BBC television announcer and co-host (with Derek Bond) of the long-running weekly show Picture Parade, Peter [Varley] Haigh also died in January, aged 75. He married Rank starlet Jill Adams in 1957.
Actor Titus Moede, who appeared in Ray Dennis Steckler’s The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies!!?, Rat Pfink and Boo Boo and The Thrill Killers, died of colon cancer on February 6th. As ‘Titus Moody’ he was a pioneer in adult films.
Dale Evans (Frances Octavia Lucille Wood Smith), former band singer and the widow of Hollywood cowboy Roy Rogers, died of congestive heart failure on February 7th, aged 88. She had suffered a stroke in 1996 and was confined to a wheelchair. Known as ‘The Queen of the Cowgirls’, she appeared in twenty-eight films with her husband (who died in 1998) and they worked together on TV in The Roy Rogers Show (1951–57) and The Roy Rogers and Dale Evans Show (1962). She was named California Mother of the Year in 1967 and Texan of the Year in 1970. The couple lost three of their children, two of them in tragic accidents.
British character actor Reginald Marsh died on February 9th, aged 74. His numerous credits include It Happened Here, Berserk and the TV movies The Stone Tape and Hammer House of Mystery and Suspense: Mark of the Devil.
Former European middleweight champion boxer and actor Tiberio Mitri was run over by a train on February 12th, aged 74. The Italian boxer, who famously survived fifteen rounds in the ring with Jake La Motta at Madison Square Garden, went on to appear in a number of films, including Ben-Hur (1959) and numerous spaghetti Westerns and peplums. Following the premature deaths of his son and daughter, he developed a drinking problem and was living among Rome’s homeless population.
British leading man Michael [Anthony] Johnson died on February 24th, aged 62. Best known as a television actor (notably opposite Herbert Lorn in The Human Jungle [1963–65]), his only starring role on screen was in Hammer’s Lust for a Vampire (1971).
American character actress Rosemary DeCamp, who played James Cagney’s mother in Yankee Doodle Dandy despite being thirteen years his junior, died of pneumonia on February 20th, aged 90. She also appeared in Jungle Book (1942), William Castle’s 13 Ghosts, Saturday the 14th and the TV movie The Time Machine (1978).
American actress Peggy Converse, who starred in The Thing That Couldn’t Die, died on March 2nd, aged 95.
TV actor Louis Edmonds, who portrayed various members of the Collins family in the daytime soap opera Dark Shadows (1966–71) and the movie House of Dark Shadows, died of respiratory failure on March 3rd, aged 77.
Edward Winter, who starred as Captain Ben Ryan in the TV series Project U.F.O. (1978–79), died of Parkinson’s disease on March 8th, aged 63.
Obnoxious talkshow host and chain-smoker [Sean] Morton Downey, Jr. died of lung cancer and other respiratory problems on March 12th, aged 68. After composing such hit surf-rock numbers as ‘Pipeline’ and ‘Wipeout’ in the early 1960s, his syndicated TV series The Morton Downey Jr. Show debuted in the New York City area in 1987. He also appeared in more than twenty movies and TV shows, including Predator 2 and episodes of Monsters and Tales from the Crypt.
Calypso singer Sir Lancelot (Lancelot Victor Pinard), whose credits include Val Lewton’s I Walked With a Zombie, The Ghost Ship and Curse of the Cat People, plus Zombies on Broadway and The Unknown Terror, died the same day, aged 97.
Hollywood actress and light comedienne Ann Sothern (Harriette Lake) died of heart failure on March 15th, aged 92. Her many films include Super-Sleuth, Lady in a Cage, Golden Needles and The Manitou, and she was the voice of the car in the TV fantasy sitcom My Mother the Car (1965–66). Sothern was nominated for an Academy Award for her role in The Whales of August (with Vincent Price). Her daughter, designer Tisha Sterling, was also an actress.
Voice actress Norma MacMillan, who was the voice of Casper, The Friendly Ghost in the 1950s Paramount cartoon series, died in Canada on March 16th, aged 79. She also voiced Gumby in the Claymation series Pokey and Gumby and Sweet Polly Purebread in Underdog.
British leading man of the 1950s Anthony [Maitland] Steel died on March 21st, his 81st birthday. His credits include Helter Skelter (1948) and West of Zanzibar (1954). Later in his career he appeared in The Story of O (1975) and portrayed film producer Lintom Busotsky (a role originally intended for Peter Cushing) in the 1980 R. Chetwynd-Hayes adaptation, The Monster Club. He was briefly married to Anita Ekberg.
American stage and screen actor Anthony Dexter (Walter Fleischmann) died on March 27th, aged 82. After being cast as Rudolph Valentino in the 1951 biopic, his career never recovered and he found himself in such films as Fire Maidens from Outer Space, The Story of Mankind, 12 to the Moon and Phantom Planet.
Alleged serial killer Henry Lee Lucas, who confessed to more than 300 homicides and was the inspiration for Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, also died in March. He was apparently the only man whose death sentence was commuted by Governor George W. Bush of Texas.
British stage, screen and television actress Jean Anderson died on April 1st, aged 93. Her occasional film credits include Disney’s The Three Lives of Thomasina, The Night Digger and Scream-time.
German-born stage and screen actor Brother Theodore (Theodore Gottlieb) died of pneumonia in New York City on April 5th, aged 94. A survivor of Dachau concentration camp, his film credits include Orson Welles’s The Stranger, Nocturna, the 1976 porno spoof Gums, The Invisible Kid and Joe Dante’s The ’burbs. He also narrated Al Adamson’s Horror of the Blood Monsters and voiced Gollum in the animated TV movies The Hobbit and The Return of the King. Brother Theodore’s Chamber of Horrors was a 1975 paperback anthology co-edited with Marvin Kaye.
Oscar-winning American actress Beatrice Straight, who played the paranormal investigator in Poltergeist, died of pneumonia on April 7th, aged 86. She also won a Tony Award as Best Supporting Actress in the 1953 Broadway production of Arthur Miller’s The Crucible and was nominated for an Emmy for her role in the 1978 mini-series The Dain Curse. She had a recurring role as the Queen of the Amazons in the 1977 TV series Wonder Woman.
American TV and film actor David Graf, best known for his recurring role in the Police Academy movies, died of a heart attack on the same day, aged 50. His other credits include Burnin’ Love and Skeleton.
Jerome Barr, estranged from his daughter Roseanne after she publicly accused him in 1991 of molesting her as a child, died of a heart attack on April 9th, aged 71. Barr, who had always denied the allegations, won a casino jackpot just days before his death.
New Zealand-born actress Nyree (Ngaire) Dawn Porter died suddenly in London on April 10th, aged 61. In Britain since 1960, she made her name as Irene in the 1967 BBC serial The Forsyte Saga and as the co-star of The Protectors (1972–74), and appeared in such films as AIP’s Jane Eyre (1970), the Amicus productions The House That Dripped Blood and From Beyond the Grave, and in the 1980 TV mini-series of Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles.
Welsh-born comedian and singer Sir Harry [Donald] Secombe died of prostate cancer on April 11th, aged 79. From 1951–60 Secombe co-starred in the surreal BBC radio programme The Goon Show (as Neddie Seagoon) along with Michael Bentine, Spike Milligan and Peter Sellers. His film appearances include Helter Skelter (1948), Down Among the Z Men, Svengali (1954) and The Bed Sitting Room.
British stage and screen actor Paul Daneman died on April 28th, aged 75. His film credits include Richard Lester’s surreal How I Won the War (1967).
Argentine actress Mabel Karr died in a Madrid hospital from complications from an infection on May 1st, aged 66. She starred in Jesus Franco’s The Diabolical Dr Z and The Killer Tongue.
Actress and singer Deborah Walley, who starred in Gidget Goes Hawaiian, Beach Blanket Bingo, Ski Party, Dr Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine, The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini, Sergeant Deadhead the Astronaut, It’s a Bikini World, the 3-D The Bubble and The Severed Arm, died of oesophageal cancer on May 10th, aged 57. She had been diagnosed in February and was given just six months to live. Her other film
credits include Spinout (with Elvis Presley). She also wrote children’s books and divorced actor John Ashley in 1966.
The same day, actress turned pot dealer Jennifer Stahl, who had a small role in Necropolis and appeared as a dancer in Dirty Dancing, was one of three people found shot to death in a drug deal that went wrong in a sixth-floor apartment above Manhattan’s Carnegie Deli.
87-year-old Italian-American crooner and former barber Perry Como (Pierino Roland Como, aka Nick Perido) died at his home in Florida on May 12th after suffering from Alzheimer’s disease for two years. He appeared in a small number of films during the 1940s, and by the late 1950s was America’s highest-paid TV performer. With record sales of more than 100 million, his laid-back hits include ‘Catch a Falling Star’, ‘Magic Moments’ and ‘It’s Impossible’.
American actor and playwright Jason Miller, who won a Pulitzer Prize and a Tony Award for his 1973 play That Championship Season and was nominated for an Oscar for his portrayal of Father Damien Karras in The Exorcist, died of heart failure in Pennsylvania on May 13th, aged 62. His other credits include The Ninth Configuration, The Exorcist III and such TV movies as The Dain Curse, Vampire (1979) and The Henderson Monster.
British leading man of the stage and screen, Jack Watling, died on May 22nd, aged 78. His credits include Meet Mr Lucifer, Hammer’s The Nanny, 11 Harrowhouse and TV’s Invisible Man and Doctor Who (both opposite his daughter, Deborah).
Veteran TV character actor Harry Townes died in Alabama on May 23rd, aged 86. He played Dr Greenwood in the 1958 movie of Fredric Brown’s The Screaming Mimi and appeared in episodes of Inner Sanctum, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Climax!, One Step Beyond, The Twilight Zone, Thriller, The Outer Limits, Star Trek, Night Gallery, The Sixth Sense and numerous others. He semi-retired from acting thirty years ago to become an Episcopalian priest in his home town of Huntsville.
French actor Jean Champion, whose many credits include TV’s Belphegor, died the same day, aged 87.
American actress and TV personality Arlene Francis (Arlene Kazanjian), best known as a panellist on the quiz show What’s My Line?, died of cancer on May 31st, aged 93. Her occasional film appearances include Murders in the Rue Morgue opposite Bela Lugosi.
British film journalist and arts administrator David Prothero committed suicide in the summer. He contributed to Shivers, The Dark Side, Scapegoat and Kim Newman’s The BFI Companion to Horror as well as publishing his own magazine, Bloody Hell.
Stuntman Russell Saunders died on June 1st, aged 86. His numerous credits include The Thing (1951), Earthquake, The Poseidon Adventure and Logan’s Run.
Comedienne-actress Imogene Coca died on June 2nd, aged 92. Best known for her TV appearances, with guest spots on Bewitched, Fantasy Island, Night Gallery and Monsters, she also had roles in several films, including Alice in Wonderland (1985). A former Broadway dancer, she was married to her second husband, actor King Donovan, from 1960 until his death in 1987.
Mexican-born Hollywood star and former boxer Anthony Quinn (Anthony Rudolph Oaxaca) died in a Boston hospital on June 3rd, aged 86. Best known for his 1964 film Zorba the Greek, he also appeared in Bulldog Drummond in Africa, Television Spy, The Ghost Breakers, Road to Morocco, Sinbad the Sailor, Ulysses (1955), The Hunchback of Notre-Dame (1956, as Quasimodo), The Shoes of the Fisherman, The Magus, Ghosts Can’t Do It and Last Action Hero. On television he was in a 1951 episode of Lights Out and portrayed Zeus in five Hercules The Legendary Journeys TV movies in 1994. Married three times (once to Cecil B. DeMille’s daughter Katherine), he had at least thirteen children by five different women.
76-year-old stage, film and TV actor Carroll O’Connor, best remembered for his Emmy Award-winning portrayal of Archie Bunker on the CBS-TV sitcom All in the Family (1971–79), died of a heart attack brought on by complications from diabetes on June 21st. He also appeared in the TV movie Fear No Evil (1969), and such series as The Outer Limits, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Time Tunnel and The Wild Wild West.
French-born actress Corinne Calvet (Corinne Dibos) died of a cerebral haemorrhage in Los Angeles on June 23rd, aged 75. Her film credits include Bluebeard’s Ten Honeymoons, Dr Heckle and Mr Hype, The Sword and the Sorcerer and the TV movie The Phantom of Hollywood. Actor John Bromfield was one of her five husbands, and she once filed a $1 million slander suit against Zsa Zsa Gabor for alleging that she was not French.
Hollywood star Jack Lemmon (John Uhler Lemmon III) died of a cancer-related illness on June 27th, aged 76. The two-time Academy Award winner, best known for his long screen partnership with Walter Matthau (who died almost exactly a year earlier), appeared in such early TV series as Suspense and the movies Bell Book and Candle, How to Murder Your Wife, Airport 77, The China Syndrome, JFK, Hamlet (1996) and, uncredited, in The Legend of Bagger Vance (which he also narrated).
71-year-old British character actress Joan Sims died the same day after a long illness and years of heavy drinking and depression. Best known as the star of twenty-four Carry On comedies (including Carry On Screaming), she also appeared in Colonel March Investigates (with Boris Karloff), Meet Mr Lucifer, Disney’s One of Our Dinosaurs is Missing and The Canterville Ghost (1996), and was a regular on TV’s Worzel Gummidge (1979–81).
British actress Patricia Hilliard, who appeared in The Ghost Goes West (1936) and had a role in Things to Come (1936), died in mid-June, aged 85.
British character actor Jack Gwillim died on July 2nd, aged 91. Best known for his royal roles on stage, his films include Circus of Horrors, Jason and the Argonauts (1963, as King Aeetes), Hammer’s Curse of the Mummy’s Tomb, Kiss the Girls and Make Them Die, Clash of the Titans and as Van Helsing in The Monster Squad. On TV his career ranged from A for Andromeda to Conan.
British stage and screen actress Eleanor Summerfield died on July 13th, aged 80. Her film credits include Scrooge (1951) and Disney’s The Watcher in the Woods.
Hollywood actress Molly Lamont, who appeared in Scared to Death (with Bela Lugosi), Devil Bat’s Daughter and Jungle Princess, died on July 15th, aged 91.
‘England’s Premier Ventriloquist’, Arthur Worsley, died on July 19th, aged 80. With his cheeky dummy Charlie Brown he worked with such acts as Laurel and Hardy, Elvis Presley and The Beatles.
Stage and TV actor Steve Barton, who played Raoul in both the original London and Broadway productions of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Phantom of the Opera, died of heart failure in Germany on July 21st, aged 47. He also played the Beast in an Austrian production of Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, appeared in the short-lived 1993 Broadway musical The Red Shoes, and originated the role of Count von Krolock in Jim Steinman’s stage adaptation of Dance of the Vampires in Vienna in 1997.
American actor Alex Nicol died on July 28th, aged 85. He appeared in The Clones, The Night God Screamed, A*P*E and The Screaming Skull. He also directed the latter, along with Point of Terror.
British-born actor Christopher Hewett died of complications due to diabetes in Los Angeles on August 3rd, aged 80. Best known for the role of Mr Belvedere on TV from 1985–90, he also appeared in such films as The Producers, Massarati and the Brain and Ratboy. For the final season of Fantasy Island (1983–84) he played Mr Roarke’s new sidekick Lawrence, after Hervé Ville-chaize left the show.
64-year-old TV scriptwriter, producer and cartoon voice Lorenzo Music (Gerald David Music), who played Carlton the Doorman in Rhoda (1974–78), which he co-created, and Garfield the Cat on the Saturday morning series, died of cancer on August 4th. He won an Emmy in 1969 as a writer on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour.
British actress Dame Dorothy Tutin, who played Peter Pan for two seasons (1971–72) on the London stage, died of leukaemia on August 6th, aged 71.
Hollywood leading lady Dorothy McGuire died of heart failure on August 13th, aged 85. She had broken her leg three weeks before. Her many films include The Enchanted Cottage (1945), The Spiral Staircase (1945, as the mute heroine), Disney’s The Swiss Family Robinson, The Greatest Story
Ever Told (as the Virgin Mary) and the TV movie She Waits.
Stage and occasional movie actress Kim Stanley (Patricia Beth Reid) died of uterine cancer the same day, aged 76. Her movies include Seance on a Wet Afternoon (for which she was nominated for an Oscar) and The Right Stuff.
Raymond Edward Johnson, who hosted the radio show Inner Sanctum (1941–52) as the macabre Raymond, died on August 15th, aged 90. He also played the lead in radio’s Mandrake the Magician series.
Daytime soap opera star Gerald Gordon, who also appeared in the TV movie It Happened at Lakewood Manor, the original Twilight Zone series, Highway to Heaven and Knight Rider, died on August 17th after a long illness, aged 67.
Soul singer Betty Everett, who topped the US charts in 1964 with ‘The Shoop Shoop Song (It’s in His Kiss)’, died on August 18th, aged 61.
American character actor Walter Reed (Walter Smith) died of kidney failure on August 20th, aged 85. Since making his debut in 1929 at the age of thirteen, he appeared in nearly 100 films and serials including Flying Disc Man from Mars, Government Agent vs. Phantom Legion, Superman and the Mole Men, How to Make a Monster, Macumba Love and The Destructors.
American character actress Kathleen Freeman died of lung cancer on August 23rd, aged 78. Best remembered as the fearsome Sister Stigmata (aka ‘The Penguin’) in both Blues Brothers movies, she made almost 100 films, including Monkey Business, The Magnetic Monster, The Fly (1958), Psycho Sisters, Heart-beeps, Innerspace, Teen Wolf Too, Gremlins 2 The New Batch, Hocus Pocus, Nutty Professor II The Klumps, Shrek, and ten with Jerry Lewis (including the original The Nutty Professor). She was also a regular on the 1953–55 Topper TV series and was appearing in the Broadway production of The Full Monty at the time of her death.
The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 2002, Volume 13 Page 66