The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 22

by Stephen Jones

  Less than a month after the death of her older brother Corin, Lynn [Rachel] Redgrave OBE died of breast cancer on May 2, aged 67. Her credits include Every Thing You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* *But Were Afraid to Ask, The Turn of the Screw (1974), The Happy Hooker, Disco Beaver from Outer Space (as “Dr Van Helsing”), The Bad Seed (1985), Midnight, What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1991), Toothless, Gods and Monsters, The Lion of Oz (as the voice of “The Wicked Witch of the East”), David Cronenberg’s Spider, Hansel & Gretel (2002), Peter Pan (2003), and two episodes of TV’s Fantasy Island.

  Japanese actor Kei Satô (Keinosuke Sato) died the same day, aged 81. His many credits include Onibaba, Kaidan, Kuroneko, Curse of the Ghost and the 1984 Godzilla.

  Prolific British character actor Jimmy Gardner (Edward Charles James Gardner) died on May 3, aged 85. Playwright John Osborne’s personal driver before he became an actor, Gardner appeared in Hammer’s The Curse of the Mummy’s Tomb, 10 Rillington Place, Hitchcock’s Frenzy, The Company of Wolves, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (as “Ernie, the Bus Driver”), Finding Neverland and episodes of The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe (1967, as “Mr Beaver”), Doctor Who, The Avengers, Thriller (1974), The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles and My Hero.

  Spanish-American singer, dancer and actress Adele Mara (Adelaide Delgado) died on May 7, aged 87. Originally a performer with Xavier Cugat and his Orchestra, she was signed by a Columbia Pictures talent scout in 1942 before moving on to Republic Studios. Her credits include starring roles in The Vampire’s Ghost, The Catman of Paris and Curse of the Faceless Man, plus episodes of Thriller (“What Beckoning Ghost?”) and The Alfred Hitchcock Hour. She retired from the screen in the late 1970s, and was married to TV writer-producer Roy Huggins until his death in 2002.

  “The Queen of Curves”, busty, blonde British pin-up model [Phyllis] Pamela Green (aka “Rita Landré”/“Princess Sommar”), who played one of the murder victims in Michael Powell’s controversial Peeping Tom, died of leukaemia the same day, aged 81. The “glamour” model’s other films include Naked as Nature Intended, The Day the Earth Caught Fire (uncredited), The Naked World of Harrison Marks and Legend of the Werewolf (with Peter Cushing). She also worked as an uncredited assistant still photographer on that film, plus The Ghoul (1975) and the 1966 James Bond spoof Casino Royale. From 1953 to 1961 Green lived with photographer/film-maker George Harrison Marks.

  Groundbreaking singer, dancer and actress Lena [Mary Calhoun] Horne died of heart failure on May 9, aged 92. Her first job, at the age of 16, was performing at the legendary Cotton Club in Harlem. Her film appearances include Cabin in the Sky and The Wiz (as “Glinda the Good”).

  American actress and dancer Doris Eaton [Travis], the last surviving member of the famous Ziegfeld Follies, died of an aneurysm on May 11, aged 106. She made her screen debut in 1921, and her final movie credit was in 1999.

  Phyllis Douglas (Phyllis Callow), one of the last surviving cast members of Gone With the Wind (she played a two-year-old) died on May 12, aged 73. The daughter of assistant director Ridgeway Callow, during the 1960s she also had small roles in George Pal’s Atlantis the Lost Continent and episodes of TV’s Batman and Star Trek.

  Composer and organist Rosa Rio (Elizabeth Raub), whose professional career spanned more than ninety years, died on May 13, aged 107. She had been suffering from intestinal flu. A child prodigy, she began playing music accompaniments to silent films at the age of 10. During the 1930s and ’40s Rio was a staff organist for NBC Radio, where she worked on such shows as The Shadow starring Orson Welles. Her last performace was in 2009.

  Peter Steele (Petrus T. Ratajczyk), the fanged six-foot, eight-inch tall lead singer and primary songwriter with New York goth-metal band Type O Negative, died of heart failure on May 14, aged 48. The band’s songs were used in such movies as I Know What You Did Last Summer, Bride of Chucky and Freddy vs. Jason, and appeared on the soundtracks of various computer games. In 2005, Steele spent time in prison for drug possession and assault.

  Italian-American singer Ronnie James Dio (Ronald James Padavona), former frontman with heavy metal bands Rainbow, Black Sabbath and the eponymous Dio, died of stomach cancer on May 16, aged 67. He appeared in the 2006 movie Tenacious D in the Pick of Destiny. Dio is credited with creating the “horns” gesture with his fingers, which is still widely used at rock concerts.

  39-year-old British-born screenwriter, producer and director Simon Monjack, the widower of actress Brittany Murphy, died at the couple’s home in Los Angeles on May 23. He reportedly died from pneumonia, which was also the cause of his wife’s death five months earlier. Questions were subsequently raised about the already controversial Monjack’s handling of Murphy’s finances following her untimely death.

  Paul [Dedrick] Gray, bass player with the American heavy metal band Slipknot, was found dead in an Iowa hotel room on May 24, aged 38. Gray wrote a song for the soundtrack of Resident Evil and the band appeared in the 2002 remake of Rollerball.

  British stage and television ventriloquist Ray (Raymond) Alan died the same day, aged 79. Best known for his slightly tipsy toff dummy “Lord Charles” and the puppets “Tich” and “Quackers”, his first success was with the puppet “Mikki the Martian” on the children’s TV show Toytown (1958). Alan appeared with Laurel and Hardy on their final tour in 1954, and he also worked as a scriptwriter for 1960s sitcoms and variety shows under the pseudonym “Ray Whyberd”. He later had three crime novels published.

  Pat (Patricia) Stevens, who voiced “Velma Dinkley” in TV’s Scooby-Doo cartoons from 1974 to 1979, died on May 26, aged 64.

  Canadian-born TV presenter, actor and author Art Linkletter (Gordon Arthur Kelly), best known as the host of People Are Funny and author of Kids Say the Darndest Things, died in Bel-Air, California, the same day, aged 97. He hosted the grand opening of Disneyland in 1955, and turned up as himself in the 1967 Batman episode “Catwoman Goes to College”. Linkletter’s daughter committed suicide in 1969 and his son was killed in a car accident in 1980.

  Silent movie actress Yvonne Howell (Julia Rose Shevlin), the former wife of Oscar-winning film director George Stevens, died on May 27, aged 104. She was the last of the “Mack Sennett Bathing Beauty” pin-ups of the 1920s and retired from the screen in 1928, without ever having made a talking picture.

  42-year-old former child star Gary [Wayne] Coleman, the diminutive star of NBC’s hit sitcom Diff’rent Strokes (1978–86), died on May 28. Following a fall at his home two days earlier, the four-foot, eight-inch actor suffered an intercranial haemorrhage and chronic renal failure that left him in a coma. His ex-wife made the decision to turn off his life-support. Coleman, who had a congenital kidney condition that stunted his growth, appeared in The Kid with the Broken Halo, The Fantastic World of D.C. Collins, Like Father Like Santa (aka The Christmas Takeover), A Christmas Carol (2003), An American Carol and episodes of Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (as child genius “Hieronymous Fox”), Amazing Stories, Unhappily Ever After (as “The Devil”) and Homeboys in Outer Space. Coleman’s troubled adult career was marred by bankruptcy, various court appearances and feigned suicide attempts.

  Often unpredictable actor, director and photographer Dennis [Lee] Hopper died of prostate cancer on May 29, aged 74. Infamous for his hellraising ways in the 1960s and ’70s, he beat his drug and alcohol addiction and settled down in later life to become a highly respected character actor. Hopper’s early appearances include Rebel Without a Cause, Giant, The Story of Mankind (with Vincent Price), Night Tide, Queen of Blood (with Basil Rathbone), Roger Corman’s The Trip, The Monkees’ Head (uncredited) and an episode of The Twilight Zone. Then in 1969, Hopper co-wrote, directed and starred in the counterculture classic Easy Rider, made for just $400,000. It was a huge box-office success, but Hopper’s career went into decline during the 1970s until Francis Ford Coppola gave him a supporting role as a drugged-out photojournalist in Apocalypse Now. His later credits include My Science Project, The American Way (aka Riders of the
Storm), The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, David Lynch’s Blue Velvet, Super Mario Bros., Witch Hunt (as “H. Phillip Lovecraft”), Waterworld, Space Truckers, Jason and the Argonauts (2000), Firestarter 2: Rekindled, Unspeakable, House of 9, The Crow: Wicked Prayer, George A. Romero’s Land of the Dead, Hoboken Hollow and Memory. Hopper also starred in the rarely-seen SF TV series Flatland (2002), filmed in Hong Kong.

  30-year-old American adult film actor Tom Dong (Herbert Wong), whose credits include Perverted Planet 4, was killed with a Samurai sword-style movie prop on June 1 when he went to the aid of a man allegedly being attacked by fellow porn actor Steven Driver (Stephen Clancy Hill) outside the offices of Ultima DVD Inc. in Van Nuys, California. Following a long stand-off with police four days later, 30-year-old Hill fell to his death off a cliff on the outskirts of Los Angeles after being hit by a “less than lethal munition”.

  American actress Rue McClanahan (Eddi-Rue McClanahan), who played “Blanche Devereaux” on NBC-TV’s The Golden Girls (1985–92), died of a massive cerebral haemorrhage on June 2, aged 76. A former Broadway star, she appeared in Five Minutes to Live (aka Door-to-Door Maniac), How to Succeed with Girls (aka The Peeping Phantom), They Might Be Giants, Topper (1979), The Wickedest Witch, The Dreamer of Oz, Starship Troopers, A Saintly Switch and episodes of Darkroom, Fantasy Island, Nightmare Classics (“The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde”), Touched by an Angel and Wonderfalls. McClanahan also took over the role of “Madame Morrible” on Broadway in Wicked in 2005.

  Hollywood child star Dorothy [Adelle] DeBorba died the same day of emphysema, aged 85. She appeared in a number of “Our Gang” comedy shorts during the early 1930s. As a curly-haired child she retired from the screen in 1933 and went on to appear in advertisements for lemonade and ice cream.

  Marvin Isley, the youngest of The Isley Brothers, died of complications from diabetes on June 6. The bass player was 56 and had had to have both legs amputated. He joined the American R&B, soul and funk group in 1973, and among their biggest hits were “This Old Heart of Mine (Is Weak for You)”, “That Lady” and “Fight the Power”. The Isley Brothers were elected to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992.

  Stuart Cable, the former drummer with Welsh group Stereophonics, was found dead at his home in the early hours of June 7. He had choked to death on his own vomit after effectively drinking himself to death after a three-day alcohol binge. The 40-year-old was thrown out of the band in 2003 after falling out with singer Kelly Jones, who was unhappy about Cable’s alcohol and drug abuse.

  Sudan-born Greek actor and stage director Andréas Voutsinas, who starred as “Count Dracula” in Les Charlots contre Dracula (1980), died of a respiratory infection in Athens on June 8, aged 79. A drama coach to both Warren Beatty and Jane Fonda (on Barbarella), Voutsinas also appeared in Spirits of the Dead (Roger Vadim’s “Metzengerstein”) and Mel Brooks’ History of the World: Part 1.

  German silent screen star Daisy D’Ora (Daisy Freiin von Freyberg zu Eisenberg), who appeared in G.W. Pabst’s 1929 Pandora’s Box with Louise Brooks, died on June 12, aged 97. She remembered Adolf Hitler, whom she met many times, as “the most terrible pianist”.

  Country musician and actor Jimmy [Ray] Dean died on June 13, aged 81. In 1961 he had a #1 hit in the US with his song “Big Bad John”. A distant cousin of film legend James Dean, he founded Jimmy Dean Pure Pork Sausage in 1969 and was a spokesperson for the company for more than twenty years. Dean appeared in the James Bond movie Diamonds Are Forever and a couple of episodes of TV’s Fantasy Island.

  Polish actress Elzbieta [Justyna] Czyzewska died of oesophageal cancer in New York on June 17, aged 72. She appeared in The Saragossa Manuscript and the 1991 remake of A Kiss Before Dying.

  38-year-old German actor Frank Giering was found dead in his Berlin apartment on June 23. The cause of death was internal bleeding from alcohol poisoning. His films include Funny Games and Anatomy 2.

  Pete Quaife (Peter Alexander Greenlaw “Pete” Quaife), the original bassist with the Kinks from 1963 to 1969, died in Denmark of kidney failure the same day, aged 66. He had been undergoing kidney dialysis for nearly a decade. Quaife played on all the British band’s early hits, including “You Really Got Me”, “All Day and All of the Night”, “Dedicated Follower of Fashion” and “Waterloo Sunset”. He later became a cartoonist and artist.

  Actor-turned-Emmy Award-winning director and acting coach Corey Allen (Alan Cohen) died of complications from Parkinson’s disease on June 27, two days before his 76th birthday. During the 1950s and ’60s he appeared in The Mad Magician (uncredited), The Night of the Hunter (1955, uncredited), Rebel Without a Cause and episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents and Men Into Space. In the early 1970s he started directing TV shows such as The New People, Tucker’s Witch, The Powers of Matthew Star, Otherworld and Star Trek: The Next Generation, the TV movies The Man in the Santa Claus Suit and I-Man, along with an adult version of Pinocchio (1971). Allen was a former roommate of Dennis Hopper’s, and his father Carl was a Las Vegas casino manager, who famously punched out two of Frank Sinatra’s teeth during a confrontation at the Sands Hotel in 1967.

  Legendary voice-over artist Ron Gans (Ronald Kenneth Gans, aka “Ron Kennedy”) died of complications from pneumonia on June 29, aged 78. Gans’s sonorous tones could be heard on numerous exploitation trailers during the 1970s for such movies as Caged Heat, Terminal Island and The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane, and he had small roles in Killers from Space, The Wild Racers, Tarzan and the Jungle Boy, The Student Nurses, Coffy and Hell Night. He also did voice work for Deathsport, Heartbeeps and Not of This Earth (1988), plus TV’s Lost in Space, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, Welcome to Pooh Corner (as “Eeyore”), Transformers (1985–86, as “Drag Strip”), Star Trek: The Next Generation, Pryde of the X-Men (as “Magneto”) and Captain Planet and the Planeteers.

  American singer Ilene Woods (Jacquelyn Ruth Woods), who was the voice of the titular cartoon character in Walt Disney’s Cinderella (1950), died of complications from Alzheimer’s disease on July 1, aged 81.

  Shakespearan actor Geoffrey Hutchings, who appeared (as different characters) in the TV movies of Terry Pratchett’s Hogfather and The Colour of Magic, died of meningitis the same day, aged 71. His final stage appearance was in The Shawshank Redemption (2009), as the prison librarian.

  American blaxploitation actress [Lawrence] Vonetta McGee, who played the love interest in Blacula (1972), died of cardiac arrest on July 9, aged 65. Her other credits include The Norliss Tapes, Repo Man, Brother Future and an episode of Whiz Kids.

  Bohemian American poet, cartoonist and singer Tuli Kupferberg (Naphtali Kupferberg), co-founder of the mid-1960s folk-rock group The Fugs, died on July 12, aged 86.

  Voice actor and pulp adventure writer Peter Fernandez, best known for dubbing all the main voices in Speed Racer for the English-language version of the 1960s anime TV show, died of lung cancer on July 15, aged 83. Fernandez also did voice work for Mothra, Ebirah Horror of the Deep, The Tempter, The Super Inframan, Dogs of Hell, Blood Link, 2019: After the Fall of New York, Silent Madness, Day of the Dead, and such TV series as Astroboy, The Space Giants, Marine Boy, Ultraman, Star Blazers, Thunderbirds 2086, The Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers and many others. He had a cameo as a local announcer in the 2008 live-action movie of Speed Racer.

  Grizzled American character actor James [Richard] Gammon died of cancer of the adrenal glands and liver on July 16, aged 70. A former TV cameraman, he made his acting debut in 1966 and his credits include Stephen King’s Silver Bullet, Made in Heaven, The Milagro Beanfield War, Cabin Boy, Natural Born Killers, The Iron Giant, The Cell and Altered, along with episodes of TV’s The Wild Wild West, Captain Nice, The Invaders, Batman, Monster Squad and The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles.

  French actress Cécil Aubrey (Anne-José Madeleine Henriette Bénard) died of lung cancer on July 19, aged 81. She co-starred with Tyrone Power and Orson Welles in the 1950 British costume drama The Black Rose, and appeared in the French and G
erman versions of Bluebeard the following year. In the 1960s Aubrey retired from acting and became a scriptwriter and director of children’s TV series, including the popular Belle et Sébastian, based on her own novel.

  1940s American actress and former Coca-Cola pin-up model, Rebel Randall (Alaine Brandes) died on July 22, aged 89. She had small roles (often uncredited) in Turnabout, The Lone Rider in Ghost Town (aka Ghost Mine), Arabian Nights, Seven Doors to Death, A Thousand and One Nights and The Shadow Returns. In the 1950s Randall became the only female radio DJ in Hollywood.

  American actor Maury Chaykin died of kidney problems brought on by a heart-valve infection in a Toronto hospital on July 27, his 61st birthday. Best known for portraying Rex Stout’s eccentric investigator in the A&E series of Nero Wolfe TV movies (2000–02), the rotund actor also appeared in Overdrawn at the Memory Bank (based on the SF story by John Varley), Curtains, WarGames, Of Unknown Origin, Def-Con 4, The Vindicator, Millennium (another Varley adaptation), Mr Destiny, Jacob Two Two Meets the Hooded Fang and Static (aka Glitch). He had a recurring role in four episodes of the TV series of Seeing Things (1981–87), and also turned up in the revived The Twilight Zone (George Clayton Johnson’s “A Game of Pool”) and episodes of PSI Factor: Chronicles of the Paranormal, Lexx, Andromeda, Stargate SG-1, the pilot for Eureka (aka A Town Called Eureka) and the mini-series Superstorm. Chaykin had dual American and Canadian nationality.

  American singer, musician and record producer Mitch Miller (Mitchell William Miller) died on July 31, aged 99. An avowed hater of rock ’n’ roll music, he was best known during the 1950s and ’60s for such hits as “The Yellow Rose of Texas” (which topped the US charts and sold over a million copies) and the theme songs for such movies as The Longest Day and Major Dundee. He can also be heard on the soundtrack of Piranha (2010). Miller’s NBC-TV show Sing Along with Mitch ran from 1961 to 1966.

  British actor John Louis Mansi (John Patrick Adams), best remembered for his role as incompetent Gestapo agent “Von Smallhausen” in the BBC sitcom ’Allo, ’Allo!, died of lung cancer on August 6, aged 83. He also appeared uncredited in the movies Help! and Tales from the Crypt (1972), and was in the BBC’s 1966 series of The Woman in White and epsiodes of The Adventures of Don Quick and Hammer House of Horror (“The Thirteenth Reunion”).