Janet Pollock (Janet Machen), the only daughter of author Arthur Machen and patron of The Friends of Arthur Machen society, died on October 10, aged 91. A former actress in Sir Donald Wolfitt’s company, she later became a social worker and spirited promoter of her late father’s work.
American big band trumpeter and jazz musician, composer and arranger Neal [Paul] Hefti died on October 11, aged 85. He won a Grammy Award in 1966 for his campy theme to the Batman TV show, and he also composed the music for the movies How to Murder Your Wife, Harlow, Lord Love a Duck, Oh Dad Poor Dad Mama’s Hung You in the Closet and I’m Feeling So Sad, Barefoot in the Park, The Odd Couple, the TV film Conspiracy of Terror and Won Ton Ton the Dog Who Saved Hollywood.
Chicago artist-photographer Harry E. Fassl died on October 12 from complications related to a flu-like illness. He was 56. Fassel’s disturbing photo-art appeared on the covers of Deathrealm and Grue magazines plus various titles published by Chaosium Press, including the anthology Song of Cthulhu.
American TV soap opera writer and consulting producer James E. Reilly, who created NBC’s supernatural serial Passions (1999–2008), died while recovering from cardiac surgery the same day, aged 60.
British SF writer Barrington J. (John) Bayley died of complications from bowel cancer on October 13, aged 71. He began his writing career in 1954 in Vargo Statten Science Fiction Magazine, and was later a regular contributor to his close friend Michael Moorcock’s New Worlds, Science Fantasy, Science Fiction Adventures and Interzone. Bayley’s novels include The Star Virus (an Ace Double), Annihilation Factor, Empire of Two Worlds, Collision with Chronos (aka Collision Course), Chronopolis (aka The Fall of Chronopolis), The Soul of the Robot, The Garments of Caean, The Grand Wheel, Star Winds, The Pillars of Eternity, The Zen Gun, The Forest of Peldain, The Rod of Light, Eye of Terror, The Sinners of Erspia and The Great Hydration. His short fiction is collected in The Knights of the Limits, The Seed of Evil and Gnostic Endings.
Sixty-five-year-old British screenwriter Christopher Wicking died of a heart attack in Toulouse, France, the same day. During the late 1960s and early ’70s he worked on a number of scripts for AIP and Hammer, including The Oblong Box, Scream and Scream Again, Cry of the Banshee, Murders in the Rue Morgue, Blood from the Mummy’s Tomb, Demons of the Mind and To the Devil a Daughter. His other credits include Venom (aka The Legend of Spider Forest), Medusa, Dream Demon and Lady Chatterley’s Lover (1981). In 1978, Wicking co-wrote the groundbreaking study The American Vein – Directors and Directions in Television with Tise Vahimagi.
German co-authors and married couple Johanna Braun and Gunter Braun died on October 24 and November 10, aged 79 and 80 respectively. Among the leading SF writers in the former German Democratic Republic, their often satirical and humorous books include The Great Magician’s Error (1972), Uncanny Phenomena on Omega XI, The Spheric Transcendental Project, The Inaudible Sounds and The Hero X-Time Multiplied. Their short fiction is collected in The Mistake Factor and A Journal from the Third Millennium Found in the Future.
Edgar Award-winning American novelist Tony Hillerman (Anthony Grove Hillerman) died of pulmonary failure on October 26, aged 83. His series of eighteen books featuring Navajo Tribal Police Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn and Sergeant Jim Chee, which include The Ghostway, Skinwalkers, Coyote Waits and The Shape Shifter, often dealt with reports of witchcraft and other apparently supernatural events.
British scriptwriter and sometimes actor Chris Bryant [Christopher Bryan Spencer Dobson], who co-wrote Nicolas Roeg’s Don’t Look Now, died on October 27, aged 72. His other credits include the 1975 version of The Spiral Staircase and The Awakening, the latter based on The Jewel of Seven Stars by Bram Stoker.
German composer and arranger Erwin Halletz died in Vienna the same day, aged 85. His credits include Liane Jungle Godness and its sequel Jungle Girl and the Slaver, Lana Queen of the Amazons, the “Perry Rhodan” SF movie Operation Stardust, Teenage Sex Report, Shocking Asia and Shocking Asia II: The Last Taboos.
Bestselling author, film director, producer and screenwriter [John] Michael Crichton (aka “John Lange” and “Jeffery Hudson”) died of cancer on November 4, aged 66. The six-feet, seven-inch doctor-turned-novelist wrote such popular SF titles as The Andromeda Strain, The Terminal Man, Eaters of the Dead, Congo, Sphere, Timeline, Jurassic Park and its sequel The Lost World: Jurassic Park (all filmed), and had more than 100 million copies of his books in print. His other titles include Prey, Next and State of Fear. He directed the TV movie Pursuit (based on one of his early pseudonymous novels), Westworld, Coma, Looker and Runaway, and co-scripted Steven Spielberg’s movie of Jurassic Park and the disaster thriller Twister. He also created the popular NBC-TV medical show ER, and the shortlived SF series Beyond Westworld. Crichton was part of the team that won a 1995 technical achievement Oscar for developing a computerized movie budgeting system. A year earlier, he became the only creative artist in America to have the #1 novel, movie and TV series at the same time.
English-born fantasy writer Hugh [Walter Gilbert] Cook died in Japan after a long battle with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma on November 8. He was 52. Starting with The Wizard and the Warriors (aka Wizard War) in 1986, he published ten humorous novels in the “Chronicles of an Age of Darkness” (aka “Wizard War Chronicles”) series. Cook’s other books include Plague Summer, The Shift, Bamboo Horses and To Find and Wake the Dreamer. Some of his more than 100 short stories are collected in This is a Picture of Your God: A Hugh Cook Reader and The Succubus and Other Stories.
American screenwriter Arthur A. Ross, who co-scripted Creature from the Black Lagoon, died on November 11. His other credits include The Creature Walks Amongst Us, The 30 Foot Bride of Candy Rock, The 3 Worlds of Gulliver, the TV movie Satan’s School for Girls (as “A. A. Ross”) and eight episodes of NBC-TV’s The Alfred Hitchcock Hour.
Italian screenwriter, director and producer Marcello Fondato died on November 13, aged 84. He came up with the original story for the 1959 comedy Uncle Was a Vampire (starring Christopher Lee), and scripted Mario Bava’s Black Sabbath (starring Boris Karloff) and Blood and Black Lace. Fondato also wrote and produced the 1979 SF comedy The Sheriff and the Satellite Kid and scripted Aladdin (1986), both starring Bud Spencer.
Prolific American composer, arranger and musician Irving Gertz died on November 14, aged 93. He created the scores (often uncredited) for such films as The Devil’s Mask, It Came from Outer Space, Cult of the Cobra, Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy, The Creature Walks Among Us, The Incredible Shrinking Man, The Deadly Mantis, The Monolith Monsters, The Thing That Couldn’t Die, Curse of the Undead, The Alligator People, The Leech Woman and The Wizard of Baghdad, along with episodes of the TV shows Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, The Invaders and Land of the Giants.
Children’s writer Ivan [Francis] Southhall died of cancer on November 15, aged 87. The author of more than fifty books, he was the only Australian writer to win a Carnegie Medal for children’s literature (for Josh in 1971) and, starting in 1950 with Meet Simon Black, he wrote a series of children’s SF novels about the eponymous adventurer and inventor.
Prolific Italian screenwriter Ennio De Concini died after a long illness on November 17, aged 84. His numerous credits include Ulysses (1954), Hercules (1958), Hercules Unchained, The Last Days of Pompeii (1959), Giant of Marathon, Son of Samson, The Giants of Thessaly, The Colossus of Rhodes, The Witch’s Curse, Mario Bava’s classic Black Sunday (aka The Mask of Satan) and The Evil Eye, and Antonio Margherti’s Assignment Outer Space and Battle of the Worlds. De Concini won an Academy Award for his script for Divorce – Italian Style.
American comedy scriptwriter and director Irving Brecher, who wrote vaudeville jokes for Milton Berle and scripted such classic Marx Brothers movies as At the Circus and Go West, died following a series of heart attacks the same day, aged 94. He also worked as an uncredited script doctor on The Wizard of Oz (1939).
American mystery writer George C. (Clark) Chesbro died of complications from congestive h
eart failure on November 18, aged 68. Best known for his series of thirteen cross-genre books featuring dwarf private eye Robert “Mongo the Magnificent” Fredrickson, beginning with Shadow of a Broken Man in 1977, his other titles include the psychic “Veil Kendry” series and “Chant” series (as “David Cross”), along with a film tie-in for The Golden Child.
Scriptwriter John Michael Hayes, who wrote Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window (1954), died on November 19, aged 89. He continued to work with the director on To Catch a Thief, The Trouble with Harry, and the remake of The Man Who Knew Too Much, which resulted in a disagreement that ended the relationship.
American research chemist and SF writer Richard K. (Kenneth) Lyon died on November 21, aged 74. He made his debut in Analog in 1973 and published around twenty short stories, some of which were collected in Tales from the Lyonheart. In collaboration with Andrew J. Offut he wrote a further half-a-dozen tales, including a 1982 serial for Analog and the “War of the Wizards” trilogy of fantasy novels, Demon in the Mirror (1977), The Eye of Sarsis (1980) and Web of the Spider (1981).
Alan Gordon, who co-wrote the 1967 hit “Happy Together” for The Turtles, died of cancer on November 22, aged 64.
American horror writer Joseph McGee died of complications from diabetes on November 27, aged 23. Along with stories in various small press magazines, he published the novels In the Wake of the Night, The Reaper and Snow Hill.
British artist, writer and reviewer James [Philip] Cawthorn – best known for collaborating with his friend Michael Moorcock – died of pancreatic cancer on December 2, aged 78. Cawthorn provided the illustrations for a number of publications edited by Moorcock, including the fanzine Burroughsania, Tarzan Adventures, the Sexton Blake Library and New Worlds. He also supplied the art for early graphic novels based on Moorcock’s characters, including Stormbringer (1976), The Jewel in the Skull (1978) and The Crystal and the Amulet (1986), along with two 1962 portfolio’s based on J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. Together, Moorcock and Cawthorn wrote the Sexton Blake novel Caribbean Crisis, the SF novel The Distant Suns (as “Philip James”), the 1988 study Fantasy: The 100 Best Books and the script for the 1975 Amicus movie The Land That Time Forgot.
Legendary #1 SF fan, editor, literary agent, pulp author, memorabilia collector, Esperantist and film actor Forrest J (it didn’t stand for anything, so no period) Ackerman (aka “Uncle Forry”, “Mr Science Fiction”, “Mr Monster” and “Dr Acula” to his fans), died of heart failure at his Los Angeles home on December 4, aged 92. He had been in declining health for several months. Active in the SF field from the 1920s until his death, Ackerman is credited with launching the teenage Ray Bradbury’s career and coining the term “sci-fi”. He collaborated with C. L. Moore in Weird Tales, won the first Hugo Award in 1953, edited the translation of the Perry Rhodan series (1969–77), created the comic book character “Vampirella” and edited numerous anthologies and non-fiction books, including The Frankenscience Monster, Mr Monster’s Movie Gold, Monsters & Imagi-Movies and The Gernsback Awards Vol. 1. However, his greatest claim to fame is as editor of the influential and pun-filled movie magazine Famous Monsters of Filmland (1958–82) – along with its companion titles Spaceman and Monster World – which inspired the careers of numerous professionals, including Stephen King and Steven Spielberg. His numerous movie appearances (often in bit parts) include The Time Travelers, Queen of Blood, Dracula vs. Frankenstein, The Howling, Michael Jackson’s Thriller, Amazon Women on the Moon, Nudist Colony of the Dead, Bikini Drive-In and Dinosaur Valley Girls. Ackerman was presented with Lifetime Achievement Awards by the Horror Writers Association in 1997 and the World Fantasy Convention in 2002.
Mystery and non-fiction writer Julius Fast, who edited the 1944 SF anthology Out of This World, died on December 16, aged 89. He won the first-ever Edgar Award for his 1945 debut novel, Watchful at Night.
Screenwriter, playwright and actor Greg Suddeth died on December 19, aged 55. He scripted the 1990s movies Prehysteria! and Pet Shop, and came up with the original stories for Oblivion and Oblivion 2: Backlash. Suddeth played a gravedigger in the 2007 “Pie-lette” episode of ABC-TV’s Pushing Daisies.
UK poet and playwright Adrian Mitchell died of complications from pneumonia on December 20, aged 76. He wrote the 1970 dystopian novel The Bodyguard and the lyrics for a stage version of George Orwell’s Animal Farm.
Former 42nd Street projectionist, actor and journalist Bill Landis, who wrote and edited the groundbreaking exploitation movie magazine Sleazoid Express (1980–85), died of a heart attack in Chicago on December 22, aged 49. He revived the magazine for six issues in 1999 with wife Michelle Clifford, and in 2002 the pair edited a book collection of articles from the magazine, Sleazoid Express: A Mind-Twisting Tour Through the Grindhouse Cinema of Times Square.
The French-born Landis was also the author of Anger: The Unauthorized Biography of Kenneth Anger.
American book editor Thomas B. (Boss) Congdon, Jr. who, while at Doubleday, edited Peter Benchley’s 1974 best-seller Jaws, died from Parkinson’s disease and congestive heart failure on December 23, aged 77.
Controversial British playwright, screenwriter, director and actor Harold Pinter CBE died of cancer of the oesophagus on December 24, aged 78. He scripted the 1990 film adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s dystopian The Handmaid’s Tale, the 1993 version of Franz Kafka’s The Trial, and the 2007 remake of Anthony Shaffer’s Sleuth (in which he also had a cameo). Pinter was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2005.
Legendary pulp illustrator Edd (Edward Daniel) Cartier died of complications from Parkinson’s disease on Christmas day, aged 94. From 1936 onwards, he produced more than 800 illustrations for Street & Smith’s The Shadow Magazine, and contributed often whimsical SF and fantasy artwork to Unknown, Astounding, Doc Savage, Planet Stories, Fantastic Adventures and Other Worlds, amongst other titles. Along with newspaper strips and comics, he also produced artwork for Fantasy Press and Gnome Press during the 1950s. Gerry de la Ree published Edd Cartier: The Known and the Unknown in 1977, and the artist won a World Fantasy Life Achievement Award in 1992.
American SF writer and scientist Leo A. Frankowski also died on December 25, aged 65. His seven-book “Conrad Stargard” series began in 1986 with The Cross-Time Engineer and continued with The High-Tech Knight, The Radiant Warrior, The Flying Warlord, Lord Conrad’s Lady, Conrad’s Quest for Rubber and Conrad’s Time Machine. A nominee for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in 1987, his other books include Copernick’s Rebellion, The Fata Morgana and three collaborations with Dave Grossman, The War with Earth, The Two-Space War and Kren of the Mitchegai.
Scottish author and scriptwriter Alan W. (William) Lear, whose story “Let’s Do Something Naughty” appeared in The 25th Pan Book of Horror Stories, died on December 26, aged 55. He suffered from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome for many years. Lear’s fiction also appeared in The Mammoth Book of Ghost Stories 2 and the Haunted Library collection Spirits of Another Sort: Ghostly Tales of Tompion College. During the 1980s he scripted a series of amateur Doctor Who audio cassettes for Audio Visuals, including Enclave Irrelative, Minuet in Hell, Cloud of Fear and Time Lords, along with the video drama Scarecrow City, starring Nicholas Briggs. Minuet in Hell was rewritten in 2001 for an official Doctor Who audiobook with Paul McGann playing the Eighth Doctor.
Mystery writer Donald E. (Edwin Edmund) Westlake (aka “Richard Stark”) died of an apparent heart attack on December 31 while on his way to a New Year’s Eve dinner during a vacation in Texas. He was 75. Westlake began his career as a SF writer with “Or Give Me Death” in Universe (1954), and some of his SF short stories are collected in The Curious Facts Preceding My Execution and Other Fictions and Tomorrow’s Crimes. His more than 100 other books (many written under various pseudonyms, and all on a manual typewriter) include Anarchaos (as “Curt Clark”), Humans and Smoke. With his wife, Abby Westlake, he collaborated on the spoofs High Jinx and Transylvania Station. Among his crime novels that were fi
lmed were The Busy Body (by William Castle), The Hunter (as Point Blank), The Hot Rock and the Oscar-nominated The Grifters. Westlake wrote the screenplay for The Stepfather, he co-created the Dan Curtis show Supertrain, which only lasted for nine episodes on NBC in 1979, and his story “One on a Desert Island” became an episode of Hammer’s 1969 TV series Journey to the Unknown. A three-time Edgar Award winner, he was named a Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America in 1993.
PERFORMERS/PERSONALITIES
Finnish-born glamour ghoul and actress Maila Nurmi (Maila Elizabeth Syrjaniemi), better known under her screen persona “Vampira”, died of cardiac arrest on January 10, aged 86. Inspired by Charles Addams’ vampiric “Morticia” character, and an obvious influence on such later performers as “Elvira, Mistress of the Dark” (who she sued), Nurmi was one of the first “horror hosts” on TV, appearing on KABC-TV in Los Angeles (1954–55). Best remembered for co-starring in Edward D. Wood, Jr’s infamous Plan 9 From Outer Space opposite an ailing Bela Lugosi, her other credits include Sex Kittens Go to College, The Magic Sword, Flying Saucers Over Hollywood: The “Plan 9” Companion and The Haunted World of Edward D. Wood Jr. Vampira: The Movie was a 2006 documentary about her life and career, and she was portrayed by Lisa Marie in Tim Burton’s Ed Wood.
Rod Allen, lead singer with the British pop group The Fortunes, which he co-founded, died the same day after a short battle with liver cancer, aged 63. In the 1960s and early ’70s the group had hits with such songs as “You’ve Got Your Troubles”, “Here it Comes Again”, “Here Comes That Rainy Day Feeling Again” and “Storm in a Teacup”.
Troubled young actor Brad Renfro died on January 15, aged 25. Renfro had a history of drug abuse and was found dead at his home in Los Angeles. Named The Hollywood Reporter’s “Young Star” and one of People magazine’s “Top 30 Under 30” in the mid-1990s, he appeared in the 1998 film version of Stephen King’s Apt Pupil, Ghost World, The Mummy an’ the Armadillo and The Jacket. He was working on an adaptation of Brett Easton Ellis’ The Informers, starring Winona Ryder, at the time of his death.
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