Scottish character actress Molly Weir (Mary Weir) died on November 28th, aged 94. She had suffered a bad fall four years earlier and was living in a nursing home. Having made her radio debut in 1939, the four-foot, ten-inch actress’ film credits include Hands of Orlac, What a Whopper!, the 1970 musical Scrooge, Hammer’s Hands of the Ripper and One of Our Dinosaurs is Missing. She portrayed Hazel the McWitch for four years on the 1980s TV series Rentaghost.
American actor John Drew Barrymore (aka John Blythe Barrymore, Jr.), the son of the legendary John Barrymore and Dolores Costello and reclusive father of Drew Barrymore, died of undisclosed causes on November 29th, aged 72. In a wasted career, he appeared in a number of “B” movies and Westerns in the 1950s. During the 1960s he starred in several Italian films, including The Night They Killed Rasputin, Death on the Four-Poster, War of the Zombies, Les possedees du Demon and Weapons of Vengeance. Barrymore battled alcohol and drug abuse for much of his life, and he retired from acting in the 1970s after a small role in The Clones.
Spanish actress Maria Perschy died of cancer on December 3rd, aged 66. She appeared in The Mad Executioners, Witch Without a Broom, The Castle of Fu Manchu, Murders in the Rue Morgue (1971), The Hunchback of the Morgue, Exorcismo, The People Who Own the Dark, The House of Psychotic Women, Espectro del Terror and Horror of the Zombies.
American actor Carl Esmond, who appeared in added scenes for Kiss of Evil, the TV version of Hammer’s Kiss of the Vampire, died on December 4th, aged 97. His other credits include The Catman of Paris, Mystery Submarine, From Earth to the Moon, Agent for H.A.R.M. and the two-part TV show Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew Meet Dracula.
Jerry Scoggins, who sang the theme song to TV’s The Beverly Hillbillies, died on December 7th, aged 93. He also appeared in a number of Western movies.
Thirty-eight-year-old heavy metal guitarist “Dimebag” Darrell Abbott was shot to death on stage in Columbus, Ohio, by a crazed fan on December 8th. The gunman, 25-year-old Nathan Gale, was apparently upset that Abbott had left Pantera to form his own band, Damageplan. The guitarist was shot six times at close range and three audience members were also killed before a police officer shot Gale to death. Abbott’s music was featured in such films as Tales from the Crypt: Demon Knight, Heavy Metal 2000, The Crow and Dracula 2000.
Sixty-five-year-old Filipino superstar Fernando [Ronald Allan Kelley] Poe, Jr. (aka “FPJ”) died on December 14th after suffering a stroke. Best known as the star, writer, director and cinematographer of the “Ang Panday” series, based on a comic book about a blacksmith who forges a magic sword, Poe also starred as action hero “Da King” in 282 films over forty-six years. An attempt to run for President of the Philippines in 2004 ended in failure.
Actor and stuntman Frank Orsatti died of acute respiratory failure on December 23rd, aged 61. His credits include Planet of the Apes, Soylent Green, Rosemary’s Baby, The Poseidon Adventure, The Beastmaster, Highlander II: The Quickening, The Terminator and Star Trek V: The Final Frontier. As well as directing several episodes, he was stunt co-ordinator and Bill Bixby’s stunt double on TV’s The Incredible Hulk. Orsatti was also second unit director on the TV movie Sherlock Holmes Returns.
Country, rock and jazz guitarist [Walter] Hank Garland died of a staph infection on December 27th, aged 74. He started playing the guitar at the age of six and he worked with Elvis Presley from 1957–61 on such hits as “Little Sister” and “Big Hunk of Love”. A suspicious car crash in 1961 put him in a coma for months, and the resultant injuries and more than 100 shock treatments left him a shadow of his former self. He also played with the Everly Brothers, Roy Orbison, Charlie Parker, Patsy Cline and many others.
American TV and film actor Jerry Orbach died of prostate cancer on December 28th, aged 69. Best known in recent years for his role as Detective Lennie Briscoe on NBC-TV’s Law & Order and its spin-off Trial by Jury, his movie credits include The Sentinel, F/X, Universal Soldier, Upworld and Disney’s Beauty and the Beast (as the voice of singing candelabrum “Lumiere”). He also appeared in episodes of TV’s Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (“Space Rocker”) and Tales from the Darkside (“Everybody Needs a Little Love”), and was a voice on The Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers.
Big band leader and clarinet player Artie Shaw (Arthur Arshawsky) died of complications from diabetes on December 30th, aged 94. He had a hit with Cole Porter’s “Begin the Beguine” in 1938, followed by “Dancing in the Dark” and “Stardust”. After a brief Hollywood career in the late 1930s and ’40s, he retired in 1954 to take up writing full-time. His wives included actresses Lana Turner, Ava Gardner, Evelyn Keyes, and novelist Kathleen Winsor (Forever Amber).
FILM/TV TECHNICIANS
British-born film and television director Brian Gibson died in London on January 4th, aged 59. For two years he had been suffering from Ewing’s sarcoma, a rare form of bone cancer. As well as working for the BBC and HBO, Gibson’s film credits include Breaking Glass and Poltergeist II The Other Side.
American TV director Allen Miner, whose credits include episodes of The Twilight Zone and Mission: Impossible, died on the same day, aged 86.
Paul Cadeac, producer of the 1960s Fantomas films and the OSS 117 sci-spy series, died of heart failure on January 8th, aged 86.
Eighty-seven-year-old American actor, songwriter and TV director Sidney Miller died on January 10th after a two-year bout with Parkinson’s disease. A former contract actor at Metro-Goldwyn-Meyer and long-time comedy partner of Donald O’Connor, he directed episodes of My Mother the Car, Get Smart, The Monkees, The Addams Family, Bewitched, My Favorite Martian and more than a hundred Mickey Mouse Club shows.
Hollywood film producer Ray Stark died on January 17th, aged 88. He formed Seven Arts Productions in 1957 with Eliot Hyman and his own Rastar Productions in 1966. Among his many credits is Somewhere in Time, based on the novel Bid Time Return by Richard Matheson.
Film producer and sales executive Harry Blum died of heart failure on January 18th, aged 71. His credits include Brian De Palma’s Obsession, At the Earth’s Core, The Magician of Lublin and the 1976 Russian-American fairytale The Blue Bird.
Influential German fashion photographer Helmut Newton was killed on January 23rd when he lost control of his Cadillac outside the Chateau Marmont hotel in Los Angeles. The 83-year-old apparently suffered a heart attack at the wheel. His photography was featured in the 1978 thriller The Eyes of Laura Mars.
Director-producer Andrew J. Kuehn, credited with creating the modern motion picture trailer, died of lung cancer on January 29th, aged 66. As the founder of Kaleidoscope Films, he conceived the advertising campaigns for such films as Jaws, E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, The Exorcist, The Empire Strikes Back, Jaws 2, Aliens, Back to the Future, Jurassic Park and the Indiana Jones trilogy. His other credits include the 1984 feature documentary Terror in the Aisles hosted by Donald Pleasence and Nancy Allen.
Prolific American TV director Bernard McEveety [Jr.] died on February 2nd, aged 79. After working as the assistant director on The Return of Dracula (1957), McEveety moved to episodic television, where he directed for such series as Wild Wild West, Planet of the Apes, The Incredible Hulk, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, Blue Thunder, Misfits of Science and many others. In 1971 he returned to the big screen with The Brotherhood of Satan, starring Strother Martin and L.Q. Jones.
TV director Larry Elikann, whose credits include The Haunted Mansion Mystery and The Big One: The Great Los Angeles Earthquake, died on February 4th, aged 80.
Oscar-winning costume designer Elois Jenssen died on February 14th, aged 81. She was nominated for an Academy Award for her work on Disney’s Tron, and she also designed for the TV series My Living Doll (1964–65) starring Julie Newmar.
Two-time Academy Award-winning film editor Ralph E. Winters died on February 26th, aged 94. The Canadian-born Winters co-edited King Solomon’s Mines, plus Ben-Hur, Gaslight and King Kong (1976).
Dana Broccoli (Danjaq Natol) who, with her late husband Albert “Cubby” Broccoli, con
trolled the rights to the James Bond film franchise, died of cancer on February 29th, aged 82. As an actress, she played “Queen Bonga Bonga” opposite her previous husband Lewis Wilson in Wild Women (1951) and also appeared in Moonraker.
Canadian film producer and exhibitor Nathan A. “Nat” Taylor, the creator of the Multiplex movie theatre, died on March 1st, aged 97. He produced the 3-D horror film The Mask (aka Eyes of Hell, 1961), the first Canadian film to be distributed in the United States by a major studio. His other movie credits include The Reincarnate.
French film director Rene Laloux, best known for his 1973 animated film La planete sauvage (Fantastic Planet), died on March 14th, aged 75. His other credits include Gandahar and Time Masters.
Fifty-year-old American art designer John Vallone died as a result of a drowning accident on March 15th. He worked on Star Trek The Motion Picture, Brainstorm, Streets of Fire, Predator and the TV miniseries Firestarter Rekindled.
Film editor and actor Fima Noveck, who re-edited Ganja and Hess into the inferior Blood Couple, died on March 30th, aged 86.
Film director H. Gordon Boos, whose credits include Red Surf, died of brain cancer on April 3rd, aged 45.
Veteran British film editor Ralph Kemplen died on April 5th, aged 91. His many credits include the 1933 The Ghoul (with Boris Karloff), Scrooge (1935), The Triumph of Sherlock Holmes, Man in the Mirror, Uncle Silas, Pandora and the Flying Dutchman and The Dark Crystal.
American TV and film director Allen Reisner died of Alzheimer’s disease on April 8th, aged 80. His numerous credits include episodes of Twilight Zone, Night Gallery, Green Hornet, Great Ghost Tales and Tales of the Unexpected.
Fifty-one-year-old Micheline Charest, the co-founder of Canada’s children’s TV production company Cinar (Are You Afraid of the Dark?, Mona the Vampire, etc.), died on April 14th from complications from plastic surgery.
Olga Druce, producer/director of the TV series Captain Video (1949–56), died on April 18th, aged 92. Her other credits include the House of Mystery and Superman radio shows.
Britain’s top casting director, Mary Selway, died after a long battle with cancer on April 21st, aged 68. Her more than 100 films include Death Line (US: Raw Meat), Alien, Superman, Rollerball, Flash Gordon, Ladyhawke, Aliens, Dracula (1979), Excalibur, Outland, Return of the Jedi, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Gothic, Fairy Tale: A True Story, Lost in Space, Thunderbirds, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and The Chronicles of Riddick. She also produced the 1992 version of Wuthering Heights.
Italian cinematographer Franco Delli Colli died on April 22nd, aged 75. His numerous credits include The Last Man on Earth (with Vincent Price), Frozen Terror, Revenge of the Dead, Rats, Night Child, Macabre and Ghosthouse.
Pioneer children’s TV producer Lee Orgel died of emphysema on May 12th, aged 78. As creative head of UPA Pictures, he produced the first animated prime-time network special, Mr Magoo’s Christmas Carol, and the musical cartoon feature Gay Pur-ee. Through his company Jomar Productions, Orgel developed The New Adventures of the Three Stooges and the Abbott and Costello cartoon TV series, and he scripted episodes of Batman and Scooby-Doo Where Are You?.
American producer-director John Braden, whose films include the low budget The Day It Came to Earth and Revenge of Bigfoot, died of pneumonia on May 22nd, aged 55.
Movie art director and production designer Robert Burns, whose credits include The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974), The Hills Have Eyes, Tourist Trap, The Howling, Full Moon High, Demonoid, Don’t Go Near the Park, Time Walker, Microwave Massacre, Mausoleum, Reanimator, Future-Kill, Play Dead, The Outing and Nightwish, committed suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning on June 1st, aged 61. He had terminal cancer. An expert on actor Rondo Hatton, Burns starred in and designed Confessions of a Serial Killer (1985).
Ed DiGiulo, who received an Academy Award in 1978 for helping to develop the Steadicam camera, died of congestive heart failure on June 4th, aged 76. He worked closely with Stanley Kubrick on all his films from A Clockwork Orange onwards.
Former musician turned Emmy Award-winning cinematographer and TV director Charles J. Correll died of pancreatic cancer the same day, aged 60. As leader of The Corrells he had some regional instrumental hits and released an album of beach party music. After becoming a camera operator on Dragnet, he shot such films as Star Trek III The Search for Spock (in which he had a cameo), Dr Scorpion and the mini-series The Dark Secret of Harvest Home, and directed a number of made-for-television movies along with episodes of Stargate SG-1 and Seven Days. His father was Andy Correll, of the infamous “Amos ’n’ Andy” blackface radio team.
Special effects technician Donald [Edmund] “Pappy” Trumbull, winner of two Academy Awards for Scientific and Technical Achievement, died on June 7th, aged 95. A designer of process projection systems, motion control camera systems and special equipment for film production, he started his career as a special effects rigger of The Wizard of Oz (1939), and his subsequent credits (often working alongside his son, Douglas Trumbull) include Silent Running, Star Wars, The Little Prince, Firefox, Star Trek The Motion Picture and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. With John Dykstra and others he was a partner and chief engineer in Apogee Productions.
American-born film producer Max J. Rosenberg, the cousin of independent film-maker Doris Wishman, died in Los Angeles after a long illness on June 14th, aged 89. A former attorney and film distributor, in 1956 he teamed up with Milton Subotsky (who died in 1990) to produce the teen musical Rock Rock Rock. After having their idea for a Frankenstein remake bought out from under them by Hammer Films, the duo formed rival company Amicus Productions in the early 1960s and made a string of successful low budget horror and SF movies in Britain, including City of the Dead (US: Horror Hotel), Dr Terror’s House of Horrors, Dr Who and the Daleks, The Skull, The Psychopath, Daleks’ Invasion Earth 2150 A.D., The Deadly Bees, The Terrornauts, They Came from Beyond Space, Torture Garden, The Mind of Mr Soames, Tales from the Crypt, Asylum, Scream and Scream Again, The House That Dripped Blood, I Monster, Vault of Horror, —And Now the Screaming Starts!, Madhouse, The Beast Must Die, From Beyond the Grave, The Land That Time Forgot and At the Earth’s Core. After Rosenberg split with Subotsky in the 1970s, he produced Welcome to Blood City, The Incredible Melting Man, Bloody Birthday, the 1982 remake of Cat People and Invasion Earth: The Aliens Are Here. He also distributed Hammer’s The Satanic Rites of Dracula and Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires in America.
Japanese film director Noriaki Yuasa (Noriaki Uyasa), who directed seven of the eight original Gamera films during the 1960s and ’70s, died of a stroke the same day, aged 71.
American film producer Dan Cracchiolo, whose credits include The Matrix, also died of June 14th, from injuries sustained in a motorcycle accident in Los Angeles. He was 39. Cracchiolo was Joel Silver’s assistant on HBO’s Tales from the Crypt series and his other credits include Demon Knight, Bordello of Blood, House on Haunted Hill (2000) and Thir13en Ghosts (2001).
American TV director Seymour Robbie died on June 17th, aged 84. His numerous credits include episodes of Lost in Space, Kolchak: The Night Stalker and Wonder Woman.
Infuential Indian film producer Yash Johar died of chest congestion on June 26th, aged 76. Along with his own globe-trotting Bollywood productions, he was also associate producer on Disney’s The Jungle Book (1994) and his company handled production services for Michael Bay’s Armageddon.
Anthony J. “Tony” Hope, a former director of business affairs at Twentieth Century Fox and the eldest adopted son of Bob and Delores Hope, died on June 28th after a brief illness. He was 63 and in 1986 ran for Congress as a Republican in California.
Award-winning cable TV executive Alexandra “Alex” Middendorf died of Lou Gehrig’s disease on June 29th, aged 52. Earlier in her career she was an actress and stuntwoman, and appeared as a Bond girl in Moonraker.
Italian cinematographer Carlo Di Palma died after a long illness on July 9th, aged 79. His credits include Mich
elangelo Antonioni’s influential Blowup, Terror Creatures from the Grave, The Monster and eleven films with Woody Allen, including Shadows and Fog and Manhattan Murder Mystery.
Puppeteer Peter Baird, whose credits include The Muppets Take Manhattan, Howard the Duck and Howling III, died of oesophageal cancer on July 16th, aged 52.
Seventy-eight-year-old German-born film director Irvin S. (Shortness) “Shorty” Yeaworth, Jr. died in a single automobile accident in Jordan on July 19th. He reportedly fell asleep at the wheel. Yeaworth’s credits include the cult favourites The Blob (1958), 4D Man (aka The Evil Force/Master of Terror) and Dinosaurus!. He later became a tour guide in the Holy Land and was an expert in evangelical media presentations and motivational films (financed by Billy Graham).
British aerial cinematographer Peter [Leslie] Allwork died on July 30th, aged 76. The founder of Aerial Camera Systems (ACS), a leading supplier of specialized facilities to film and TV companies, his credits include Hitchcock’s Frenzy, The Land That Time Forgot, the 1978 Superman, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, and such Bond films as For Your Eyes Only, Never Say Never Again and A View to a Kill.
Fifty-one-year-old film editor Geraldine Peroni, whose credits include The Last Temptation of Christ and the TV special The Buried Secret of M. Night Shyamalan, committed suicide on August 3rd.
Spanish film editor Pablo Gonzalez del Amo, who worked on The Spirit of the Beehive, The Blood-Spattered Bride, Leonor and A Candle for the Devil, died on August 4th, aged 77.
Mexican writer, producer and director Ismael Rodriguez, who co-directed The Beast of Hollow Mountain and The Mighty Jungle, died of renal failure on August 7th, aged 83. He also directed the surreal horror/comedy Autopsia de un fantasma starring Basil Rathbone, John Carradine and Cameron Mitchell.
American special effects supervisor Martin Becker, co-founder with Jim Gill of Reel Efx, Inc., died of pancreatic cancer on August 13th, aged 49. His numerous credits include Star Trek II The Wrath of Khan, Friday the 13th II-VIII, April Fool’s Day, Mac and Me, Suburban Commando and The Muppet Movie.
The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 16 Page 77