French cinematographer Henri Alekan, whose credits include Jean Cocteau’s Beauty and the Beast and Wim Wenders’s Wings of Desire, died on June 15th following a brief hospitalization for leukaemia. He was 92.
Michael Green, the chairman of leading independent British film distributor Entertainment, died on June 17th, aged 84. After co-founding Regal Films International in the late 1950s, he launched Entertainment Film Distributors in 1978, since when the company has released everything from Hellraiser to Lord of the Rings and produced the sci-fi flop Slipstream.
Entertainment attorney Paul Schreibman, who was responsible for making the deals with Toho to bring Godzilla, Mothra, Varan etc. to America, died on June 23rd, aged 92.
Oscar-winning special effects supervisor A.D. Flowers died from complications of emphysema and pneumonia on July 5th, aged 85. Chief of mechanical special effects at Twentieth Century-Fox for many years, his film credits include The Poseidon Adventure, Steven Spielberg’s 1941 and Apocalypse Now.
Disney animator Ted Berman died on July 15th, aged 81. He worked on Fantasia, Bambi, Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, Mary Poppins, Bedknobs and Broomsticks and co-scripted and co-directed The Black Cauldron.
Producer Jules Buck, whose credits include What’s New Pussycat and The Ruling Class, died on July 19th, aged 83.
Record producer and songwriter Milton Gabler, who founded the independent jazz label Commodore Records in 1937 and produced Bill Haley and the Comets’ ‘Rock Around the Clock’ in one take, died on July 20th, aged 90.
Film and TV director Alan Rafkin died of complications during heart surgery in Los Angeles on August 6th, aged 73. A former nightclub comic, he began his career in 1958 with such TV series as 77 Sunset Strip, directing more than eighty prime-time sitcoms along with a number of movies, including Ski Party, Angel in My Pocket and The Ghost and Mr Chicken.
Former film editor and TV producer Art Seid died on August 9th, aged 87. He edited Lost Horizon (1937) and A Taste of Evil.
Oscar and Emmy Award-nominated American sound designer and sound editor Richard Jay Shorr died of melanoma at his home in Paris on August 13th, aged 58. In 1979 he wrote and directed Witches Brew, a comic adaptation of Fritz Leiber’s novel Conjure Wife, which was completed by Herbert L. Strock. Switching to sound production, Shorr also worked on The Day After, Die Hard, Poltergeist III, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Highway to Hell.
Music editor Daniel Adrian Carlin died of lung cancer and pulmonary fibrosis on August 14th, aged 73. His credits include Ghost, Ghostbusters, Fatal Attraction and All That Jazz.
Hollywood make-up artist John Chambers, best known for creating Mr Spock’s Vulcan ears on TV’s Star Trek (1966 – 68) and the make-up for the original Planet of the Apes (1967) and its sequels, died of diabetes complications on August 25th, aged 78. His many other credits include The Three Stooges in Orbit, The Human Duplicators, Slaughterhouse-Five, The Mephisto Waltz, Superbeast, Ssssssss, Phantom of the Paradise, Embryo, The Island of Dr Moreau (1977), Halloween II and TV’s Beauty and the Beast (1976). Chambers won an honorary Oscar for his work on Planet of the Apes, and he was also rumoured to have created the famous Bigfoot creature filmed by Californian ‘researchers’ in 1967.
Film editor and producer Thomas Ralph Fries, the son of producer Charles Fries, died of a protracted cardiopulmonary illness on September 10th, aged 47. His credits include The Martian Chronicles, Starcrossed, Bridge Across Time and Flowers in the Attic. In 1989 he produced Phantom of the Mall: Eric’s Revenge.
54-year-old American television producer David Angell and his wife Lynn were among the sixty-five passengers and crew aboard United Airlines Flight 175, travelling from Boston to Los Angeles, that terrorists crashed into the South Tower of New York’s World Trade Center on September 11th. The co-creator and executive producer of NBC-TV’s Frasier, he also scripted episodes of the comedy shows Wings and Cheers, sharing six Emmy Awards for his television work.
Fred (Frederick) De Cordova, who directed Bedtime for Bonzo and Bonzo Goes to College starring Ronald Reagan and a chimpanzee, died on September 15th, aged 90. His fifty-year career included directing numerous TV shows (including episodes of Bewitched) a TV version of Blithe Spirit starring Noel Coward, Lauren Bacall and Claudette Colbert, and he was executive producer of Johnny Carson’s The Tonight Show (1971–92).
Samuel Z. Arkoff, the cigar-chewing executive producer and co-founder (with James H. Nicholson, who died in 1972) of American International Pictures, died on September 16th, aged 83. His many films date from The Beast With a Million Eyes (1955) to Hellhole (1985), and include I Was a Teenage Werewolf, I Was a Teenage Frankenstein, Blood of Dracula, Roger Corman’s Edgar Allan Poe series, The Amityville Horror (which grossed $65 million in America) and Dressed to Kill. His autobiography (with Richard Trubo), Flying Through Hollywood by the Seat of My Pants, was published in 1992. Arkoff’s wife Hilda, who provided home-cooked meals for AIP wrap parties, died on July 26th.
Canadian-born film and TV director Gerald Mayer, the nephew of legendary MGM mogul Louis B. Mayer, died of complications from pneumonia on September 21st, aged 82. His credits include episodes of Thriller, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, The Invaders, Tarzan, Six Million Dollar Man and Logan’s Run.
Computer special effects wizard Robert Abel, who created the slit-scan effect for the ‘Star Gate’ sequence in 2001: A Space Odyssey and also worked on Disney’s Tron, died on September 23rd, five weeks after suffering a heart attack. He was 64.
William [‘Herbert’] Coleman, Alfred Hitchcock’s associate producer and right-hand man for a decade, died on October 3rd, aged 93. He worked on such titles as Rear Window, The Trouble With Harry and Vertigo, and produced the TV series Alfred Hitchcock Presents and The Alfred Hitchcock Hour.
British TV special effects director Jim Francis died on October 5th, aged 47. His numerous credits include Doctor Who, Red Dwarf, Blakes 7, The Hitch-hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, The Tenth Kingdom and such films as Hardware, Nostradamus and Grim.
American director, dancer and choreographer Herbert Ross, who often collaborated with Neil Simon, died of heart failure on October 9th, aged 76. After staging the musical sequences for the Cliff Richard films The Young Ones and Summer Holiday, he worked on Doctor Dolittle before becoming a director with such films as Play It Again Sam, The Last of Sheila, The Seven-Per-Cent Solution and Pennies from Heaven. From 1988–2001 he was married to Jackie Kennedy’s sister, Lee Bouvier Radziwell.
Italian opera designer, film director, writer and illustrator of children’s books, Beni Montresor died on October 11th, aged 75. During the 1950s he worked at Rome’s Cine Citta studios, where Ricardo Freda asked him to design I Vampiri (aka The Devil’s Commandment/Lust of the Vampire) in 1956.
Music director and supervisor Raoul Kraushaar, who supplied music cues for such cartoons as Huckleberry Hound and Yogi Bear, died on October 13th, aged 93. He was also involved in the music for SOS Coast Guard, Prehistoric Women, Bride of the Gorilla, Untamed Women, Invaders from Mars (1953), Curucu Beast of the Amazon, The 30 Foot Bride of Candy Rock, Island of Lost Women, Jesse James Meets Frankenstein’s Daughter, Billy the Kid vs. Dracula and the Abbott and Costello TV show.
Known as the ‘father of television syndication’, Frederic W. Ziv died the same day, aged 96. Among the many shows his company created were Science Fiction Theatre, Sea Hunt and The Cisco Kid.
Sound supervisor Robert Reed Rutledge, who won an Oscar for his work on Back to the Future, died of a heart attack on October 15th, aged 53. His other credits include Star Wars, The Beastmaster and The Witches of Eastwick.
British film editor Ray Lovejoy, whose credits include Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey and The Shining, died on October 19th. His other films include The Ruling Class, Aliens, Krull, Batman and Lost in Space.
65-year-old Czechoslovakian director Jaromil Jires, whose best-known film is Valerie and Her Week of Wonders, died on October 24th after a long illness caused by head injuries sustained in a ser
ious car accident.
John Roberts, who borrowed $1.8 million against his trust fund to co-produce Woodstock (1969), died of cancer on October 27th, aged 56.
American director Adrian Weiss, whose credits include Edward D. Wood, Jr.’s The Bride and the Beast, died on October 28th, aged 88.
British film director and producer Roy Boulting, best remembered for his affair with young star Hayley Mills, whom he later married, died after a long illness on November 5th, aged 88. With his twin brother John (who died in 1985) he became director of British Lion Films in the 1960s, and their films together include Thunder Rock, Brighton Rock, Seven Days to Noon, Twisted Nerve and Endless Night. Roy also directed Run for the Sun, another variation on ‘The Most Dangerous Game’. His son with Hayley Mills, Crispian, became the lead singer of the pop group Kula Shaker.
American TV director Paul Krasny died in Las Vegas on November 12th, aged 66. His many credits include episodes of Gemini Man, Logan’s Run, The Powers of Matthew Starr and Wizards and Warriors.
Former actor turned director Gunnar Hellstrom died of a stroke on November 28th, aged 73. His credits include The Name of the Game is Kill and episodes of TV’s The Powers of Matthew Starr.
British independent film distributor Charles Cooper, who founded Contemporary Films in the early 1950s as a supplier of high-quality foreign and artistic movies, died the same day, aged 91.
Former matador and maverick director Oscar ‘Budd’ Boetticher, Jr., best known for his ‘B’ Westerns starring Randolph Scott and Audie Murphy, died of multiple organ failure from cancer on November 29th, aged 85. His first wife was actress Debra Paget, and his other film credits include Escape in the Fog and the Boston Blackie entry One Mysterious Night.
Oscar-winning Italian costume and set designer Danilo Donati, who worked with such directors as Luchino Visconti, Franco Zeffirelli, Pier Paolo Pasolini and Federico Fellini, died of heart failure on December 1st, aged 75. His other films include Flash Gordon (1980) and Red Sonja, and at the time of his death he was working on the sets for Robert Benigni’s Pinocchio.
Animator Faith Hubley died of cancer on December 14th, aged 77. His films include Moonbird, The Hole and Of Men and Demons.
TV director Alan Crosland, Jr. died on December 18th, aged 83. His many credits include episodes of Men into Space, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, The Sixth Sense, The Gemini Man, The Six Million Dollar Man, The Bionic Woman, Wonder Woman, Cliffhangers: The Secret Empire and Automan.
American director and former editor Paul Landres, whose credits include The Vampire, The Return of Dracula (aka The Fantastic Disappearing Man), The Flame Barrier and TV’s The Veil: Destination Nightmare (with Boris Karloff), died of complications from cancer on December 26th, aged 89.
Hollywood producer Jack Grossberg died on December 28th, aged 74. His credits include The Producers, Sleeper, King Kong (1976) and Brainstorm, after which he became a unit production manager on such films as Back to the Future and Little Monsters.
Animation director Ray Patterson died after a lengthy illness on December 30th, aged 90. After working at Disney on Fantasia and Dumbo he joined Hanna and Barbera at MGM in 1941, directing over sixty Tom and Jerry cartoons and the animated sequences for Anchors Aweigh. In 1967 he produced the animated TV series Spider-Man before moving to Hanna-Barbera, where he co-directed the cartoon feature Charlotte’s Web and helmed The Jetsons, Mr Magoo, Trollkins, The Flinstones Meet Rockula and Frankenstone, Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo, The New Scooby-Doo Mysteries, The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo, A Pup Named Scooby-Doo, The Addams Family (1992–93) and numerous other shows.
Film and TV director David Swift, who began working at Disney as an assistant animator on such films as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Fantasia, Dumbo, Pinocchio and Peter Pan and returned in the early 1960s as a live-action director, died on December 31st, aged 82. In the early 1950s he created the live TV series Mr Peepers starring Wally Cox.
Hollywood producer Julia Phillips, the first woman to win an Academy Award for Best Picture, died of cancer the same day, aged 57. Her many hits include The Sting, Taxi Driver, The Big Bus and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. When Steven Spielberg reportedly ‘kicked her off’ the latter, her career went into decline through drugs and alcohol. In 1990 she published her controversial autobiography You’ll Never Eat Lunch in This Town Again.
USEFUL ADDRESSES
THE FOLLOWING LISTING OF ORGANIZATIONS, publications, dealers and individuals is designed to present readers with further avenues to explore. Although I can personally recommend all those listed on the following pages, neither myself nor the publisher can take any responsibility for the services they offer. Please also note that the information below is subject to change without notice.
ORGANIZATIONS
The British Fantasy Society
The Horror Writers Association
World Fantasy Convention
MAGAZINES
Cemetery Dance Magazine
Now published by Celeste C. Clarke and edited by Dan Persons, Cinefantastique
Gothic.Net
Interzone is Britain’s leading magazine of science fiction and fantasy. Single copies are available for £3.50 (UK) or £4.00/$6.00 (overseas) or a 12-issue subscription is £34.00 (UK), $60.00 (USA) or £40.00 (overseas) payable by cheque or International Money Order. Payments can also be made by MasterCard, Visa or Eurocard to ‘Interzone’, 217 Preston Drove, Brighton, BN1 6FL, UK.
Locus
on information with other rates and order form are available on the website. E-mail:
The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction
Rabbit Hole is published semi-regularly for members of The Harlan Ellison Recording Collection. Edited by Susan Ellison, each issue contains exclusive news and articles about Harlan Ellison, along with occasional fiction. There is also the opportunity to purchase signed Ellison books and audio recordings at special discount prices to HERC members. A four-issue subscription is just $10.00 (USA) or $14.00 (overseas) and includes a bonus audio tape, to: ‘The Harlan Ellison Recording Collection’, PO Box 55548, Sherman Oaks, CA 91413–0548, USA. Ellison is also currently fighting an important and costly legal battle against the electronic piracy of copyrighted work. For more information visit the web site:
Rue Morgue
Science Fiction Chronicle
The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 2002, Volume 13 Page 68