Anarchic Indian-born British comedian and author Sir Spike Milligan (Terence Alan Patrick Sean Milligan) died of kidney failure after a long illness on February 27th, aged 83. The last surviving member of BBC Radio’s The Goon Show (1951–60), he also appeared in such movies as Down Among the Z Men, What a Whopper, The Bed-Sitting Room (co-written with John Antrobus), The Magic Christian, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1972), Digby The Biggest Dog in the World, The Hound of the Baskervilles (1977), Monty Python’s Life of Brian and the BBC-TV miniseries of Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast (2000). He suffered from mental problems all his life and wanted his gravestone to read: “Here Lies Spike Milligan. I Told You I Was Ill”.
American-born stage and screen actress Irene Worth, who acted with Laurence Olivier, John Gielgud and Alec Guinness, died of a stroke on March 10th, aged 85. A winner of three Tony awards, her film credits include Deathtrap (1982).
Actress Iran Eory died the same day of a cerebral embolism, aged 65. Her films include The Blanchville Monster and many Spanish TV shows.
Randy Castillo, the drummer for Ozzy Osbourne and later Mötley Crüe (replacing Tommy Lee) died of cancer in Los Angeles on March 26th, aged 51.
66-year-old British-born comedian, jazz pianist and actor Dudley Moore CBE, best remembered for his TV collaborations with Peter Cook (who died in 1995), died in New Jersey of pneumonia resulting from complications from the degenerative brain disease supranuclear palsy on March 27th. In the late 1970s the once club-footed performer became an unlikely Hollywood star with box office hits such as 10 (replacing George Segal) and Arthur, and his other movies include Bedazzled (1968), The Bed-Sitting Room, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1972), The Hound of the Baskervilles (1977, as Dr Watson), Wholly Moses, Santa Claus, Like Father Like Son, Arthur 2: On the Rocks and The Mighty Kong. His last public appearance was to receive a CBE for services to entertainment from the Prince of Wales in November 2001. Moore was married to actresses Suzy Kendall and Tuesday Weld, and he gave instructions that his fourth wife should be barred from his funeral.
“Mr. Television” Milton Berle (Mendel Berlinger) died of colon cancer the same day, aged 93. The vaudevillian comedian appeared in such films as The Perils of Pauline (1914), Whispering Ghosts (with John Carradine), Over My Dead Body, It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World, The Loved One, Can Hieronymous Merkin Ever Forget Mercy Humppe and Find True Happiness?, Journey Back to Oz, Won Ton Ton the Dog Who Saved Hollywood, The Muppet Movie and Pee Wee’s Big Adventure. His first television appearance was in 1929 on a closed-circuit experiment to an audience of ten people, and by the early 1950s he was earning $200,000 a year in the medium. He portrayed Louie the Lilac on two episodes of the 1960s Batman TV series and in 1949 became the first person to appear on the covers of both Time and Newsweek.
Canadian-born character actor Jack Kruschen died after a long illness on April 2nd, aged 80. His many credits include Abbott and Costello Go to Mars, War of the Worlds (as the first victim of the Martian war machines), Angry Red Planet, Cape Fear (1962), Satan’s Cheerleaders and the TV movie The Time Machine (1978).
German leading man Heinz Drache died of lung cancer on April 3rd, aged 79. His numerous credits include The Avenger, The Door With Seven Locks and many other German Edgar Wallace thrillers, Dummy of Death, Coast of Skeletons, Circus of Fear and Brides of Fu Manchu (both with Christopher Lee), The Mysterious Magician and The Hound of Blackwood Castle.
45-year-old stuntman Harry O’Connor was killed in a para-glider accident on the set of Vin Diesel’s XXX on April 4th.
Hollywood leading man John Agar, who was married to a teenage Shirley Temple from 1945–49, died of emphysema after a long illness on April 7th, aged 81. He appeared in a number of films for John Ford, before starring in The Magic Carpet, The Revenge of the Creature, Tarantula, The Mole People, Daughter of Dr Jekyll, Attack of the Puppet People, The Brain from Planet Arous, Invisible Invaders, The Hand of Death, Journey to the Seventh Planet, Curse of the Swamp Creatures, Women of the Prehistoric Planet, Zontar, the Thing from Venus and Night Fright (aka The ET Nastie). Several drunken-driving arrests interrupted his career, and after a stint as an insurance salesman he returned as a respected character actor in King Kong (1976), Miracle Mile, Fear, Clive Barker’s Nightbreed, TV’s Body Bags and the 2001 short The Vampire Hunters Club.
French actor Ivan Desny (Ivan Nikolai Desnitskij), who was born to Russian parents in Peking, China, died of pneumonia in Switzerland on April 13th, aged 79. Discovered by David Lean in 1949, his many film credits include Sherlock Holmes and the Deadly Necklace, The Invisible Terror, The Mystery of Thug Island, I Killed Rasputin, Who? and Virgin Terror.
Actress Amelia Batchelor (Francis Amelia Bachelor), who was the second model for Columbia Pictures’ Lady Liberty logo in the late 1930s, died on April 15th, aged 94. She also played an Emerald City resident in The Wizard of Oz (1939).
55-year-old Canadian-born leading man Robert Urich died after a six-year battle with rare synovial cell sarcoma cancer on April 16th. The likeable star of such TV series as S.W.A.T. (1975–76), Soap (1977), Tabitha (1977–78), Vega$ (1978–81) and Spenser: For Hire (1985–88), he also appeared in Endangered Species, The Ice Pirates (with John Carradine) and such TV movies as Killdozer, Invitation to Hell, Amerika and Invasion America. He was married to actress Heather Menzies.
British stuntman and stunt coordinator Terry Walsh died in his sleep on April 21st, aged 62. As well as working on Doctor Who for nearly twenty years, his other credits include Superman (1978), Dragonslayer, An American Werewolf in London, Superman III, Krull, 1984, Never Say Never Again, Biggles, Superman IV The Quest for Peace, Willow, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, the TV movie Jekyll & Hyde (1990) and such series as Space: 1999 and Robin of Sherwood.
34-year-old Christopher Price, presenter of the BBC-TV entertainment show Liquid News, was found dead at his London home on April 22nd. A post-mortem examination revealed that he had died of the rare brain disease meningo-encephalitis, which may have spread from an ear infection.
Probably the world’s most famous porn actress, Linda Lovelace (Linda Susan Boreman), star of the 1972 film Deep Throat, died on April 22nd from massive trauma and internal injuries sustained in a car crash three weeks earlier. The 53-year-old was taken off life support at a Denver hospital. She claimed she was never paid for Deep Throat, despite the film making an estimated $600 million, and she went on to appear in Deep Throat Part II, The Confessions of Linda Lovelace, Sexual Ecstasy of the Macumba, Linda Lovelace Meets Miss Jones and Linda Lovelace for President. With Ordeal (1980), her third of four autobiographies, she became an outspoken critic of the adult sex industry and alleged that she was coerced into the adult film business by her manager, Chuck Traynor. Traynor himself died of a heart attack on July 22nd, three months to the day after Lovelace died. Tina Yothers was subsequently set to portray the actress on stage in Lovelace: The Musical.
British stage and screen actor Michael Bryant CBE died on April 25th, aged 74. His occasional film credits include The Mind Benders, Torture Garden, Mumsy Nanny Sonny & Girly, The Deep and The Ruling Class. He also starred in the 1972 BBC-TV adaptation of Nigel Kneale’s The Stone Tape and the 1974 adaptation of M. R. James’s The Treasure of Abbott Thomas.
30-year-old Lisa “Left Eye’ Lopes, the rapper with hit R&B trio TLC, died of internal injuries the same day when the SUV she was driving flipped three times on a two-lane country road in Honduras, Central America. Her seven passengers were injured, some seriously. TLC’s most recent two albums had combined sales of seventeen million copies in the US. In 1994 Lopes was sentenced to five years’ probation for burning down the home of her footballer boyfriend and entered rehab to deal with an alcohol problem.
Former actor turned agent Howard Pays, the father of actress Amanda, died of cancer on May 12th, aged 74. His acting credits include Horrors of the Black Museum, A Night to Remember and the 1958 TV series The Invisible Man.
American leading man Ray Stricklyn died of emphysema on May 14t
h, aged 73. His films include The Return of Dracula (aka The Fantastic Disappearing Man) and The Lost World (1960). From the 1970s he worked as a Hollywood publicist to pay the rent, before successfully returning to the stage and TV as an actor in the mid-1980s.
Lugubrious British character actor Bryan Pringle died on May 15th, aged 67. His numerous film credits include The Brain, Berserk!, The Boy Friend, Jabberwocky, Haunted Honeymoon, Brazil and Snow White A Tale of Terror.
The “Curse of Our Gang” struck again when 72-year-old Darwood Kaye (Darwood K. Smith), who played Waldo the egghead in Hal Roach’s Our Gang comedy shorts, was killed the same day when he was knocked down by an unknown vehicle while he was taking a daily walk. Smith appeared in twenty-two films in the series (1937–40), alongside other child performers such as Robert Blake. After leaving acting, he turned to Christianity as a teenager and later became a pastor in the Seventh-Day Adventist Church.
1970s adult-film star Bobby Astyr also died on May 15th, from lung cancer. Known as “the clown prince of porno”, his many credits include Tarz and Jane and Boy and Cheeta, Sherlick Holmes, Erotic Dr. Jekyll, Dracula Exotica and The Devil in Miss Jones Part II.
Prolific British character actor Charles Simon died of pneumonia on May 16th, aged 93. In a career that spanned almost eighty years, he appeared in numerous stage, screen and radio productions, including Shadowlands opposite Anthony Hopkins, Disney’s 102 Dalmatians, Whatever Happened to Harold Smith?, the BBC-TV series The Singing Detective, The Sight and the 2002 pilot Strange.
39-year-old Davey Boy Smith (David Smith), who wrestled in the WWF and WCW as “The British Bulldog”, died of a heart attack on May 17th while on vacation in Canada.
Veteran Los Angeles newscaster Jerry Dunphy died of a heart attack on May 20th, aged 80. Known as “the Dean of Los Angeles Broadcasting’, Dunphy made cameo appearances in numerous films, including Night of the Lepus, Oh, God! and Independence Day.
Joe Cobb, the rotund beanie-capped child actor who played Fat Joe in the silent Our Gang comedies, died in his sleep at a California convalescent home on May 21st, aged 85. He made his debut in the series in The Big Show (1923) at the age of five and appeared in eighty-six shorts until he was replaced by Norman “Chubby” Chaney.
British film and TV character actress Pat [Doreen] Coombs died of complications from emphysema in a West London nursing home on May 25th, aged 75. Among her few film roles was Henrietta Salt in Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971).
Serials stuntman and actor Robert Barron died of heart disease on May 28th, aged 80. His credits include The Green Hornet Strikes Again, Horror Island, Jungle Girl, Perils of Nyoka, Road to Morocco, Arabian Nights, Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, Cobra Woman, Spook Town, Raiders of Ghost City, The Master Key, Mr Hex, Tarzan and the Leopard Woman, Superman (1948, as Ro-Zan, Leader of Krypton) and Atom Man vs. Superman, amongst many other titles.
American actor Sam Whipple, who played Dr John Ballard on the TV series Seven Days (1998–2000), died of cancer on June 3rd, aged 41. His other credits include Jekyll & Hyde . . . Together Again and TV’s Lifepod.
49-year-old Dee Dee Ramone (Douglas Glenn Colvin), co-founder of rock band The Ramones in 1974 with Joey Ramone (who died of cancer in 2001), was found dead of an apparent drug overdose at his home in Los Angeles on June 5th. Ramone played bass with the band until 1989. They appeared in the cult 1979 movie Rock ’n’ Roll High School and recorded the theme for Pet Sematary.
Swedish-born actress Signe Hasso (Signe Larsson) died of cancer in a Los Angeles hospital on June 6th, aged 86 or 91 (her age was disputed). She began her acting career in 1933 and moved to Hollywood in 1940, where she mostly appeared in war films and noirs. She played a saucy French maid in Heaven Can Wait (1943) and was the object of Ronald Coleman’s psychotic jealousy in A Double Life. Her other credits include Bert I. Gordon’s Picture Mommy Dead, the TV movie Sherlock Holmes in New York, and various episodes of Lights Out, The Green Hornet, The Girl from U.N.C.L.E., Ghost Story and Darkroom.
Robbin Crosby, guitarist for the 1980s heavy metal rock band Ratt, died of drugs-induced AIDS complications the same day, aged 42. The band’s first four albums sold more than one million copies before they disbanded in 1992. He was once married to a Playboy “Playmate”.
American actor James Luisi, best remembered as Lt Doug Chapman on The Rockford Files (1976–80), died of cancer on June 7th, aged 72. His many credits include Ben, I Escaped from Devil’s Island, Fade to Black, The Hidden and such TV movies as Future Cop and Beyond Witch Mountain.
Irish character actor Dermot Walsh died on June 26th, aged 77. Married to actress Hazel Court until they divorced in 1963, he appeared in Jassy, Ghost Ship (1952), The Flesh and the Fiends and The Tell-Tale Heart.
The Who bass guitarist and songwriter John [Alec] Entwistle was found dead of a cocaine-induced heart attack in a Las Vegas hotel room on June 27th, the day before the ageing rock ’n’ roll band was set to begin a three-month US tour. Entwistle, who had appeared as himself in the 1975 movie Tommy, was 57 and had spent the night with an erotic dancer.
French actor François Périer (François Pilu), who portrayed the angel of Death, Heurtebise, in both Jean Cocteau’s Orphée (1950) and The Testament of Orpheus (1959), died on June 28th, aged 82. His more than 100 film credits also include Sylvia and the Ghost (1946).
Australian-born British character actress Margaret Johnston died in a nursing home on June 29th, aged 87. Her films include Night of the Eagle (aka Burn Witch Burn) and The Psychopath.
American singer and actress Rosemary Clooney died of complications from lung cancer the same day, aged 74. Married twice to actor José Ferrer (one of their five children is Miguel Ferrer and she was the aunt of George Clooney), she appeared in the 1953 Bob Hope whodunnit Here Come the Girls and Radioland Murders, while her most famous film appearance was in White Christmas with Bing Crosby.
78-year-old Mexican-born actress Katy Jurado (Maria Cristina Jurado Garcia), who won a Golden Globe for her performance in High Noon, died on July 5th of complications from lung and heart ailments. She appeared in the 1979 episode of TV’s Roald Dahl’s Tales of the Unexpected, “The Man from the South”, and her second husband (1959–64) was actor Ernest Borgnine.
Harpist Louise Klos [Stener Elian], who was married for a decade to composer Max Steiner and who performed on the soundtracks to King Kong (1933), Casablanca and The Jungle Book (1942), died on July 7th, aged 96.
Burly method actor Rod (Rodney) [Stephen] Steiger died of pneumonia and kidney failure in a Los Angeles hospital on July 9th, aged 77. He had been recovering from secret cancer surgery the week before. After appearing in such early TV shows as Lights Out, Out There, Tales of Tomorrow and Suspense, he starred opposite Marlon Brando in On the Waterfront (1954) and won an Oscar for his role in In the Heat of the Night (1967). Steiger also played Napoleon and Mussolini (twice) on screen. His more than 120 films include The Loved One, No Way to Treat a Lady, Ray Bradbury’s The Illustrated Man, The Amityville Horror, The Kindred, American Gothic, Out There, Mars Attacks, Revenant (aka Modern Vampires, as Van Helsing) and End of Days. He suffered from periods of clinical depression and was married five times, including to actress Claire Bloom from 1959–69.
British actor Gerald Campion, who starred as greedy schoolboy Billy Bunter in the BBC-TV series (1952–61), died of heart problems in southern France the same day, aged 81. He also appeared in such films as Miranda, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and opposite Boris Karloff in The Sorcerers.
Gene Moss, co-creator of the TV cartoon Roger Ramjet and the voice of Doodle in that series, died of cancer on July 15th, aged 75. In the mid-1960s he portrayed mad scientist Dr Von Schtick in the local Los Angeles television series Shrimpenstein and Moss was also the voice of Smokey Bear on TV and radio commercials during the 1980s.
Actor turned costume designer Keith Denny (aka “Simon Davis”) died of pneumonia on July 17th, aged 65. He played the lead female ape in 2001: A Space Odyssey before becoming a costu
me designer and wardrobe supervisor on such films as Clash of the Titans and American Gothic.
Australian-born character actor Leo McKern (Reginald McKern), who had worked in Britain since 1946, died in a nursing home on July 23rd, aged 82. He was being treated for diabetes and other health problems. Best known for his TV series Rumpole of the Bailey (1978–92) and as a recurring Number Two in the cult show The Prisoner (1968), his numerous film credits include Hammer’s X the Unknown, The Mouse That Roared, Scent of Mystery, The Day the Earth Caught Fire, Help!, The Shoes of the Fisherman, The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes’ Smarter Brother (as Moriarty), The Omen, Damien Omen II and Ladyhawke. On TV he was in The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe (1977), Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1981) and Space: 1999. McKern lost his left eye in an accident at the age of fifteen.
Veteran British character actor Maurice Denham OBE died on July 24th, aged 92. In 1955 he voiced every character in the animated Animal Farm, and his more than 100 other film credits include Miranda, Night of the Demon, The Night Caller (aka Blood Beast from Outer Space), Torture Garden, Some Girls Do, Hammer’s Paranoiac, Hysteria, The Nanny and Countess Dracula, plus TV’s Schalken the Painter and The Last Vampyre.
Singapore-born British stage and TV actor Tony Anholt, best known for his role as security chief Tony Verdeschi in the second season of Space: 1999 (1976–77), died of a brain tumour on July 26th, aged 61. His many other TV credits include The Protectors (1972), the British Thriller, Lexx, Relic Hunter and the Hammer House of Mystery and Suspense episode, The Late Nancy Irving.
Eccentric comedy actor Peter Bayliss died at his home in London on July 29th, aged 80. His credits include The Red Shoes, From Russia With Love, The Magic Christian and Vampira (aka Old Dracula, in which he played Maltravers, the Count’s faithful servant), plus Merlin, Alice in Wonderland and Arabian Nights on TV. He asked for his ashes to be put in a shoebox.
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