The sixty-two-year-old Hollywood actress Farrah Fawcett (Ferrah Leni Fawcett) died after a long and very public battle against cancer the same day. After appearing on an iconic 1970s poster, the Texas-born actress was cast as Jill Munroe in the first season of ABC-TV’s Charlie’s Angels (1976–77) before she abruptly quit the show. She also appeared in I Dream of Jeannie, The Flying Nun and four episodes of The Six Million Dollar Man (opposite her husband [1973–82] Lee Majors), while her movie credits include Myra Breckinridge (with John Carradine), Logan’s Run, Saturn 3 and Disney’s The Brave Little Toaster Goes to Mars. The month before her death, NBC aired a documentary in which the actress allowed cameras to chronicle her fight against cancer. From 1980 to 1997 Fawcett dated Ryan O’Neal, and the actor was at her bedside when she died.
Perky Hollywood “B” movie actress and singer Gale Storm (Josephine Owaissa Cottle) died on June 27, aged eighty-seven. She appeared in the Monogram mysteries Cosmo Jones Crime Smasher (based on the radio series) and Revenge of the Zombies (with John Carradine), along with an episode of TV’s The Unexpected. She had her own eponymous TV series from 1956 to 1960 (Boris Karloff appeared as himself in a 1959 episode) and recorded a number of chart hits, including “I Hear You Knocking” and “Dark Moon”, which reached #4 on the Billboard chart.
Comedian, impersonator and voice artist Fred Travalena (Frederick Albert Travalena III) died of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma on June 28, aged sixty-six. He appeared on TV in episodes of Fantasy Island and Black Scorpion, and contributed voice-work to The Jetsons, The ABC Comedy Hour, Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo, Smurfs, Dinosaurs and King Fu Magoo.
Czechoslovakian-born actor Jan Rubes died of complications from a stroke in Toronto, Canada, on June 29. He was eighty-nine. A former opera singer, Rubes emigrated to Canada in 1948. He appeared in such films as Deadly Harvest, Murder in Space, Dead of Winter, Blood Relations, The Kiss, The Amityville Curse, Lamb Chop and the Haunted Studio (as the Phantom) and The Birds II: Land’s End, along with episodes of The New Avengers, War of the Worlds, the unsold 1992 TV pilot for The Witches of Eastwick, The X Files, The Outer Limits (1999), Stargate SG-1 and Mentors.
Brothers Alberto Jiménez and Alejandro Pérez Jiménez, two masked Mexican midget wrestlers (“Lucha Mini”) who fought professionally under the names “La Parkita” (“Little Death”) and “Espectrito II”, were found dead by cleaners in a low-rent Mexico City hotel the same day. They were both thirty-six. Police believe that following a TV appearance, the pair picked up two women posing as prostitutes who gave them a cocktail of alcohol and drugs so that they could rob them. Although not usually lethal, the dose may have been too strong for the sibling luchadors. Their masks were placed on their coffins at the funeral. Police later arrested a sixty-five-year-old woman in connection with the deaths.
American singer and actor Harve Presnell (George Harvey Presnell), who portrayed Little Orphan Annie’s millionaire benefactor Daddy Warbucks on stage more than 2,000 times, died of pancreatic cancer on June 30, aged seventy-five. On TV he was best known in the recurring roles of Dr Sam Lane in Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman (1995–97) and Mr Parker in The Pretender (1997–2000) and the show’s spin-off movies The Pretender 2001 and The Pretender: Island of the Haunted. Presnell also appeared in episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents (uncredited), Star Trek: Voyager, The Guardian, The Outer Limits (1998) and Charmed, along with the movies Blood Bath (1976), The Whole Wide World (as Robert E. Howard’s father), Tidal Wave: No Escape, Escanaba in da Moonlight, Face/Off and Evan Almighty.
Veteran Oscar-winning American actor Karl Malden (Malden George Sekulovich), who starred as Detective Lt Mike Stone in ABC-TV’s popular police series The Streets of San Francisco (1972–77) and the 1992 spin-off movie, died in his sleep on July 1, aged ninety-seven. Malden also starred in the 1954 3-D movie Phantom of the Rue Morgue (based on Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Murders in the Rue Morgue”), and his other film credits include Dead Ringer (aka Dead Image), Murderer’s Row, Billion Dollar Brain, Dario Argento’s The Cat o’Nine Tales, Beyond the Poseidon Adventure, Meteor, and as the Walrus in the musical Alice in Wonderland (1985).
American actress and former model Anna Karen [Morrow], who was married to actor Jeff Morrow from 1947 until his death in 1993, died the same day, aged ninety-four. She had roles in episodes of TV’s Lights Out, One Step Beyond, Star Trek (“All Our Yesterdays”) and Project U.F.O.
Bob (Robert Bostwick) Mitchell, one of the last silent film organists in Hollywood, also died on July 1, aged ninety-six. Although the arrival of sound put an end to his career at the age of sixteen, in the early 1990s he became the resident organist at the Silent Movie Theatre on Fairfax Avenue. He also appeared (usually uncredited as a choir conductor) in a few films, including The Big Broadcast of 1938.
Hollywood leading lady Brenda Joyce (Betty “Graftina” Leabo), who played Jane to both Johnny Weissmuller’s and Lex Barker’s Tarzans, died of pneumonia on July 4, aged ninety-seven. She had been battling dementia for a decade. The former model made her screen debut in the Oscar-winning The Rains Came (1939) before being relegated to such “B” movies as Whispering Ghosts (with John Carradine), the “Inner Sanctum” mysteries Strange Confession (aka The Missing Head) and Pillow of Death (both with Lon Chaney, Jr) and The Spider Woman Strikes Back (with Gale Sondergaard). Succeeding Maureen O’Sullivan in the role, she portrayed the jungle man’s mate in Tarzan and the Amazons, Tarzan and the Leopard Woman (with Acquenetta), Tarzan and the Huntress, Tarzan and the Mermaids (with George Zucco) and Tarzan’s Magic Fountain. Leaving movies in the late 1940s, she worked incognito for a decade in Washington for the Department of Immigration, and she also kept her past secret from staff at the nursing home in Santa Monica, where she spent her final years.
British singer, sailor, cook, property developer, sometime-actor and general bon vivant Hugh [Geoffroy] Millais, the great-grandson of the Pre-Raphaelite painter Sir John Everett Millais, died the same day, aged seventy-nine. A friend to the rich and famous, including Salvador Dali, Orson Welles and Ernest Hemingway, he appeared in a few films, including Robert Altman’s psychological mystery Images.
British actress Zena Marshall, who was born in Nairobi, Kenya, died in London of cancer on July 10, aged eighty-three. A member of Rank’s famous “Charm School” (alongside Christopher Lee and Diana Dors), she played seductive villain Miss Taro in the first James Bond movie, Dr No (1962). Her other film credits include Miranda, Helter Skelter (1949), So Long at the Fair, Three Cases of Murder (the “Lord Mountdrago” episode with Orson Welles) and the Amicus SF movie The Terrornauts, plus episodes of TV’s Colonel March of Scotland Yard (with Boris Karloff) and Invisible Man (1959).
British character actor John [Patrick] Breslin, best known for his role as Alan-a-Dale in the 1953 TV series Robin Hood, died on July 11, aged eighty. He apparently turned up in a couple of uncredited roles in The 3 Worlds of Gulliver and Gorgo, and appeared in the Doctor Who series “Spearhead from Space” and an episode of U.F.O. During the 1960s, Breslin reportedly dubbed Steve Reeves in a number of Italian muscleman films.
Hollywood leading lady Beverly [Louise] Roberts, who co-starred with Boris Karloff in Warner Bros.’ West of Shanghai, died on July 13, aged ninety-five.
Albanian-born Italian actress Romana Francesca Coluzzi died of lung cancer on July 15, aged sixty-six. Best remembered for her sex comedies of the 1970s, she made her uncredited screen debut in Lucio Fulci’s SF comedy 002 operazione Luna (1965), and her other film credits include Themroc, Il cav. Costante Nicosia demoniaco, ovvero: Dracula in Brianza, Bollenti spiriti and Red Sonja.
Respected TV broadcaster and commentator (“The Most Trusted Man in America”) Walter Cronkite (Walter Leland Cronkite, Jr), died of cerebrovascular disease on July 17, aged ninety-two. While a news anchor for CBS, he covered the Apollo XI Moon landing in 1969 for twenty-seven out of the thirty hours of the flight. He also hosted the 2000 TV movie Fail Safe and contributed his voice to the animated movie We’re
Back! A Dinosaur’s Story.
Musician Gordon Waller, one half of the 1960s British pop duo Peter & Gordon (with Jane Asher’s brother, Peter), died of cardiac arrest in Norwich, Connecticut, the same day, aged sixty-four. The duo’s biggest hit was “A World Without Love” in 1964, written by Paul McCartney.
British stage, screen and radio actress Jill [Angela Henriette] Balcon, the daughter of Ealing Studios boss Sir Michael Balcon, died on July 18, aged eighty-four. She married future poet laureate C. Day-Lewis after a very public scandal in 1951, and the couple remained together until his early death from cancer in 1972. The second of their two children is Oscar-winning actor Daniel Day-Lewis.
Hollywood actress and former department store model Virginia [Elizabeth] Carroll, who appeared (uncredited) with her first husband, actor Ralph Byrd, in the 1938 Republic serial Dick Tracy Returns, died on July 23, aged ninety-five. She was also in the serials Mysterious Doctor Satan, G-Men vs. the Black Dragon (aka Black Dragons of Manzanar), The Crimson Ghost (aka Cyclotrode ‘X’), The Black Widow (aka Sombra, the Spider Woman) and Superman (1948, as Martha Kent). Her many other credits include episodes of TV’s Adventures of Superman and The Adventures of Dr Fu Manchu.
Irish-born character actor Harry Towb died of cancer in London on July 24, aged eighty-three. He was in Digby the Biggest Dog in the World, and appeared on TV in a 1958 adaptation of Arsenic and Old Lace for ITV Play of the Week and episodes of the 1950s Sherlock Holmes, Suspense, The Avengers, The Champions and Doctor Who.
Character actor Clayton D. (David) Hill, who played a lead zombie in George A. Romero’s Dawn of the Dead, died of complications from pneumonia on July 27, aged eighty-eight. A former singer who also worked as a location casting director, weapons co-ordinator and second unit director, Hill appeared in Knightriders, Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth (as The Priest) and was about to start filming River of Darkness when he died.
Sixty-six-year-old Italian-born singer Renato Pagliari who, as one half of the duo Renée (Hilary Lester) and Renato, topped the UK charts for four weeks in 1982 with “Save Your Love”, died following surgery for a brain tumour on July 29. He also sang the jingle “Just One More Cornetto” in the memorable Wall’s ice-cream commercial.
The same day saw the deaths of twenty-eight-year-old Michelle Partlow (aka Amber Harris) and fifty-nine-year-old Wanda Faye [Mabrey] in an automobile accident in Beebe, Arkansas. Both actresses appeared in the direct-to-video movies Evil on Queen Street, Evil on Queen Street: Ascension, StoryLine and Pray for the Hunters.
Influential American folk musician and folklorist Mike (Michael) Seeger, half-brother of Pete Seeger and brother of Peggy Seeger, died on August 7, aged seventy-five. A founding member in the late 1950s of the music group The New Lost City Ramblers, his own record albums include Tipple Loom and Rail and Music from True Vine.
Film and TV character actor John Quade (John William Saunders III), who made a career out of playing “heavies” and sheriffs, died in his sleep on August 9, aged seventy-one. A former worker in the missile and aerospace industry before he became an actor, Quade appeared in the pilot for Planet Earth, The Swinging Cheerleaders, The Ghost of Flight 401, The Highwayman, And You Thought Your Parents Were Weird, plus episodes of The Wild Wild West, The Bionic Woman, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, Galactica 1980, Manimal and Werewolf.
Romanian-born character actor Henry Ramer died in Toronto, Canada, the same day. He was thought to be in his eighties. Ramer’s credits include Change of Mind, Welcome to Blood City, Starship Invasions (with Christopher Lee) and Virus, plus voice work on the 1960s Spider-Man cartoon series, Friday the 13th The Series, Screamers and Mythic Warriors: Guardians of the Legend. The actor was also the voice of “the mysterious Luther Kranst”, who introduced 100 episodes of the Canadian late-night radio series Nightfall (1980-83), which included adaptations of “The Tell-Tale Heart” and “The Monkey’s Paw”.
Former fashion model/Hollywood actress Ruth Ford died on August 12, aged ninety-eight. A member of Orson Welles’ Mercury Theatre group, during the 1940s she appeared in such “B” movies as Secrets of the Lone Wolf, The Hidden Hand (with Milton Parsons), The Woman Who Came Back and Dragonwyck (uncredited), before making a belated comeback in Too Scared to Scream (1985). She was married to actors Peter van Eyck and Zachary Scott.
Actor and comedian Sammy Petrillo (Sam Patrello, aka Samuel Petrillo), who made a career out of looking and sounding like Jerry Lewis, died of cancer on August 15, aged seventy-four. Best known for playing himself in the not-quite-dreadful 1952 horror comedy Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla (aka The Boys from Brooklyn), he also appeared in The Brain That Wouldn’t Die (uncredited), the nudie comedies Shangri-La and Doris Wishman’s Keyholes Are For Peeping, along with the 1997 documentary Lugosi: Hollywood’s Dracula. As the owner of a Pittsburgh comedy nightclub, he gave Richard Pryor and Dennis Miller their first big breaks.
Ninety-year-old Virginia Davis who, as a four-year-old, was the curly-haired star of Walt Disney’s pioneering Alice films (1923-25), combining animation with live-action, died the same day. She also had an uncredited role in the old dark house mystery Murder at the Vanities (1934) and provided some background voices for Disney’s Pinocchio. Davis later became an interior designer, magazine editor and a real estate agent.
Mexican character actor Héctor Gómez [Sotomayor] died of cancer on August 15, aged seventy-four. He appeared in Invisible Man in Mexico, Blue Demon destructor de espías, Pasaporte a la muerte and the 1962 TV series Las momias de Guanajuato.
Johnny Carter, lead tenor of the 1960s group The Dells (“Oh, What a Night”) and the last surviving member of the 1950s group The Flamingos (“I Only Have Eyes for You”), died of lung cancer on August 21, aged seventy-five.
Diminutive British variety actress Sadie Corré died of complications from a stroke on August 26, aged ninety-one. Her first film role was as the ventriloquist dummy Hugo in the 1964 Devil Doll, and she also had small roles in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Wombling Free, The Dark Crystal, Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi (as an Ewok), Brazil, Willow and Who Framed Roger Rabbit. The four-foot, two-inch Corré also played various pantomime cats on stage.
American actor Wayne Tippit died on August 28, aged seventy-six. Tippit, who underwent a lung transplant in 2000, died of complications from emphysema. In 1964 he was assistant director and played the drunk killed by a monster in The Horror of Party Beach. His other credits include episodes of Tales from the Darkside, Quantum Leap, Dark Shadows (1990–91), The X Files and Dark Skies (as J. Edgar Hoover).
German actress and dancer Mady Rahl (Edith Gertrud Meta Raschke), reportedly the last surviving star of the UFA studio, died of cancer the same day, aged ninety-four. She made her film debut in 1934, and her numerous credits include The Inn on Dartmoor, The Horror of Blackwood Castle, Venus in Furs and the TV comedy Faust auf eigene Faust.
Mexican actress Yolanda Varela (Carmen Yolanda Sainz Reyes) died of a cerebral embolism on August 29, aged seventy-nine. She began her film career while a teenager, and her credits include La casa del terror (aka Face of the Screaming Werewolf, with Lon Chaney, Jr).
Dependable Scottish actor Iain Cuthbertson died on September 4, aged seventy-nine. Although he appeared in a number of films, he is better known for his TV work in Nigel Kneale’s The Stone Tape and episodes of Adam Adamant Lives!, The Avengers, The Ghosts of Motley Hall, Children of the Stones, Survivors, Doctor Who (“The Ribos Operation”) and The Ray Bradbury Theater.
Former child actor Frank [Francis Edward] Coghlan, Jr (aka Junior Coghlan) who, as Billy Batson, shouted “Shazam!” and turned into the adult superhero (Tom Tyler) of the 1941 serial The Adventures of Captain Marvel, died on September 7, aged ninety-three. His many other films (often uncredited) include Charlie Chan at the Race Track, It’s a Wonderful Life, Murder Over New York and Valley of the Dolls. In 1974 he had a cameo role in the CBS-TV series Shazam!
Australian-born actor Ray Barrett (Raymond Cha
rles Barrett), who voiced both John Tracy and the villainous Hood in Thunderbirds (1965–66) and Thunderbirds Are GO!, died on September 8 of a brain haemorrhage on Australia’s Gold Coast. He was eighty-two. Barrett worked in Britain during the 1960s and 1970s, appearing in such movies as The Reptile for Hammer and Revenge, while his TV credits include Out of This World, The Avengers, Doctor Who and Stingray (as the voice of Commander Sam Shore who announced “Stand by for action!”).
South African-born actor Zakes Mokae died in Las Vegas of complications from a stroke on September 11, aged seventy-five. He had suffered from Parkinson’s disease for a number of years. Mokae moved to London in the early 1960s when his acting career was blocked in his own country, and he eventually relocated to America in the mid-1970s. He appeared in the films The Island, The Serpent and the Rainbow, Body Parts, Dust Devil, Vampire in Brooklyn, Outbreak and Waterworld, along with episodes of Knight Rider and The X Files.
American actor Paul Burke died of leukaemia and non-Hodg-kin’s lymphoma on September 13, aged eighty-three. Although he made his film debut in the early 1950s and appeared in such movies as Francis Goes to West Point, Francis in the Navy, The Disembodied, Daddy’s Gone A-Hunting, Crowhaven Farm (with John Carradine) and Psychic Killer, he was better known as a TV star with appearances in such shows as Adventures of Superman, Men Into Space, Thriller (1974) and Fantasy Island to his credit.
The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror Page 53