Canadian-born actor John Vernon (Adolphus Raymondus Vernon Agopsowicz) died on February 1st, following complications from heart surgery. He was 72. Best remembered as “Dean Wormer” in National Lampoon’s Animal House, during the 1970s and ’80s he turned up regularly on TV as a villain in such series and films as Tarzan, Search, Kung Fu, The Six Million Dollar Man, The Greatest American Hero, The Powers of Matthew Star, The Invisible Man (1975), Automan, The Phoenix, Knight Rider, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, War of the Worlds, Ray Bradbury Theater, Tales from the Crypt, Escape, The Questor Tapes and The Fire Next Time. His other credits include the 1956 film of 1984 (as the uncredited voice of “Big Brother”), Chained Heat, The Uncanny (with Peter Cushing), Herbie Goes Bananas, Heavy Metal, Curtains, Blue Monkey, Killer Klowns from Outer Space and Batman: Mystery of the Batwoman.
87-year-old film and stage actor and human rights activist Ossie Davis (Raiford Chatman Davis) was found dead on February 4th in a Miami hotel room. Honoured with a Lifetime Achievement award by the Screen Actors Guild in 2001, he directed and co-wrote the 1970s Blaxploitation film Cotton Comes to Harlem and appeared in Shock Treatment, Avenging Angel, Joe versus the Volcano, Doctor Dolittle (1998) and Bubba Ho-Tep (based on the story by Joe R. Lansdale), along with the TV movies Night Gallery and The Soul Collector, plus the mini-series of Stephen King’s The Stand. Davis was married to actress Ruby Dee, and they celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary in 1998 with the publication of a dual autobiography, In This Life Together.
Keith Knudsen, who joined 1970s band the Doobie Brothers as drummer on their fourth album, died of pneumonia on February 8th, aged 56. He played on their 1980 #1 hit “What a Fool Believes”.
1970s soul singer Tyrone Davis, who had hits with “Can I Change My Mind” and “Turn Back the Hands of Time”, died after being hospitalized for a coma on February 9th, aged 66.
American football player-turned-actor Chuck Morrell died of a cerebral haemorrhage on February 10th, aged 67. After leaving the Washington Redskins in 1959, he appeared in a number of movies and TV shows. In 1988 he produced and appeared in Grotesque, starring Linda Blair. Morrell underwent a heart transplant in 1995.
American actor Brian Kelly, who starred as “Ranger Porter Ricks” in the 1960s TV series Flipper, died of pneumonia on February 12th, aged 73. He appeared in a number of films, including Around the World Under the Sea, until a motorcycle accident in 1970 left him with a permanently paralyzed right arm and leg. After winning a settlement from the accident, Kelly turned to producing, buying the rights to Philip K. Dick’s novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? He executive produced the subsequent film adaptation, Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner.
Guyana-born British actor Harry Baird died of cancer on February 13th, aged 73. He made his debut in Carol Reed’s A Kid for Two Farthings (1954) and appeared in Tarzan the Magnificent and Road to Hong Kong before becoming a peplum star in Italy with such films as Taur the Mighty Warrior and its sequel Thor and the Amazon Women. He also appeared in The Oblong Box (with Vincent Price and Christopher Lee) and Castle Keep. In 1957 he portrayed Rhodes Reason’s bearer “Atimbu” in the low-budget TV series White Hunter (1957), and as “Lt Mark Bradley” was a regular on U.F.O. (1972–73).
American actress Nicole DeHuff, who appeared in Suspect Zero with Ben Kingsley, died of pneumonia on February 16th, aged 30.
85-year-old Irish-born actor Dan(iel) [Peter] O’Herlihy died of heart failure on February 17th in Malibu, California, following a long illness. After starting his career at Dublin’s Abbey Theatre, he appeared in such films as Orson Welles’ Macbeth, Invasion USA., The Cabinet of Caligari (scripted by Robert Bloch), Fail-Safe, Halloween III: Season of the Witch, The Last Star fighter, RoboCop and RoboCop 2, plus such TV movies as The People, Good Against Evil, Death Ray 2000 and Artemis 81. He also appeared in episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Hour, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., The Bionic Woman, Battlestar Galactica and Ray Bradbury Theater, and was a regular on A Man Called Sloane and Twin Peaks.
American actor Richard Lupino, a member of the theatrical family, died of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma on February 19th, aged 75. He appeared on TV in episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Twilight Zone, Thriller (“Trilogy of Terror”) and The Evil Touch.
Former model turned actress Sandra Dee (Alexandra Zuck) died of complications from kidney disease on February 20th, aged 63. She had lifelong battles with sexual abuse, anorexia, alcoholism and drug addiction. Best remembered as the teenage star of Gidget and the Tammy series, and the wife (1960–67) of singer Bobby Darin (who died in 1973), Dee also appeared in Portrait in Black, A Man Could Get Killed, the 1969 movie of H. P. Lovecraft’s The Dunwich Horror, the pilot TV movie for Fantasy Island and episodes of Night Gallery (“Tell David” and “Spectre in Tap Shoes”) and The Sixth Sense (“Through a Flame, Darkly”). The song “Look at Me, I’m Sandra Dee” was featured in the musical Grease, and she was played by Kate Bosworth in Kevin Spacey’s recent biopic of Darin, Beyond the Sea.
Musical theatre actor John Raitt, the father of singer Bonnie Raitt, died of complications from pneumonia the same day, aged 88. He created the role of carnival barker “Billy Bigelow” in Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Carousel on Broadway and appeared in episodes of TV’s Third Rock from the Sun and The X Files.
Flamboyant Californian TV preacher Gene Scott died of a stroke on February 21st, aged 75. Christopher Plummer’s character in the 1987 film Dragnet was reportedly based on him.
French-born actress Simone Simon died in Paris on February 22nd, aged 94. A former model who was brought to Hollywood by studio head Darryl Zanuck, she is best known for her role as “Irene Dubrovna”, a Serbian-born fashion artist haunted by the fear that she is a were-panther, in the two Val Lewton productions Cat People (1942) and The Curse of the Cat People (1944). She also appeared as the Devil’s seductive emissary “Bella Dee” in All That Money Can Buy (aka The Devil and Daniel Webster). Her last film was in 1973.
25-year-old South Korean actress Lee Eun-ju hanged herself in her apartment dressing room the same day. Her film credits include Hello! UFO and Bloody Beach.
American singer Harry Simeone also died on February 22nd, aged 94. His hits included “The Little Drummer Boy” in 1958 and the Christmas song “Do You Hear What I Hear” four years later.
Edward Patten, a singer with Gladys Knight & the Pips from 1966–89, died of a stroke on February 25th, aged 66. The group’s hits include “I Heard it Through the Grapevine” and “Midnight Train to Georgia”.
Singer and drummer Chris Curtis (Christopher Crummey), who had a number of hits with 1960s “Merseybeat” group the Searchers (named after the 1956 John Ford Western), died of complications from diabetes on February 28th, aged 63. The Searchers had a #1 hit with “Sweets for my Sweet” in 1963, followed by “Sugar and Spice”, “Needles and Pins” and “Don’t Throw Your Love Away”. After leaving the group in 1966, Curtis joined the session group the Flowerpot Men on the psychedelic anthem “Let’s Go to San Francisco”.
Canadian actress Guylaine St-Onge, who played the murderous alien “Juda” in Gene Roddenberry’s Earth: Final Conflict (2001–02), died of cervical cancer on March 3rd, aged 39. Her other credits include the 1991–92 series Lightning Force and episodes of War of the Worlds, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Outer Limits and Mutant X.
Melanie McGuire, who starred in the low-budget horror film Deadly Scavengers, died the same day, aged 42.
Academy Award-winning Hollywood actress [Muriel] Teresa Wright died of a heart attack on March 6th, aged 86. Replaced by Loretta Young in The Bishop’s Wife (1947) when she became pregnant, Wright is best known for her role as “Charlie”, opposite Joseph Cotton’s murderous namesake in Alfred Hitchcock’s Shadow of a Doubt (1943). Her other credits include Track of the Cat, The Search for Bridey Murphy, The Elevator, Crawlspace, Somewhere in Time and the TV movies The Enchanted Cottage and The Miracle on 34th Street (1955) and Flood!. From 1942–52 she was married to novelist Niven Busch (Duel in the Sun), and in
1959 married Robert Woodruff Anderson, author of Tea and Sympathy. They divorced and later remarried.
American character actor Sandy Ward, who played “Sheriff Bannerman” in Cujo, also died on March 6th, aged 79. His many other credits include The Velvet Vampire, Earthquake, Wholly Moses! and the TV movies Good Against Evil and The Golden Gate Murders.
British radio disc jockey and prolific voice-over artist Tommy Vance died of complications from a stroke on March 6th, aged 63.
German actress Brigitte Mira died on March 8th, aged 94. She made her film debut in 1948 and her credits include Ulli Lommel’s The Tenderness of the Wolves.
Versatile British stage and screen actress Sheila Gish (Sheila Gash) died of cancer on March 9th, aged 62. Her infrequent film appearances included playing the ageing girlfriend of immortal Connor MacLeod in Highlander (1986). She returned to the series fourteen years later in the third sequel, Highlander Endgame. Gish’s second husband was actor Denis Lawson.
Popular Irish comedian Dave Allen died in London on March 10th, aged 68. He collected his favourite supernatural stories in the 1974 anthology A Little Night Reading.
Danny Joe Brown, lead singer with Molly Hatchet, died of diabetes the same day, aged 53.
Italian actor Guglielmo Spoletini (aka “William Bogart”), who appeared in numerous “spaghetti Westerns”, died on March 12th. His credits include The Amazing Doctor G, Night of the Serpent and The Omen.
American character actor Jason Evers (Herbert Evers) died of heart failure on March 13th, aged 83. Best known as the mad scientist in The Brain That Wouldn’t Die (as “Herb Evers”), he also appeared in The Illustrated Man, Escape from the Planet of the Apes, Claws and Barracuda, while his last film before he retired was Basket Case 2. On TV Evers guest-starred in episodes of The Green Hornet, The Invaders, The Wild Wild West, Star Trek, Fantastic Journey, The Bionic Woman, Fantasy Island and Knight Rider.
Don Durant, who starred in Roger Corman’s She Gods of Shark Reef, died of cardio-pulmonary failure on March 15th, aged 72. He had been battling chronic lymphocytic leukaemia and lymphoma. Durant composed the music for the 1950s Western series Johnny Ringo, and also appeared in episodes of TV’s Twilight Zone and Alfred Hitchcock Presents, before leaving acting in the 1960s to pursue a career in real estate.
American actor Anthony George (Ottavio George), who replaced Mitchell Ryan as “Burke Devlin” on TV’s Dark Shadows in 1967 and remained on the show as “Jeremiah Collins”, died of complications from emphysema on March 16th, aged 84.
American character actor Barney Martin, best known as Jerry Seinfeld’s father “Morty” on the sit-com Seinfeld (1991–98), died of cancer on March 21st, aged 82. His many credits include the TV movies Splash Too and I Married a Monster.
Rod Price, guitarist with the blues band Foghat, died of a heart attack on March 22nd, aged 57.
British character actor David Kossoff died of liver cancer on March 23rd, aged 85. The son of Russian parents, he worked as a draftsman and furniture designer before appearing in such films as Svengali (1954), The Angel Who Pawned Her Harp, The Bespoke Overcoat, 1984, A Kid for Two Farthings, Hammer’s The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll (aka House of Fright) and The Mouse on the Moon. His scenes were deleted from The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes. Kossoff’s son Paul, guitarist with the rock band Free, died at the age of twenty-five as a result of drug abuse.
92-year-old Memphis TV horror host Sivad (Watson Davis) died of cancer the same day. From 1962 to 1970 Davis (actually an advertising director for a local cinema chain) hosted “Fantastic Features” on Channel 13 WHBQ as a fanged and caped vampire. He also made numerous live appearances and had several local hit records.
Paul Hester, the 46-year-old drummer and co-founder of Australian band Crowded House, apparently committed suicide by hanging himself from a tree in a Melbourne park on March 26th. A former member of New Zealand group Split Enz, Hester formed Crowded House in 1985 with singer Neil Finn and bass player Nick Seymour. Their hits include “Don’t Dream It’s Over” and “Weather With You”.
American celebrity attorney Johnnie L. Cochran, Jr, best known for his successful defence of football star-turned-actor O. J. Simpson on murder charges in 1995, died of a brain tumour on March 29th, aged 67. Over the years, Cochran also represented Jim Brown, Todd Bridges, Tupac Shakur, Snoop Dogg and Sean “P. Diddy” Combs.
Japanese-born musician Hideaki “Billy” Sekiguchi (aka “Bass Wolf”) died of a heart attack in New Orleans on March 31st, aged 38. Co-founder of the band Guitar Wolf in the early 1990s, he appeared in local film-maker John Michael McCarthy’s science fiction film The Sore Losers (1997) and starred with fellow band member Seiji in Tetsuro Takeuchi’s zombie movie Wild Zero (2000).
German actor and singer Harald Juhnke died after a long battle with alcoholism on April 1st, aged 75. He appeared in Fritz Lang’s The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (1962) and in later years made a career out of covering Frank Sinatra’s hits in German and dubbing Marlon Brando.
72-year-old American actress June Easton, who was married to actor and dialect coach Robert Easton, died after a long battle with lupus on April 2nd. She appeared in Abbott and Costello Go to Mars and Son of Sinbad.
The death was announced the same day, during the BBC’s live broadcast of The Quatermass Experiment, of 84-year-old Polish-born Pope John Paul II (Karol Wojtyla) from heart and kidney failure in Rome, Italy. At twenty-six years, he was one of the longest-serving Pope’s in history. A former actor and playwright, two of his plays were adapted into movies.
American actress Debralee Scott, who was a regular on such TV series as Welcome Back Kotter and Mary Hartman Mary Hartman, died on April 5th, aged 52. She appeared in Earthquake, The Reincarnation of Peter Proud, Pandemonium and the TV movie Death Moon.
British character actor John Bennett died on April 11th, aged 76. His numerous credits include Hammer’s The Curse of the Werewolf, The House That Dripped Blood, The House in Nightmare Park, Watership Down, The Plague Dogs, Merlin of the Crystal Cave, Sherlock Holmes and the Leading Lady, Split Second and The Fifth Element, along with episodes of The Avengers, Doctor Who, Survivors, Blakes 7 and Roald Dahl’s Tales of the Unexpected.
Johnny Johnson, the pianist on many Chuck Berry hits, died on April 13th, aged 80.
British stage and screen actress Margaretta Scott died on April 15th, aged 93. She appeared in Things to Come (1936), Percy and Hammer’s Crescendo (replacing Bette Davis). She was the last surviving signatory of the document that established the British actors’ union Equity in 1934.
John Fred Gourrier, lead singer with John Fred and His Playboy Band, who had a hit in 1968 with “Judy in Disguise (With Glasses)”, died of complications from a kidney transplant the same day, aged 63.
London-born character actress Kay Walsh (Kathl een Walsh) died on April 16th, aged 93. Her films include Vice Versa (1947), Dr. Syn Alias the Scarecrow, A Study in Terror, Hammer’s The Witches (aka The Devil’s Own), Scrooge! (1970) and The Ruling Class. She was married to David Lean for nine years, and received a screenplay credit on his version of Great Expectations (1946).
Mexican leading man Jaime Fernández died of a heart attack related to chronic diabetes the same day, aged 67. The brother of director Emilio and singer and actor Fernando, he appeared in more than 180 films, including El Zorro escarlata, El regreso del monstruo, La venganza del ahorcado, Santo vs. the Vampire Women, La huella macabra, Blue Demon el demonio azul, Blue Demon contra el poder satánico and La sombra del Murciélago before becoming general secretary of the actors’ union A.N.D.A.
Oscar-nominated Hollywood actress Ruth Hussey (Ruth Carol O’Rourke) died of complications from an appendectomy on April 19th, aged 93. Under contract with MGM from 1937–42, her credits include the classic ghost film The Uninvited and episodes of TV’s Science Fiction Theatre, Alfred Hitchcock Presents and Climax!
British character actor Norman Bird died on April 22nd, aged 81. His numerous credits include Man in the Moon, Night of the Eagle (aka Bu
rn Witch Burn), Hammer’s Maniac, The Mind Benders, The Black Torment, Hands of the Ripper, Doomwatch, the animated Lord of the Rings (1978, as the voice of “Bilbo Baggins”), The Slipper and the Rose, The Medusa Touch and The Final Conflict, plus many TV shows.
Veteran Oscar-winning British actor Sir John Mills (Lewis Ernest Watts Mills) died following a chest infection on April 23rd, aged 97. His more than 100 film and TV credits include The Ghost Camera, David Lean’s Great Expectations, The Rocking Horse Winner (which he also produced), Around the World in Eighty Days (1956 and 1989 versions), Trial by Combat (aka Dirty Knights’ Work), Dr. Strange, The Masks of Death (as “Dr. Watson”), When the Wind Blows, Frankenstein (as the blind hermit, 1992), Deadly Advice (as Jack the Ripper) and Hamlet (1996). He portrayed the eponymous scientist in Nigel Kneale’s four-part miniseries Quatermass (aka The Quatermass Conclusion, 1979), and was also the first person to sing Noël Coward’s “Mad Dogs and Englishmen” on stage. His widow, stage actress, playwright and author Mary Hayley Bell, died on December 1st, aged 95. She had been suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. The Shanghai-born Lady Mills’ best-known work is the novel Whistle Down the Wind, which was filmed in 1961 starring their daughter Hayley. The couple’s other daughter, Juliet, stars in the daytime soap opera Passions.
Austrian-born Swiss actress Maria Schell (Margarete Schell) died of pneumonia on April 26th, aged 79. The sister of actor Maximilian Schell, her credits include Jess Franco’s 99 Women and The Bloody Judge (aka Night of the Blood Monster), Superman (1978) and the TV miniseries of Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles.
Dependable character actor Mason Adams died the same day, aged 86. He appeared in such films as Demon (aka God Told Me To), Revenge of the Stepford Wives, The Final Conflict, The Kid with the Broken Halo, The Night They Saved Christmas, F/X, Not of This Earth (1999), Northstar and Who is Julia?. He was also in an episode of TV’s Monsters and was a regular on Lou Grant.
John Mills’ former wife, Aileen Raymond, the mother of actor Ian Ogilvy, died on April 28th, aged 95.
The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 17 Page 66
