Don Mitchell (Donald Michael Mitchell), who co-starred as “Mark Sanger” in NBC-TV’s Ironside (1967–75), died the same day, aged seventy. He was also in Scream Blacula Scream and episodes of I Dream of Jeannie, Bewitched, Tarzan (1967) and Wonder Woman.
American actor and exploitation director Roger Gentry (James Edgar Rodgers, aka “Jim Gentry”/“Tim Sommers”) died on December 16, aged seventy-nine. He appeared in The Wizard of Mars (aka Horrors of the Red Planet), Gallery of Horror (with John Carradine and Lon Chaney, Jr), Alice in Acidland, The Thing with Two Heads, The Love Butcher and Death Magic.
Busy American character actor Joseph Ruskin (Joseph Richard Schlafman) died on December 28, aged eighty-nine. He appeared in Dr. Scorpion, Captain America (1979), The Munster’s Revenge, The Sword and the Sorcerer, Saturday the 14th Strikes Back, Cyber Tracker, Star Trek: Insurrection, King Cobra, Wishcraft and The Scorpion King. He was also the voice of “The Horla” in the 1963 Vincent Price movie Diary of a Madman. On TV, Ruskin appeared in episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1958 and 1986), Twilight Zone (“To Serve Man”), The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, Mister Ed, The Outer Limits, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Get Smart, The Time Tunnel, The Wild Wild West, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Land of the Giants, Rod Serling’s Night Gallery, Planet of the Apes, The Six Million Dollar Man, The Bionic Woman, Starsky and Hutch (“Satan’s Witches”), Wonder Woman, Project U.F.O., Knight Rider, The Wizard, Max Headroom, Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction and Alias. He was reportedly the only actor to have appeared in the original Star Trek series and three out of the four spinoffs: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Voyager and Star Trek: Enterprise.
British comedy actor John Fortune (John C. Wood), who appeared in Bloodbath at the House of Death (with Vincent Price), died of leukaemia on December 31, aged seventy-nine. He was also in episodes of TV’s Shades of Darkness (“The Demon Lover” by Elizabeth Bowen) and Spine Chillers.
American character actor James [La Rue] Avery, best known for his role as “Philip Banks” in TV’s The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air (1990–96), died of complications from open-heart surgery the same day. He was sixty-eight. He was also in episodes of Amazing Stories, Beauty and the Beast, The Legend of Tarzan, Charmed, Star Trek: Enterprise and Eli Stone, along with the movies Appointment with Fear, The Eleventh Commandment, Timestalkers, Nightflyers (based on the novel by George R. R. Martin), Body Count, Beastmaster 2: Through the Portal of Time, Spirit Lost, Dr. Dolittle 2, Epoch and The Third Wish. Avery was also the Narrator for the R. L. Stine series The Nightmare Room (2001–02) and a prolific voice actor on TV cartoon shows, notably playing “Shredder” in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1987–93).
Ninety-year-old Chinese-born actress Lidiya Vertinskaya (Lidiya Vladimirovna Tsirgvava) died in Russia on December 31. She appeared as “The Phoenix” in Sadko (aka The Magic Voyage of Sinbad, 1953).
FILM/TV TECHNICIANS
Former American child actor turned stuntman and director David R. [Richard] Ellis died in Johannesburg, South Africa, on January 7. He was sixty. Ellis began his movie career in the 1975 Disney film The Strongest Man in the World, and he also appeared in Nightbeast (1982) and an episode of TV’s Wonder Woman. Switching to stunts, he worked on Deathsport, Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978), Megaforce, The Beastmaster, V and V: The Final Battle, The Wraith, Remo Williams: The Prophecy, Warlock, Star Trek: The Final Frontier, Phantom of the Mall: Eric’s Revenge, Ghost Dad, Misery, The Addams Family (1991), Sliver, Warlock: The Armageddon and the 1994 version of The Jungle Book. Ellis also began a career as a second unit director on such films as Warlock, Sliver, The Jungle Book, Waterworld, Sphere, Soldier, Deep Blue Sea, Just Visiting, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, The Matrix Reloaded, R.I.P.D. and 47 Ronin. His own credits as a director include Final Destination 2, Snakes on a Plane, Asylum (2008), The Final Destination and Shark Night 3D.
British director and bon viveur Michael [Robert] Winner died on January 21, aged seventy-seven. Best known for his series of reactionary Death Wish movies during the 1970s and ’80s, he also directed the 1961 documentary short Haunted England and the films The Nightcomers (a prequel to Henry James’ Turn of the Screw), The Sentinel (with John Carradine) and Scream for Help. Winner made a cameo appearance in John Landis’ 2010 horror/comedy Burke and Hare.
Oscarwinning South African-born Hollywood producer Lloyd [B.] Phillips died of a heart attack in Los Angeles on January 25. He was sixty-three, and his credits include Battletruck, Twelve Monkeys and Man of Steel.
Polish-born engineer and physicist Stefan Kudelski died on January 26, aged eighty-three. Fleeing from the Nazis to Switzerland in the 1940s, he invented the first portable audio tape recorder and, by the early 1950s, his “Nagra” tape recorder was introduced to TV and radio stations. In 1958, Kudelsi worked out how to synchronize his audio recordings to film, thus allowing moviemakers to capture better sound outside the studio. He won three Academy Awards, two Emmy Awards and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Gordon E. Sawyer Award for his Science and Technical contributions to the film industry.
Stage dancer/actor turned Hollywood set decorator Garrett Lewis died on January 29, aged seventy-seven. His credits include The Star Wars Holiday Special (1978), Short Circuit, The Monster Squad, Misery, Hook, Dracula (1992), The Shadow, Face/Off and Bedazzled (2000).
Veteran British make-up artist Stuart [W.] Freeborn died on February 5, aged ninety-eight. After working uncredited on such productions as The Thief of Bagdad (1940), Green for Danger and Oliver Twist (1948), his other films include The Hands of Orlac (1960, with Christopher Lee), Tarzan Goes to India, Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, Seance on a Wet Afternoon, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Toomorrow, 10 Rillington Place, Blind Terror, The Fiend (aka Beware My Brethren), Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1972), The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes’ Smarter Brother, The Omen (1976), Spectre, Superman (1978), Superman II, The Great Muppet Caper, Superman III, Santa Claus (1985), Haunted Honeymoon and Superman IV: The Quest for Peace. Freeborn is perhaps best known for supervising the makeup effects on Star Wars (1977) and its sequels, The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, yet he was never nominated for an Academy Award.
British cinematographer Les Young died on February 9, aged sixty-six. He started out as a camera operator on such films as The Oblong Box, Scream and Scream Again and Cry of the Banshee (all starring Vincent Price) before moving on to shoot and produce Satan’s Slave (starring Michael Gough) and Terror (which he also wrote the original story for). Young was also lighting cameraman on one episode of TV’s Tales of the Unexpected.
Petro Vlahos, who received an Academy Award in 1995 for his pioneering blue-screen compositing process, died on February 10, aged ninety-six. Vlahos also received four other Oscars for technical and engineering achievement, and he was credited as “Technical Advisor” on the 1980 SF movie Battle Beyond the Stars.
Raymond [Patrick] Cusick, the original production designer on BBC TV’s Doctor Who from 1963–66, died of heart failure on February 21, aged eighty-five. Not only did he famously help create the first versions of the Daleks, but he also worked on episodes of Out of the Unknown and Rentaghost, and a 1983 TV movie of Edgar Wallace’s The Case of the Frightened Lady.
American screenwriter/producer/director Del (Delbert) Tenney, best remembered for his 1964 drive-in double-bill of The Horror of Party Beach and The Curse of the Living Corpse, died the same day, aged eighty-two. A former movie extra (The Wild One), Tenney’s other credits include I Want to Eat Your Skin, Do You Wanna Know a Secret and the Edgar Allan Poe-inspired Descendant (co-directed with Kermit Christman).
Australian-born animator Bob Godfrey (Roland Frederick Godfrey) also died on February 21, aged ninety-two. The Oscarwinner created the children’s TV series Roobarb and Henry’s Cat, along with such acclaimed short films as Kama Sutra Rides Again.
Former silent-movie child actor Micky Moore (Dennis Michael Sheffield, aka “Michael D. Moore”) died of
congestive heart failure on March 4, aged ninety-eight. After being mentored by legendary director Cecil B. DeMille, the Canadiaborn Moore made the transition to assistant and then second unit director on such films as When Worlds Collide (uncredited), The War of the Worlds, The Ten Commandments, Visit to a Small Planet, The Man Who Would Be King, Damnation Alley, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Never Say Never Again, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Willow, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Ghostbusters II, Toy Soldiers, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III, 101 Dalmations (1996), Flubber (1997) and 102 Dalmations.
Italian screenwriter and director Damiano Damiani died on March 7, aged ninety. He worked in various genres, but is best remembered for the grim sequel Amityville 2: The Possession (1982).
British animation director Jack Stokes (John Albert Stokes) died on March 20, aged ninety-two. Best known for his work on Yellow Submarine (1968), his other credits include a short of The Little Mermaid (1974), The Water Babies (1978), Heavy Metal (the “Den” segment), The Princess and the Goblin, Prince Valiant (1997), Christmas Carol: The Movie (2001) and the short-lived animated TV series The Beatles (1966–67).
Prolific Spanish writer, producer, actor and director Jesús Franco [Manera] (aka “Jess Franco”/“Jess Franck”/“J, Frank Manera”/“Franco Manera”/“Frank Hollman”/“Clifford Brown”/“J.P. Johnson”/“A.M. Frank” etc.) died of complications from a stroke on April 2, aged eighty-two. Hired by Orson Welles as second unit director on Chimes at Midnight (1965), Franco’s more than 200 films, often under various pseudonyms, are of variable quality and include The Blood of Fu Manchu, The Castle of Fu Manchu, The Bloody Judge, Eugenie … the Story of Her Journey Into Perversion and Count Dracula (all with Christopher Lee), The Awful Dr. Orlof and its sequels, The Diabolical Dr. Z, Vampyros lesbos, Dracula contra Frankenstein, La fille de Dracula, The Erotic Rites of Frankenstein, A Virgin Among the Living Dead, Female Vampire, Jack the Ripper (1976), El sádico de Notre-Dame, Faceless and Zombie 5. From the mid-1990s onwards, he began churning out shot-on video productions, such as Lust for Frankenstein and Killer Barbys vs. Dracula, which made his earlier work look like masterpieces. He was married to his long-time partner and muse, actress Lina Romay, from 2008 until her death four years later.
Jane Henson (Jane Anne Nebel), who is credited with co-creating The Muppets with her husband, puppeteer Jim Henson, died of cancer on April 3, aged seventy-eight.
Sixty-seven-year-old Spanish writer, producer and director [Josep Joan] Bigas Luna, best known for the fantasy Reborn and the horror film Anguish, died on April 6.
American special-effects artist Marcel Vercoutere, who made Linda Blair’s head turn around in The Exorcist (1973), died of complications from dementia on April 13, aged eighty-seven.
American TV comedy writer, producer and director Jack Shea (John Francis Shea, Jr) died on April 28 of complications from Alzheimer’s disease, aged eighty-four. A former President of the Directors Guild of America (1997–2002), Shea’s credits include episodes of The Charmings and Shades of LA, along with the cult 1969 SF movie adaptation of Keith Laumer’s The Monitors and the Disney TV movie The Strange Monster of Strawberry Cove.
Legendary American-born stop-motion pioneer Ray Harryhausen (Raymond Frederick Harryhausen) died in London on May 7, aged ninety-two. A lifelong friend of Ray Bradbury and Forrest J. Ackerman, after seeing King Kong (1933) at the age of thirteen, Harryhausen was inspired to start making his own amateur short films. He finally got his break in movies assisting his idol Willis H. O’Brien in producing the Oscarwinning special effects for Mighty Joe Young (1949). Harryhausen then branched out on his own, creating the “Dynamation” visual effects for (and sometimes also producing) The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, It Came from Beneath the Sea, Earth vs. the Flying Saucers, The Animal World, 20 Million Miles to Earth, The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, The 3 Worlds of Gulliver, Mysterious Island, Jason and the Argonauts, First Men in the Moon, Hammer’s One Million B.C., The Valley of Gwangi, The Golden Voyage of Sinbad, Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger and Clash of the Titans (1981). He also made a number of cameo appearances in such films as Spies Like Us, Beverly Hills Cop III, Mighty Joe and Burke and Hare. Starting with Film Fantasy Scrapbook in 1972, he published a number of volumes about his own work, while Giles Penso’s feature documentary, Ray Harryhausen Special Effects Titan (2011), celebrated his career. Harryhausen received a Hugo Award in 1959 for The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, he was the recipient of the special Gordon E. Sawyer Award for Lifetime Achievement at the Academy Awards in 1992, and he won the British Fantasy Society’s Karl Edward Wagner Special Award in 2008. His wife, Diana [Livingstone Bruce], died just five months after her husband.
Former British character actor turned writer, producer and director Bryan Forbes CBE (John Theobold Clarke), died on May 8, following a long illness. He was eighty-six. After appearing in such films as Satellite in the Sky and Hammer’s Quatermass 2 (aka Enemy from Space), he moved behind the camera for Seance on a Wet Afternoon, The Stepford Wives (1975) and The Slipper and the Rose: The Story of Cinderella. From 1969–71 he was Head of Production at EMI-MGM Elstree Film Studios. Forbes also worked (uncredited) on the script for The Man Who Haunted Himself (1970) starring Roger Moore, and he wrote the shooting script for the unproduced Hammer film Nessie, based on a screenplay by Christopher Wicking and John Starr. He was married to actresses Constance Smith from 1951–55 and Nanette Newman from 1955 until his death.
Filipino writer, producer and director Eddie Romero (Edgar Sinco Romero, aka “Edgar F. Romero”/“Enrique Moreno”) died on May 28 of cardiopulmonary arrest, brought on by complications from prostate cancer and a blood clot on the brain. He was eighty-eight. A well-respected film-maker in his own country, Romero began his career in the late 1940s, but is best known for such exploitation movies of the 1960s and ’70s as the “Blood Island” trilogy (Mad Doctor of Blood Island, Brides of Blood and Beast of the Yellow Night), Blood Devils, The Twilight People, Beyond Atlantis and The Woman Hunt (yet another version of Richard Connell’s story “The Most Dangerous Game”). His producing credits also include Terror is a Man and Apocalypse Now.
Florida film-maker Don Barton (Donald E. Barton), who wrote, produced and directed the cult 1971 horror film Zaat (aka The Blood Waters of Dr. Z), about a walking catfish monster, died of chronic pulmonary disease on June 8, aged eighty-three.
Prolific British TV and film director Jim Goddard (James Dudley Goddard) died on June 17, aged seventy-seven. After starting out as a production designer on such shows as Out of This World, City Beneath the Sea (1962), Secret Beneath the Sea and The Avengers, he made the move to directing in the mid-1960s. His numerous credits include episodes of The Guardians, The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes and Space Precinct, along with the 1987 TV movie of Steven Berkoff’s adaptation of Kafka’s Metamorphosis and the widely derided Shanghai Surprise starring then-married couple Sean Penn and Madonna.
Pioneering British animator John David Wilson, who directed the cartoon feature Shinbone Alley (1971), died of an infection on June 20, aged ninety-three. Wilson began his career in the art department at Pinewood Studios, working on such films as The Thief of Bagdad (1940), before he moved on to animation, creating the cartoon credits for Irma La Douce and Grease. He was also involved with Disney’s Peter Pan and Lady & the Tramp, UPA’s The TellTale Heart, The Flintstones, Journey to the Stars (a fifteen-minute short seen by seven million visitors to the World’s Fair in Seattle), The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour, Stanley the Ugly Duckling, Spacecats and Attack of the Killer Tomatoes (1991). A planned animated film of Peer Gynt never got beyond the design and storyboard stage.
British stage designer Mark Fisher OBE died on June 25, aged sixty-six. He designed the sets for productions of The Rocky Horror Show and the Queen musical We Will Rock You, as well as the 1974 SF movie Zardoz.
British assistant director and production manager David C. Anderson died of lung cancer on August 4, aged seventy-two. He worked as an assistant director on the first two Bond films D
r. No and From Russia with Love, Invasion USA, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, Miracle Mile, Brenda Starr, Switch, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1997) and episodes of TV’s Tales from the Crypt. As a production manager, Anderson’s credits include The Shuttered Room (loosely based on the story by H. P. Lovecraft and August Derleth), Theatre of Blood (starring Vincent Price), The Man Who Would Be King (based on the story by Rudyard Kipling), Flash Gordon (1980) and Strange Behaviour (aka Dead Kids).
Prolific Italian producer, writer and director Luciano Martino (aka “Martin Hardy”/”Frank Cook”) died of a pulmonary oedema in Kenya, Africa, on August 14. He was seventy-nine. The brother of director Sergio Martino, he produced (sometimes uncredited) The Demon (1963), Giants of Rome, Next!, The Case of the Scorpion’s Tale, All the Colors of the Dark, The Case of the Bloody Iris, Island of Mutations (aka Screamers), The Great Alligator, Eaten Alive!, Cannibal Ferox, Murder in an Etruscan Cemetery (aka Scorpion with Two Tails), Ironmaster, A Blade in the Dark, 2019: After the Fall of New York, Miami Golem, Blastfighter and Hands of Steel. As a writer, Martino worked on The Colossus of Rhodes, Perseus Against the Monsters, Mario Bava’s The Whip and the Body, Ursus in the Land of Fire, Hercules and the Masked Rider, Maciste contro I Mongoli, Hercules Against the Barbarians, Hercules and the Tyrants of Babylon, Goliath and the Conquest of Damascus and The Sweet Body of Deborah, amongst many other titles. He was married to actress Wandisa Guida.
Oscarwinning British set decorator Stephenie McMillan (Stephenie Lesley Gardner), who worked on all eight Harry Potter films, died of ovarian cancer on August 19, aged seventy-one. Her other credits include Santa Claus: The Movie, The Secret Garden (1993), Shadowlands, Mary Reilly, The Avengers (1998) and Chocolat.
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