Just one more thing . . . veteran Hollywood actor Peter [Michael] Falk, best known for his Emmy Award-winning role as the wily raincoat-wearing, cigar-smoking police Lieutenant in NBC-TV’s Columbo (1971–2003), died on 23 June, aged eighty-three. He had been suffering from Alzheimer’s disease and dementia. Falk’s movie credits include Brigadoon (1966), Castle Keep, Murder by Death, The Great Muppet Caper, Wings of Desire (1987), The Princess Bride, Vibes, The Lost World (2001), Shark Tale, When Angels Come to Town and Next. He also appeared in episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Twilight Zone and The Alfred Hitchcock Hour. Falk’s right eye was surgically removed at the age of three because of cancer.
British stage and screen actress Margaret [Maud] Tyzack CBE died of cancer on 25 June, aged seventy-nine. Her credits include 2001: A Space Odyssey, A Clockwork Orange, The Legacy, Quatermass (aka The Quatermass Conclusion), Until Death and The Thief Lord, along with episodes of TV’s The Indian Tales of Rudyard Kipling and The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles.
Indian-born British leading man Michael Latimer, who starred in Hammer’s Slave Girls (aka Prehistoric Women), died the same day, aged sixty-nine. He also appeared in episodes of the TV series Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Avengers (“A Touch of Brimstone”), Sexton Blake, The New Avengers and Hammer House of Horror, along with Gene Roddenberry’s TV pilot movie Spectre and the SF film Project: Alien (aka Fatal Sky).
American child actress Edith [Marilyn] Fellows died on 26 June, aged eighty-eight. She had made around thirty films by the age of thirteen and was the subject of a high-profile custody case in 1936. Her credits include Jane Eyre (1934), Lilith and The Hills Have Eyes Part II (1985), and she also appeared in four episodes of TV’s Tales of Tomorrow.
Eighty-one-year-old Hollywood actress Elaine Stewart (Elsy H. Steinberg) died after a long illness on 27 June. A former 1950s Playboy pin-up turned TV hostess, she starred opposite Gene Kelly in MGM’s Brigadoon (1954) and her other movie credits include The Adventures of Hajji Baba and Most Dangerous Man Alive.
British actress Anna [Raymond] Massey OBE died of cancer on 2 July, aged seventy-three. The daughter of actor Raymond Massey and the younger sister of Daniel Massey, she appeared in Peeping Tom, ITV Play of the Week (“A Midsummer Night’s Dream”), Bunny Lake is Missing, De Sade, Alfred Hitchcock’s Frenzy, The Vault of Horror (based on the EC comics), Rebecca (1979), Around the World in 80 Days (1989) and Haunted (based on the novel by James Herbert), as well as episodes of TV’s Dead of Night, Tales of the Unexpected, Mistress of Suspense, The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles and Strange. She was married to actor Jeremy Brett from 1958 to 1962, and her godfather was director John Ford.
American character actor, poet and playwright Roberts [Scott] Blossom, who memorably played psychopathic backwoods killer “Ezra Cobb” in Deranged (1974), died on 8 July, aged eighty-seven. He was also in Slaughterhouse-Five, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Resurrection, Christine (based on the novel by Stephen King) and Always, along with episodes of Amazing Stories, Tales from the Darkside and the 1980s The Twilight Zone series.
Indian-born British actress Googie Withers (Georgette Lizette Withers) CBE died in Australia on 15 July, aged ninety-four. Her credits include Alfred Hitchcock’s The Lady Vanishes (1938), Dead of Night (1945) and Miranda.
Eighty-nine-year-old British character actress Sheila [Mary] Burrell died on 19 July, after a long illness following a serious stroke two years earlier. Sir Laurence Olivier’s cousin and a long-standing member of the Royal Shakespeare Company, she appeared in such films as Hammer’s Man in Black and Paranoiac, Afraid of the Dark and Jane Eyre (1996), plus episodes of Colonel March of Scotland Yard (starring Boris Karloff), Adam Adamant Lives!, Out of the Unknown, The Avengers, Spooky, Tales of the Unexpected and The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles. Burrell was married to actor Laurence Payne from 1944 to 1951.
Mexican-born actress Linda Christian (Blanca Rosa Welter), described as “The Anatomic Bomb” by Life magazine, died of colon cancer on 22 July in California, aged eighty-seven. A former beauty contest winner, her credits include Tarzan and the Mermaids and The Devil’s Hand (with her younger sister Ariadna Welter), along with episodes of Climax! (“Casino Royale”, the first James Bond adaptation) and The Alfred Hitchcock Hour. Best known for her various romantic liaisons with wealthy playboys, racing drivers and bullfighters, she married and divorced actors Tyrone Power and Edmund Purdom.
A former corporate lawyer, independent oil producer, cattle rancher and local politician before he became a character actor, G. (Gervase) D. (Duan) Spradlin died on 24 July, aged ninety. He appeared (usually as authority figures) in Hell’s Angels ’69, Zabriskie Point, Maneaters Are Loose!, Apocalypse Now, The Formula, Intruders, Ed Wood (as “Reverend Lemon”) and episodes of TV’s Search Control, Kung Fu, The Greatest American Hero and Dark Skies.
Dukes of Hazzard star Christopher Mayer (George Charles Mayer III, aka “Chip Mayer”) died the same day, aged fifty-seven. He also appeared in episodes of TV’s Weird Science, Xena: Warrior Princess, Sliders, Silk Stalkings and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
Val Warren (Valmore Warren), who won a National Horror Makeup Contest in Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine to play a teenage werewolf in the AIP film Bikini Beach (1964), died of complications from cancer on 25 July, aged sixty-nine. An author, illustrator and musician, he edited the early 1960s fantasy film fanzine Kaleidoscope and wrote the 1979 book Lost Lands, Mythical Kingdoms and Unknown Worlds. Warren was also an authority on Buddy Holly and the Crickets.
Welsh-born character actor Richard [de Pearsall] Pearson died on 2 August, aged ninety-three. His films include Scrooge (1951), Svengali (1954), How I Won the War, Macbeth (1971), Alice Through the Looking Glass (1973), Disney’s One of Our Dinosaurs is Missing, The Blue Bird (1976), Whoops Apocalypse and Men in Black II (as the voice of “Gordy”), and he appeared in episodes of Stranger from Space, The Mystery of Edwin Drood (1960), Mystery and Imagination (M. R. James’ “Lost Hearts”), Sherlock Holmes (1968), Out of the Unknown, The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes, Hammer House of Horror (“The Thirteenth Reunion”) and Tales of the Unexpected. Pearson was also the voice of “Mole” in The Wind in the Willows (1983–88) and Oh! Mr Toad (1989–90).
Former NFL football star-turned-actor Bubba Smith (Charles Aaron Smith), best known for his role in the Police Academy movies, died on 3 August, aged sixty-six. The six-foot, seven-inch Smith appeared in Black Moon Rising, Blood River, and episodes of Wonder Woman and Sabrina the Teenage Witch. He was also a regular on the 1984 TV series Blue Thunder.
Forty-eight-year-old Francesco [Daniele] Quinn, the son of actor Anthony Quinn, died of an apparent heart attack while jogging in Malibu on 5 August. He portrayed “Vlad Tepes” in the 2003 film Vlad, and his other credits include episodes of The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles and The Glades. Quinn also provided the voice of “Dino” in Transformers: Dark of the Moon.
Distinguished British stage and screen actor John Wood CBE died on 6 August, aged eighty-one. He made his film debut in the 1952 Hammer thriller Stolen Face, directed by Terence Fisher, and he went on to appear in The Mouse on the Moon, One More Time, Slaughterhouse-Five, WarGames, Agentii 009 ja kuole-man kurvit, The Purple Rose of Cairo, Ladyhawk, Shadowlands, Citizen X, Richard III (1995), Jane Eyre (1996), Rasputin (1996), The Avengers and The Little Vampire. On TV his credits include The Hooded Terror and episodes of Tales of Mystery, Saki, Out of the Unknown, The Avengers, Doomwatch, The Storyteller: Greek Myths and The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles. In 1974 Wood appeared on stage in the title role of the Royal Shakespeare Company’s revival of William Gillette’s 1899 melodrama Sherlock Holmes.
In early August it was announced that British TV actress Anne Ridler had died. She had been suffering from throat cancer for some years. Best remembered for her distinctive voice in the series Terrahawks (1983–86), she also appeared in episodes of One Step Beyond, Doctor Who (“The Wheel in Space”), Moonbase 3, Tom’s Midnight Garden, Bedtime Stories and The Tomorrow People.<
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Former British child actor turned TV producer and director John Howard Davies died of cancer on 22 August, aged seventy-two. At the age of eight he starred in David Lean’s classic Oliver Twist (1948), and the following year he was in The Rocking Horse Winner (based on the short story by D. H. Lawrence). In later years he produced such comedy series as Monty Python’s Flying Circus, The Goodies, Fawlty Towers and The Good Life.
Child star Sybil Jason (Sybil Jacobson) died of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease on 23 August, aged eighty-three. The South African-born actress was brought to Hollywood from Britain in the mid-1930s by Warner Bros., who starred her opposite Al Jolson in The Singing Kid and several other films. After the studio let her go in 1938, she appeared with screen rival Shirley Temple in The Little Princess and The Blue Bird (from which many of her scenes were cut, reportedly at the demand of Temple’s mother), before she retired from the screen.
The body of American actor Michael Showers was found floating in the Mississippi River, near New Orleans’ French Quarter, on the morning of 25 August. He had been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis five months earlier and had been suffering from depression and anxiety. The forty-five-year-old Showers had a recurring role as police Captain John Guidry in the HBO series Treme. He also appeared in Kiss of the Vampire (aka Imortally Yours, 2009), The Collector and Hammer’s The Resident (with Christopher Lee), along with an episode of TV’s The Vampire Diaries.
American actress Eve Brent (Jean Ann Lewis), who portrayed “Jane” opposite Gordon Scott’s “Tarzan” in the TV fix-up movies Tarzan and the Trappers and Tarzan’s Fight for Life (both 1958), died on 27 August, aged eighty-one. Her other films include Female Jungle, The Bride and the Beast, The White Buffalo, Fade to Black, BrainWaves, Date with an Angel, The Green Mile and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (uncredited). On TV she appeared in episodes of Adventures of Superman, The Veil (hosted by Boris Karloff), Highway to Heaven, Tales from the Crypt, Twin Peaks, Weird Science and Roswell High.
Former model turned actress Cobina [Carolyn] Wright, Jr., who co-starred in Charlie Chan in Rio (1941), died on 1 September, aged ninety.
American actress Annette Charles (Annette Cardona), who played “Cha Cha DiGregorio” in Grease (1978), died of lung cancer on 4 August, aged sixty-three. She also appeared in episodes of The Flying Nun, The Bionic Woman, Man from Atlantis and The Incredible Hulk.
American character actor John Clark died on 9 September, aged ninety-five. He appeared in The Light at the Edge of the World, Graveyard of Horror (aka Necrophagus), The Time Guardian and The Lords of Magick.
Oscar-winning American leading man Cliff Robertson (Clifford Parker Robertson) died on 10 September, the day after his eighty-eighth birthday. He won an Academy Award for his starring role in Charley (1968). Based on the novel by Daniel Keyes, it had previously been filmed for TV in 1965 with Robertson again in the lead role. However, the actor’s attempts to get a sequel made some years later only resulted in around fifteen minutes of promotional footage. His other film credits include Man on a Swing, Brian De Palma’s Obsession, Dominique (aka Dominique is Dead), Brainstorm (1983), Dead Reckoning, Escape from L.A., 13th Child, Riding the Bullet (based on the novel by Stephen King) and Spider-Man (2002) and its two sequels (as “Ben Parker”), along with episodes of Rod Brown of the Rocket Rangers (in the title role), The Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits (1963 and 1999) and Batman (as cowboy villain “Shame”). Robertson was instrumental in exposing the major fraud that brought down Columbia Pictures executive David Begelman in the 1970s, but his own career suffered as a result. His marriages to actresses Cynthia Stone and Dina Merrill both ended in divorce.
Thirty-nine-year-old Welsh-born actor Andy Whitfield, who portrayed the title character in the Starz TV series Spartacus: Blood and Sand (2010), died in his home country of Australia on 11 September. He had been battling non-Hodgkins Lymphoma since being diagnosed in March 2010. A former building inspector and model, he also starred in the horror movies Gabriel and The Clinic.
Petite Canadian-born character actress Frances Bay (Frances Goffman) died in California on 15 September, aged ninety-two. She made her belated screen debut in 1978, and went on to appear in such movies as Topper (1979), The Attic, Double Exposure, Nomads, Blue Velvet, Big Top Pee-wee, Arachnophobia, The Pit and the Pendulum (1991), Critters 3, Grave Secrets: The Legacy of Hilltop Drive, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me, Single White Female, The Neighbor, In the Mouth of Madness, Disney’s Inspector Gadget, and Ring Around the Rosie (aka Fear Itself: Dark Memories). The actress’ prolific TV credits include episodes of Faerie Tale Theatre, Amazing Stories, Alien Nation, ALF, Tales from the Crypt, Twin Peaks (as “Mrs Tremond”), Quantum Leap, The X Files, Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction, Charmed and Cavemen.
American photographic model-turned-actress Norma Eberhardt died of complications from a stroke on 16 September, aged eighty-two. She co-starred in the 1958 film The Return of Dracula (aka The Fantastic Disappearing Man).
Eton-educated character actor Jonathan Cecil (Jonathan Hugh Gascoyne-Cecil), who usually portrayed upper-class English characters in films and on television, died of pneumonia on 22 September, aged seventy-two. Best known for portraying “Captain Arthur Hastings” in three 1980s TV movies starring Peter Ustinov as Hercule Poirot, he also appeared in Hammer’s Lust for a Vampire and TV versions of Alice Through the Looking Glass (1973), Gulliver in Lilliput (1982) and Alice in Wonderland (1986).
Mexican comedian and singer Gaspar Henaine [Perez], better known as “Capulina” to his many fans, died from pneumonia on 30 September, aged eighty-five. In a career spanning five decades, he appeared in numerous films, including Se los chupó la bruja, Los invisibles, Santo contra Capulina, Capulina contra los vampiros, El terror de Guanajuato and Capulina contra los monstruos.
Grizzled American character actor Charles Napier died on 5 October, aged seventy-five. He made his full-frontal screen debut in Russ Meyer’s sex comedy Cherry Harry & Raquel!, and also appeared in the director’s Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, The Seven Minutes and Supervixens. Napier went on to appear in Wacko, The Night Stalker (1987), Body Count, Deep Space, The Incredible Hulk Returns, Alien from the Deep, Dragonfight, Future Zone, Maniac Cop 2, The Silence of the Lambs, Frogtown II, Eyes of the Beholder, Body Bags, Skeeter, Ripper Man, Alien Species, The Cable Guy, Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery, Steel, Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, Pirates of the Plain, Nutty Professor II: The Klumps, Dinocroc, The Machurian Candidate (2004) and One-Eyed Monster. Along with supplying voices to numerous cartoon series, on TV the actor also appeared in the original Star Trek, Starsky and Hutch (“Satan’s Witches”), The Incredible Hulk, Knight Rider, Tales of the Gold Monkey, Outlaws, The New Adventures of Superman, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Roswell High, The Legend of Tarzan and The 4400. He also reportedly supplied the growls for the final two seasons of TV’s The Incredible Hulk.
Striking Australian actress Diane Cilento died after a long illness on 7 October, aged seventy-seven. She left her second husband, James Bond actor Sean Connery, after eleven years for playwright Anthony Shaffer while starring in The Wicker Man (1973). After roles in the BBC’s A Tomb with a View (1951) and the 1952 short All Hallowe’en, Cilento appeared in Meet Mr Lucifer, The Angel Who Pawned Her Harp and Z.P.G. (aka Zero Population Growth), along with episodes of Late Night Horror (“The Kiss of Blood”), Thriller (“Spell of Evil”) and in a recurring role on the children’s series Halfway Across the Galaxy and Turn Left. She also reportedly doubled for Mia Hama in a swimming scene in the Bond film You Only Live Twice.
Bulgarian-born British character actor and writer George Baker MBE, who starred as “Chief Inspector Wexford” in ITV’s The Ruth Rendell Mysteries (1987–2000), died of pneumonia after a recent stroke the same day. He was eighty. Baker’s other credits include such films as Sword of Lancelot (aka Lancelot and Guinevere), Curse of the Fly, the James Bond adventures On Her Majesty’s Secret Service and The Spy Who Loved Me, The Canterville Ghost (1987) and
Back to the Secret Garden, along with episodes of The Prisoner (as the “New Number Two”), Doomwatch, Zodiac, Survivors (1975), Doctor Who (“Full Circle”), Robin of Sherwood, Johnny and the Dead (based on the book by Terry Pratchett) and Randall and Hopkirk {Deceased} (2001). Creator Ian Fleming had apparently wanted the actor to play James Bond on the screen. Baker’s third wife, actress Louie Ramsay, died in March at the age of eighty-one.
American actor and musician David [Alexander] Hess, who starred in and additionally composed the soundtrack for Wes Craven’s infamous psycho thriller The Last House on the Left, died on 8 October, aged sixty-nine. He also appeared in The House on the Edge of the Park, Swamp Thing, Body Count, Zombie Nation, Zodiac Killer, The Absence of Light, Fallen Angels and Smash Cut, along with episodes of TV’s Knight Rider and Manimal. Hess also directed the 1980 slasher film To All a Goodnight. In the late 1950s he had a music-recording career under the name “David Hill”. He wrote a number of songs recorded by Elvis Presley, as well as “Speedy Gonzalez”, which was a #1 hit for Pat Boone.
Dependable American actor Alan Fudge died of lung and liver cancer on 10 October, aged seventy-seven. His movies include Bug, Capricorn One, Are You in the House Alone?, The Golden Gate Murders, Goliath Awaits, Brainstorm (1983), Chiller, My Demon Lover, I Saw What You Did (1988), Nightmare on the 13th Floor, Edward Scissorhands, Galaxis and Shark Swarm. Fudge played “C. W. Crawford” on the 1977–78 TV series Man from Atlantis, and he also appeared in episodes of Ghost Story, Wonder Woman, The Greatest American Hero, Knight Rider, the 1980s Twilight Zone and Alfred Hitchcock Presents series, Highway to Heaven, Alien Nation, Quantum Leap, M.A.N.T.I.S. and Dark Skies.
British stage and screen actress Sheila Allen died on 13 October, aged seventy-eight. She appeared in the films Children of the Damned, Venom (aka The Legend of Spider Forest) and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, along with an episode of TV’s The Prisoner (1967).
The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 23 (Mammoth Books) Page 62