Fifty-year-old Italian fantasy and horror author and magazine editor Gianluca Casseri, known for his extreme right-wing views, killed himself the same day after shooting dead two Senegalese street traders and wounding three others in Florence.
French SF and espionage author Richard Bessiere died on 22 December, aged eighty-eight. His first science fiction series, “Conquérants de l’universe” (1951–54), was followed by a number of stand-alone SF/horror novels, including Les maîtres du silence and Cette lueur qui venait des ténèbres, along with a series about a futuristic James Bond named “Dan Seymour”.
American SF fan, book dealer and collector James L. “Rusty” Hevelin died on 27 December, aged eighty-nine. Instantly recognisable from his Gandalf-style beard, he edited such fanzines as Aliquot, H-1661 and Badly, and was Fan Guest of Honour at the 1981 World Science Fiction Convention.
Ninety-one-year-old British illustrator Ronald [William Fordham] Searle CBE, whose famous St. Trinian’s cartoons often rivalled those of Charles Addams for macabre humour, died after a short illness at his home in the south of France on 30 December. Besides the St. Trinian’s titles, his many other books include Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol (1961), James Thurber’s The 13 Clocks and the Wonderful O, Scrooge (1970), Dick Deadeye (filmed in 1975), Marquis de Sade Meets Goody Two-Shoes and Something in the Cellar.
American agent, editor and publisher Glenn [Richard] Lord, best known for his work as agent for the Robert E. Howard Estate, died on 31 December, aged eighty. He edited The Howard Collector magazine from 1961–73, and the 1979 compilation The Howard Collector: By and About Robert E. Howard. His non-fiction volumes include the still-indispensable The Last Celt: A Bio-Bibliography of Robert Ervin Howard and two volumes of Robert E. Howard: Selected Letters. Lord received a World Fantasy Special Convention Award in 1978.
PERFORMERS/PERSONALITIES
Dependable British character actor Pete Postlethwaite OBE (Peter William Postlethwaite) died in his sleep after a long battle with cancer on 2 January, aged sixty-four. A former drama teacher, his credits include Split Second (1992), Alien3, The Usual Suspects, James and the Giant Peach, DragonHeart, The Lost World: Jurassic Park, Alice in Wonderland (1999), Animal Farm (1999), Dark Water (2005), Æon Flux, The Omen (2006), Lamberto Bava’s Ghost Son, Solomon Kane, Clash of the Titans (2010) and Inception.
Hollywood leading lady Anne [Lloyd] Francis, who memorably starred as “Altaira” in the SF classic Forbidden Planet (1956), died of pancreatic cancer the same day, aged eighty. A former child model, she also appeared in the films Portrait of Jennie (uncredited), The Satan Bug, Brainstorm and the TV movies Haunts of the Very Rich and Mazes and Monsters. From 1965– 66 Francis portrayed the sexy private detective with a pet ocelot in ABC’s Honey West (a spin-off series from Burke’s Law) and she also appeared in episodes of Suspense, Lights Out, Climax!, The Twilight Zone, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., The Invaders, Search Control, Wonder Woman, Fantasy Island (both the original series and 1990s revival) and Conan.
Early American talkies star Mirian Seegar also died on 2 January. She was 103 years old. Seegar’s credits include RKO’s 1929 version of Seven Keys to Baldpate. In the early 1930s she married director Tim Whelan and retired from the screen.
British-born actress [Valeria] Jill Haworth died in her sleep at her apartment in Manhattan on 3 January, aged sixty-five. The first actress to portray “Sally Bowles” in Cabaret on the Broadway stage, during the late 1960s and early ’70s she appeared in the British horror films It!, The Haunted House of Horror (aka Horror House), Tower of Evil (aka Horror on Snape Island/Beyond the Fog) and The Mutations (aka The Freakmaker). Haworth was also in episodes of The Outer Limits (“The Sixth Finger”) and The Most Deadly Game (“Witches’ Sabbath”), along with the TV movie Home For the Holidays.
American actor Aron Kincaid (Norman Neale Williams II), who was in a number of “Beach Party” movies during the 1960s, died of heart-related complications on 6 January, aged seventy. He also appeared in Roger Corman’s The Wasp Woman, Dr Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine (with Vincent Price), The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini (with Boris Karloff and Basil Rathbone), Creature of Destruction, Planet Earth, Brave New World, Silent Night Deadly Night and The Golden Child, along with episodes of TV’s Thriller, Get Smart, The New People, The Immortal and Mr Merlin. His voice-work in cartoons included playing “Killer Croc” on Batman: The Animated Series and “Sky Lynx” on Transformers. In later years Kincaid became a model and artist.
American TV actor John [Carroll] Dye, who starred as the celestial “Andrew” in CBS’ Touched by an Angel (1994–2003), died of a heart attack on 10 January, aged forty-seven. He was also in the fantasy TV movies Once Upon a Christmas and Twice Upon a Christmas.
American actor [Horace] Paul Picerni, a regular on TV’s The Untouchables (1959–63), died of a heart attack on 12 January, aged eighty-eight. He appeared in House of Wax (with Vincent Price), only the trailer for The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, the last “Bomba the Jungle Boy” movie, Lord of the Jungle, and Capricorn One, along with episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Men Into Space, Batman, The Immortal, The Sixth Sense, Ghost Story, Kolchak: The Night Stalker, Project U.F.O., Fantasy Island, The Incredible Hulk and The Powers of Matthew Star.
Susannah York (Susannah Yolande Fletcher) died on 14 January after a long battle with bone marrow cancer. She was seventy-two. The British actress and author starred in Jane Eyre (1970), Robert Altman’s Images (based on her own children’s book, In Search of Unicorns), The Shout, Superman (1978) and sequels II and IV (as the Man of Steel’s mother “Lara”), The Golden Gate Murders, The Awakening (based on The Jewel of Seven Stars by Bram Stoker), A Christmas Carol (1984), Daemon, Mio in the Land of Faraway (with Christopher Lee), Visitors and Franklyn. On TV she appeared in episodes of ITV Play of the Week (“The Crucible” with Sean Connery), Mystery and Imagination (“The Fall of the House of Usher” as “Madeleine Usher”), Orson Welles’ Great Mysteries (with Peter Cushing) and The Ray Bradbury Theatre.
Sixty-nine-year-old TV horror host Dr Creep (Barry Lee Hobart, aka “Dr Death”) died the same day, following a series of strokes. He hosted Shock Theater on Dayton, Ohio’s WKEF from 1972–85, and later on public-access TV between 1999– 2005. The character also appeared in the shorts Joe Nosferatu: Homeless Vampire and Casting Bruce Campbell, along with the direct-to-DVD movie Necrophagia: Through Eyes of the Dead, and he was featured in the 2006 documentary American Scary. Hobart was the nephew of horror film make-up artist and stuntman Doug Hobart.
American actress Patti Gilbert (Patti Friedman) died on 15 January, aged seventy-nine. She played the wife of Victor Buono’s villainous “King Tut” in a 1967 episode of TV’s Batman, appeared in a couple of episodes of Get Smart and voiced “Princess of Sweet Rhyme” in The Phantom Tollbooth (1970).
Gruff American character actor Bruce Gordon, another regular on TV’s The Untouchables, died on 20 January, aged ninety-four. His credits include Roger Corman’s Curse of the Undead and Tower of London (1962), Hello Down There, Piranha (1978) and Timerider: The Adventure of Lyle Swann, along with episodes of One Step Beyond, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., The Girl from U.N.C.L.E. (“The Mother Muffin Affair” with Boris Karloff), The Flying Nun, Get Smart and Tarzan (1968). Gordon also appeared alongside Karloff in the long-running Broadway play Arsenic and Old Lace (1941–44).
American physical fitness guru Jack LaLanne (François Henri LaLanne) died of respiratory failure and pneumonia on 23 January, aged ninety-six. Along with his own TV show (1951– 85), he appeared in More Wild Wild West, Repossessed, The Year Without Santa Claus (as “Hercules”), and episodes of such 1960s TV shows as Mr Ed, The Addams Family and Batman.
American comedian Charlie Callas (Charles Callias), best remembered for his zany sound effects, died in Las Vegas on 27 January. He was eighty-three. A TV talk show favourite and “Rat Pack” associate, the rubber-faced Callas’ credits include such movies as The Snoo
p Sisters, Silent Movie, Disney’s Pete’s Dragon (as the voice of “Elliott”, the dragon), High Anxiety, History of the World: Part I, Hysterical (as “Dracula”), Amazon Women on the Moon, Vampire Vixens from Venus, Dracula Dead and Loving It and Horrorween, along with episodes of TV’s The Munsters, The Monkees, Legends of the Superheroes (as the voice of “Sinestro”), Silk Stalkings and A. J.’s Time Travelers.
TV character actor Michael Tolan (Seymour Tuchow) died of heart disease and kidney failure on 31 January, aged eighty-six. He appeared in episodes of Inner Sanctum, Diagnoses: Unknown (“The Curse of the Gypsy”), Play of the Week (“The Dybbuk”), The Outer Limits (“The Zanti Misfits”), Tarzan, The Invaders, Hammer’s Journey to the Unknown and Ghost Story.
Welsh-born TV character actress Margaret John died after a short illness on 2 February, aged eighty-four. She began her career in 1960 and appeared in episodes of Suspense, Mysteries and Miracles, Doctor Who (in 1968 and 2006), Menace, Doomwatch, Dead of Night, The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes, The Ghosts of Motley Hall, Blakes 7, Shadows, The Boy Merlin, Tardisodes, Being Human, and Game of Thrones. John also portrayed “Mrs Hudson” in the early 1990s TV movies Sherlock Holmes and the Leading Lady and Incident at Victoria Falls, both starring Christopher Lee as Holmes and Patrick Macnee as Dr Watson.
French actress Maria Schneider, best known for her role opposite Marlon Brando in Bernardo Bertolucci’s controversial Last Tango in Paris (1972), died of cancer on 3 February, aged fifty-eight. Her other film credits include Mama Dracula and Franco Zeffirelli’s 1996 version of Jane Eyre.
Japanese-born American actress, exotic dancer and martial arts expert Tura Satana (Tura Luna Pascual Yamaguchi), who starred in Russ Myer’s cult classic Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (1965) died of heart failure on 4 February, aged seventy-two. She also appeared in Our Man Flint (uncredited), The Astro-Zombies, The Doll Squad, Mark of the Astro-Zombies, Astro-Zombies M3: Cloned and an episode each of TV’s The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and The Girl from U.N.C.L.E.. Her life stories included being gang-raped when she was nine years old, first marrying at thirteen, posing for nude for photographs taken by silent screen comic Harold Lloyd, working as a stripper, turning down a marriage proposal from Elvis Presley, being shot by a former lover and breaking her back in a car accident.
American character actress Peggy Rea died of complication from congestive heart failure on 5 February, aged eighty-nine. She appeared in 7 Faces of Dr Lao, What’s the Matter with Helen?, Lipstick, and episodes of TV’s The Man from U.N.C.L.E., The Wild Wild West, The Immortal and Monsters.
J. Paul Getty, III, the grandson of oil magnate J. Paul Getty, died after a long illness the same day, aged fifty-four. After being kidnapped and held to ransom in Italy for four months in 1973, he appeared in the Portuguese horror film The Territory (aka O Território, 1981).
Hollywood character actress Myrna Dell (Marilyn Adele Dunlap) died on 11 February, aged eighty-six. While under contract to RKO Pictures she appeared in three Falcon movies, along with The Spiral Staircase (as an uncredited murder victim). The former showgirl was also in an episode of the Jungle Jim TV series and had a small role in an episode of Batman. Along with actress Marguerite Chapman, Dell is credited with originating the idea of autograph shows.
American character actor Kenneth Mars, best known for his comedy roles in Mel Brooks’ The Producers and Young Frankenstein (as the one-armed “Inspector Kemp”), died of pancreatic cancer on 12 February, aged seventy-five. His other film credits include Superman (1975), Full Moon High, Get Smart Again!, Disney’s The Little Mermaid and The Little Mermaid 2: Return to the Sea, Shadows and Fog, We’re Back! A Dinosaur’s Story, and as the voice of “Grandpa Longneck” in The Land Before Time sequels. He appeared in episodes of Get Smart, The Ghost & Mrs Muir, Wonder Woman, Tabitha, Project U.F.O., Supertrain, Tucker’s Witch, Misfits of Science, The Twilight Zone (1986), Shades of LA, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, M.A.N.T.I.S., The New Adventures of Superman, Weird Science and The Pretender. Mars also supplied voices for numerous cartoon shows, including The Jetsons, Challenge of the GoBots, The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo, Teen Wolf, The Flintstone Kids, A Pup Named Scooby-Doo, Duck Tales, Tiny Toon Adventures, Darkwing Duck, Captain Planet and the Planeteers, Animaniacs, The Little Mermaid, Batman (1994–95), Freakazoid!, The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest, Godzilla: The Series, The Legend of Tarzan and The Land Before Time TV series.
Hollywood actress and singer Betty Garrett died the same day, aged ninety-one. Best know for her role as the man-hungry taxi driver in the classic musical On the Town (1949), later in her career she also appeared in an episode of the children’s TV show Mr Merlin, along with Larry Blamire’s low budget genre comedies Trail of the Screaming Forehead and Dark and Stormy Night. Garrett was married to actor Larry Parks from 1944 until his death in 1975. During the 1950s both their careers were derailed by the anti-Communist witch-hunts.
Irish character actor T. (Thomas) P. (Patrick) McKenna died in London after a long illness on 13 February, aged eighty-one. He always brought class to the roles he played in such movies as Tigon’s The Beast in the Cellar, Straw Dogs, Percy’s Progress (with Vincent Price), Britannia Hospital, The Doctor and the Devils and Jack the Ripper (1988). McKenna’s TV credits include The Avengers, Adam Adamant Lives!, Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased), BBC Play of the Month (“Rasputin”), Thriller, Nigel Kneale’s Beasts, Blakes 7 and Doctor Who.
British character actor Alfred Burke, who portrayed down-at-heel private eye “Frank Marker” in the popular TV series Public Eye (1965–75), died on 16 February, aged ninety-two. Although he appeared in such films as Children of the Damned, Hammer’s The Nanny, The Night Caller (aka Blood Beast from Outer Space), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1996) and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Burke was much better known for his numerous appearances on TV in shows like Colonel March of Scotland Yard (starring Boris Karloff), Invisible Man (1959), One Step Beyond, The Indian Tales of Rudyard Kipling, The Avengers, Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased), Tales of the Unexpected and Shades of Darkness.
American character actor Len Lesser (Leonard King Lesser) died of cancer-related pneumonia the same day, aged eighty-eight. Best known for playing “Uncle Leo” on Seinfeld (1991–98), Lesser appeared in such movies and TV shows as How to Stuff a Wild Bikini, Blood and Lace, Ruby, Someone’s Watching Me!, Through the Magic Pyramid, Sorority Girls and the Creature from Hell, The Werewolf Reborn!, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Outer Limits, The Wild Wild West, The Munsters, My Favorite Martian, Get Smart, The Monkees, Land of the Giants, Kolchak: The Night Stalker, The Ghost Busters, The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries, The Amazing Spider-Man, Amazing Stories (“Mummy Daddy”) and Sabrina the Teenage Witch.
British actor Nicholas Courtney (William Nicholas Stone Courtney), best known for his recurring role as UNIT leader “Brigadier Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart” in BBC-TV’s Doctor Who, died on 22 February, aged eighty-one. The Egyptian-born actor first appeared in the show in a 1965 episode entitled “The Dalek’s Master Man”, but he became a semi-regular when he took over the role of the Brigadier (after actor David Langton pulled out) in the 1968 serial “The Web of Fear”. Courtney appeared in 107 episodes of Doctor Who and recreated the character of Lethbridge-Stewart in a number of short films, audio dramas, a video game and a 2008 two-part episode of The Sarah Jane Adventures. He also appeared in episodes of The Avengers, The Indian Tales of Rudyard Kipling, The Champions, Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased), Doomwatch and The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes, and had uncredited roles in the films The Brides of Fu Manchu, Doppelgänger (aka Journey to the Far Side of the Sun) and Endless Night. Courtney also portrayed “Inspector Lionhart” in four episodes of the radio drama The Scarifyers, broadcast on BBC Radio 7 (2007–10). His 1998 autobiography was entitled Five Rounds Rapid! after a line of dialogue he had as the Brigadier in “The Dæmons” (1971). A revised autobiography, Still Getting Away with It (co-written with Michael McManus), appeared in 2005.
American character actor Frank Alesia, who appea
red in the AIP “Beach Party” movies Bikini Beach, Pajama Party, Beach Blanket Bingo and The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini, died on 27 February, aged sixty-five. He also appeared in episodes of Bewitched and The Flying Nun before becoming a TV director.
Hollywood star Jane Russell (Ernestine Jane Geraldine Russell) died on 28 February, aged eighty-nine. A former dentist receptionist and discovery of Howard Hughes (who orchestrated her screen debut in his controversial 1943 Western The Outlaw), she mostly appeared in musical-comedies during the 1950s, including an uncredited cameo appearance in Road to Bali. In 1967 she had a small roll in the “Billy Jack” motorcycle exploitation movie The Born Losers. With the first of her three husbands, quarterback Bob Waterfield, she formed Russ-Field Productions, who produced The Most Dangerous Game remake, Run for the Sun (1956). During the 1970s Russell was the TV spokesperson for Playtex bras.
Former beauty queen turned actress Darlene Lucht (Darlene Brimmer), who was crowned Miss Wisconsin in 1961, died on 5 March, aged seventy-two. She had small roles in The Haunted Palace, Muscle Beach Party, Bikini Beach, Beach Blanket Bingo and Al Adamson’s Five Bloody Graves (as “Tara Ashton”), which starred her husband, Robert Dix.
Japanese voice actor Kan Tokumaru died on 6 March, aged sixty-nine. His many anime, TV and game credits include Vampire Hunter D, Legend of the Galactic Heroes and Vampire Savior EX Edition. In the Japanese dub of Live and Let Die (1973) he was the voice of “M”.
The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 23 (Mammoth Books) Page 60