10 to Midnight, King Solomon’s Mines (1985) and Firewalker. He made nine movies with Charles Bronson.
German film producer Horst Wendlandt (Horst Otto Gregor Gubanow) died of cancer the same day, aged 80. He joined Rialto Films in the 1960s, where he produced many of the Edgar Wallace mysteries. His many films include The Green Archer (1961), Dead Eyes of London (1961), The Devil’s Daffodil (with Christopher Lee), The Door With Seven Locks, The Black Abbott (1963), The Indian Scarf, The Sinister Monk, The Hunchback of Soho, Creature With the Blue Hand, The Hound of Blackwood Castle, The Gorilla of Soho, Seven Blood-Stained Orchids, What Have They Done to Solange? and Momo (again with Lee).
Film producer Henry Lange, whose credits include The Monk, Daughters of Darkness and Macbeth (1987), died on September 5th, aged 64.
Oscar-winning documentary film-maker Charles Guggenheim died of pancreatic cancer on October 9th, aged 78. Best known for his political media campaigns, he began his career in 1952 as the producer of the NBC-TV marionette show Fearless Fosdick, based on the comic-strip character created by Al Capp.
Independent producer, director and screenwriter Sidney Pink, whose credits include associate-producing the first feature-length 3-D film, Bwana Devil (1952), died after a long illness on October 12th, aged 86. A former theatre owner, he worked as a budget manager on Lost Horizon (1937) and produced burlesque shows in Los Angeles with Lili St Cyr, Joe de Rita and others. Among his more than fifty film credits (often shot outside the USA) are Five, The Twonky, Angry Red Planet, Reptilicus, Journey to the Seventh Planet, Pyro, Sweet Sound of Death, Operation Atlantis and Witch Without a Broom.
John Meredyth Lucas, best known for his involvement with the original Star Trek TV series, died of leukaemia on October 19th, aged 83. The adopted son of veteran Hollywood director Michael Curtiz, Lucas scripted a number of movies and TV shows and directed episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Invaders, Night Gallery, Planet of the Apes, The Six Million Dollar Man, Beyond Westworld and numerous others. He wrote and directed several first-season episodes of Star Trek before becoming a producer on the remaining two seasons. His other credits include the TV movie City Beneath the Sea, and he helped pioneer the behind-the-scenes documentary with The Making of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea for Disney.
Au
strian-born art director turned film director Nathan [Hertz] Juran (aka “Nathan Hertz” and “Jerry Juran”) died at his home in California on October 23rd, aged 95. After sharing an Academy Award for his designs for How Green Was My Valley (1941), he worked on such films as I Wake Up Screaming, The Loves of Edgar Allan Poe, Dr Renault’s Secret and Harvey before turning to directing with such cult movies as The Black Castle (with Boris Karloff and Lon Chaney, Jr.) The Golden Blade, The Deadly Mantis, 20 Million Miles to Earth, The Brain from Planet Arous, Attack of the 50-Foot Woman (1958), The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, Jack the Giant Killer, First Men in the Moon, The Boy Who Cried Werewolf and episodes of TV’s Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Lost in Space and Land of the Giants. Juran also scripted Doctor Blood’s Coffin. He retired from film-making in 1970 and returned to architecture.
Hungarian-born Hollywood screenwriter, producer and director André de Toth (Sásvrái Farkasfalvi Tóthfalusi-Tóth Endre Antai Mihály), best remembered for the 3-D horror classic House of Wax (1953), died of an aneurysm on October 27th, aged 89. Ironically, because he had just one eye, de Toth lacked the depth perception to see the 3-D effects he created. Fleeing the Nazi invasion of Poland in 1939, he escaped to England and later America, where he worked with the Hungarian Korda brothers on such films as The Thief of Bagdad and The Jungle Book. His other credits include Dark Waters starring Merle Oberon, Billion Dollar Brain (as executive producer), and six 1950s Westerns with star Randolph Scott. In later years he shot the background plates for the flying sequences on Superman (1978). The first of his seven wives was actress Veronica Lake, with whom he had three children between 1944–52. His autobiography, Fragments: Portraits from the Inside, was published in 1994.
Veteran film editor Margaret Booth died on October 28th, aged 104. After beginning her career in 1915 with D.W. Griffith, she moved to MGM in the late 1920s and stayed there for more than forty years, working on some of the studio’s most prestigious productions. She received an honorary Oscar in 1977.
Canadian-born computer animator Glenn John McQueen, whose work with Pixar includes Toy Story, Toy Story 2, A Bug’s Life and Monsters Inc., died of melanoma on October 29th, aged 41.
American film and TV director Lee H. Katzin died of cancer on October 30th, aged 67. His numerous credits include Whatever Happened to Aunt Alice?, The Phynx and World Gone Wild, the TV movies Visions . . ., The Man from Atlantis, Terror Out of the Sky, Death Ray 2000 and Automan, plus episodes of The Wild Wild West, Space: 1999, The Man from Atlantis and Automan.
62-year-old sound engineer Keith A. Wester, who received Oscar nominations for his work on Waterworld, Armageddon, and several other big-budget films, died of cancer on November 1st.
Prolific Italian film director Antonio Margheriti died of a heart attack on November 4th, aged 72. In a career that spanned more than fifty films and various genres, Margheriti (who was often credited as “Anthony M. Dawson”) made such movies as Assignment Outer Space, Battle of the Worlds (with Claude Rains), The Golden Arrow, Horror Castle (with Christopher Lee), Castle of Blood (with Barbara Steele), Hercules Prisoner of Evil, Long Hair of Death (with Steele again), Wild Wild Planet, War Between the Planets, Snow Devils, War of the Planets, Web of the Spider, Seven Dead in the Cat’s Eye, Cannibal Apocalypse, Killer Fish, Yor The Hunter from the Future, Hunters of the Golden Cobra, Ark of the Sun God, Treasure Island in Outer Space and Alien from the Deep.
American cinematographer Michael J.R. Dugan, whose credits include Beyond Atlantis, Space Probe and Jaws 2, died of a stroke and pneumonia on November 6th, aged 82.
Jack Solomon, one of the first two individuals to win an Oscar for sound in 1969, died of complications following heart surgery on November 8th, aged 78. His many credits include Phantom from Space, Kiss Me, Deadly, The Amazing Colossal Man, The Lost Missile, The Collector, The Other, Sleeper, the 1976 King Kong, Meteor and The Last Starfighter.
Production executive Marvin Mirisch who, with his brothers Walter and Harold (who died in 1968), ran Monogram Pictures/Allied Artists from 1953–57 and later formed one of Hollywood’s most prestigious independent film companies, died on November 17th, aged 84. He was credited as executive producer on Universal’s 1979 Dracula and the 1993 Pink Panther cartoon series.
Exploitation film distributor, producer and director Jerry Gross was found dead in Los Angeles on November 20th, aged 62. Investigators believe he died of natural causes four days earlier. Best known as the distributor of such movies as Son of Dracula (1973), Blood Beach, The Boogeyman and the infamous I Drink Your Blood/I Eat Your Skin double-bill, he also distributed Ralph Bakshi’s Fritz the Cat, Dalton Trumbo’s Johnny Got His Gun and Federico Fellini’s Juliet of the Spirits.
Children’s-TV producer Nina Elias Bamberger, whose credits include Sesame Street for PBS and the cartoon Dragon Tales, died of ovarian cancer the same day, aged 48.
Following the death of Ray L. Wallace in November, it was revealed by his family that footage of the legendary Bigfoot was in fact his wife in fancy dress. In 1958, Wallace put down fake tracks and the local newspaper in Humboldt County, California, dubbed the beast “Bigfoot”. In 1967, a grainy film was released showing the creature in the woods. According to his son, Michael, “He made a lot of people laugh. It was a fun family”.
Czechoslovakian-born film director Karel Reisz died of a blood disorder in London on November 25th, aged 76. His credits include the 1964 remake of Night Must Fall starring Albert Finney and Morgan, a Suitable Case for Treatment. He was married to American actress Betsy Blair.
American film and television producer Edgar J. Scherick died of leukaemia on December 2nd, aged 78. While vice-president of programming at ABC-TV from 1963–66 he was responsible for such shows as Batman and Bewitched. As a movie producer and founder of Palomar Pictures, his credits include Sleuth, The Stepford Wives and such TV movies as When Michael Calls, The Phantom of the Opera (1990), Revenge of the Stepford Wives, The Stepford Children and The Stepford Husbands.
76-year-old British TV director Ian MacNaughton, who directed all but the first four episodes of BBC-TV’s Monty Python’s Flying Circus (1969–74), died in Germany on December 10th from injuries sustained in a 2001 car accident. A former actor (he appeared in Hammer’s X The Unknown), he also directed the first Python feature, And Now for Something Completely Different, and a German version of the series, Monty Python’s Fliegender Zirkus (1971–72).
Kay Rose, the first woman to win an Academy Award for sound editing, died of multiple organ system failure on December 11th, aged 80. In 1954, with her former husband Sherman Rose, she produced Target Earth. She was the sound effects editor on I Was a Teenage Frankenstein, and her other credits include Blood of Dracula, The Flame Barrier, Pit and the Pendulum (1961) and RoboCop 2.
Tony award-winning sets and costume designer Maria Bjornson, who in 1986 created the original designs for the London stage production of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Phantom of the Opera, died on December 13th, aged 53.
72-year-old James Ferman, who retired in 1999 after twenty-four years as secretary of the British Board of Film Classification, died of pneumonia in December.
Oscar-winning Hollywood producer and director George Roy Hill died of complications from Parkinson’s disease on December 27th, aged 81. Best remembered for such box office hits as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and The Sting, he also directed Slaughterhouse-Five and The World According to Garp.
German-born film distributor Kenneth Rive, best known for bringing foreign-language movies to post-war Britain through his Gala Films, died on December 30th, aged 84. A former child actor, appearing alongside Conrad Veidt in Rasputin, Dämon Der Frauen (1930), he championed such “art house” directors as François Truffaut, Jean Cocteau, Federico Fellini and Ingmar Bergman. Rive also executive-produced The Devil Doll (1963) and Curse of Simba (aka Curse of the Voodoo), both made by his production company Gala World Film and starring Bryant Halliday.
USEFUL ADDRESSES
THE FOLLOWING LISTING OF organiz
ations, publications, dealers and individuals is designed to present readers with further avenues to explore. Although I can personally recommend all those listed on the following pages, neither myself nor the publisher can take any responsibility for the services they offer. Please also note that the information below is subject to change without notice.
ORGANIZATIONS
The British Fantasy Society
The Horror Writers Association
The Lost Club was set up as an umbrella body to research and promote cult and collected authors in a variety of genres from horror, fantasy and SF to crime fiction and historical romance. A range of British, American and European fantasy authors are celebrated in The Lost Club Journal, dedicated to “Writers the World Forgot”. Edited by Roger Dobson and Mark Valentine, the Journal includes features on M.P. Shiel, Arthur Machen, James Branch Cabell, Count Stenbock, Rider Haggard, Montague Summers, Sax Rohmer, Sarban, Aleister Crowley, Dennis Wheatley plus others still more obscure whose names will be found in no reference work or study. Membership of The Lost Club is informal: all book lovers wishing to consider themselves part of the group are welcome to do so. The LCJ material is published at the Tartarus Press website
The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 2003, Volume 14 Page 68
