The Best New Horror 7

by Stephen Jones

  Veteran character actor Elisha Cook, Jr died in May, aged 91. Best known for playing cowards and neurotics in such films as The Maltese Falcon (as Wilmer the gunsel) and The Big Sleep, his numerous other credits include Stranger on the Third Floor, I Wake Up Screaming, A-Haunting We Will Go, Hellzapoppin’, Dark Waters, Shane, Voodoo Island, House on Haunted Hill, The Haunted Palace, Black Zoo, Rosemary’s Baby, Blacula, The Night Stalker, Messiah of Evil, Dead of Night (1976), Salem’s Lot and Hammett.

  British stage, screen and television actor Eric Porter died of colon cancer on May 15th, aged 67. Best remembered as Soames in TV’s The Forsyte Saga, he also starred in Hammer’s The Lost Continent (1968) and Hands of the Ripper.

  Soviet-born Alexander Godunov was found dead of acute alcohol poisoning on May 17th, aged 45. The ex-star of the Bolshoi Ballet defected in 1979 and, after dancing for the American Ballet Theatre for three years, he turned to acting, appearing in such films as Die Hard, The Runestone and Waxwork II: Lost in Time.

  Elizabeth Montgomery, who will always be remembered as the nose-twitching witch Samantha in TV’s Bewitched (1964–72), died of cancer on May 18th, aged 57. The daughter of Hollywood actor Robert Montgomery, she also appeared in the TV movie The Legend of Lizzie Borden (1975) and in such series as The Twilight Zone, Thriller and One Step Beyond.

  American character actor Severn Darden died on May 26th, aged 65. His credits include Fearless Frank, The President’s Analyst, The Monitors, The Mad Room, Werewolves on Wheels, Who Fears the Devil (aka The Legend of Hillbilly John), Day of the Dolphin, Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, Battle for the Planet of the Apes, Saturday the 14th, Real Genius, Night Life (UK: Grave Misdemeanours) and the LA 2017 episode of TV’s The Name of the Game.

  Ballet dancer Prudence Hyman, who portrayed the title role in Hammer Film’s The Gorgon, died on June 1st, aged 81.

  Irish character actor and playwright Joseph Tomelty, who appeared in such British films as The Sound Barrier, Meet Mr. Lucifer, Devil Girl from Mars, Timeslip (US: The Atomic Man) and The Black Torment, died on June 7th. He was 84.

  British-born New Zealand actor Bruno Lawrence died of lung cancer on June 9th, aged 54. His film appearances include Battletruck (US: Warlords of the 21st Century), The Quiet Earth and Death Warmed Up.

  Sultry 1940s Hollywood star Lana Turner (Julia Jean Mildred Frances Turner) died, aged 75, on June 29th. The reclusive star of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1941), The Postman Always Rings Twice (1945) and The Three Musketeers (1948) was diagnosed with throat cancer two years earlier. She also starred in the Tyburn horror thriller Persecution (US: The Terror of Sheba/Sheba) and Witches Brew, the latter based on the novel Conjure Wife by Fritz Leiber. She really was discovered in a drugstore, and in 1958 her daughter Cheryl was charged with stabbing to death her mother’s lover, gangster Johnny Stompanato.

  Fussy comedy actor Gale Gordon (Gaylord Aldrich), who played opposite Lucille Ball on television for more than twenty years, died of cancer on June 30th, aged 89. He also appeared in such films as Thirty Foot Bride of Candy Rock, Visit to a Small Planet, Sergeant Deadhead and Joe Dante’s underrated horror spoof The ’burbs.

  Howling radio DJ Wolfman Jack (Robert Smith) died of a heart attack on July 1st, aged 57. He made cameo appearances in such movies as American Graffiti, Motel Hell, The Midnight Hour, Mortuary Academy and Midnight, and on TV in episodes of Wonder Woman, Galactica 1980 and Swamp Thing.

  Hungarian-born Eva Gabor, youngest of the three Gabor sisters, died from respiratory failure on July 4th, aged 74. The star of the TV series Green Acres (1965–71), her film credits include Tarzan and the Slave Girl, The Mad Magician with Vincent Price, Artists and Models, The Aristocats, The Rescuers and The Rescuers Down Under. She was married five times and ran a multi-million dollar wig company.

  Silent screen star Patsy Ruth Miller, who portrayed Esmeralda the gypsy girl in the 1923 Hunchback of Notre Dame opposite Lon Chaney Sr’s Quasimodo, died on July 16th, aged 91.

  Dependable TV actor Harry Guardino died of lung cancer on July 17th, aged 69. His numerous credits include The Last Child, Goldengirl and episodes of The Outer Limits, Night Gallery, The Evil Touch, Future Cop, Fantasy Island and Wonder Woman.

  British-born leading lady and later director Ida Lupino, the daughter of musical comedian Stanley Lupino, died on August 3rd of cancer. She was aged 77. After moving to Hollywood in the 1930s, she starred in Peter Ibbotson, They Drive By Night, High Sierra, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Out of the Fog, Ladies in Retirement, While the City Sleeps, I Love a Mystery (1967), The Devil’s Rain, The Food of the Gods and many other films, and directed several episodes of TV’s Thriller.

  Radio performer and the voice of numerous animated characters, Phil Harris, died of a heart attack on August 11th, aged 89. He will be best remembered for his characterization of Baloo the Bear in Disney’s animated The Jungle Book.

  Gary Crosby, the son of Bing, died of lung cancer on August 24th, aged 62. As an actor he appeared in The Night Stalker (1987).

  British actor Jeremy Brett (Jeremy Huggins) died of heart failure on September 12th, aged 59. A memorable, if somewhat eccentric Sherlock Holmes in the long-running TV series (1984–1993), he also appeared in a few films, including The Medusa Touch, and played Dorian Gray on TV, and Dracula on the stage.

  American comedy actor Grady Sutton died of natural causes on September 17th, aged 89. His many credits include Alexander’s Rag Time Band, The Bank Dick, Whispering Ghosts, Myra Breckinridge and Rock ’n’ Roll High School.

  Actor David McLean, who portrayed the Marlbro Man in TV commercials, ironically died of lung cancer on October 12th, aged 73. His film appearances include X–15, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, The Strangler, The Andromeda Strain, Deathsport and Kingdom of the Spiders.

  Swedish-born actress Viveca Lindfors (Elsa Torstendotter) died on October 25th of pneumonic complications from rheumatoid arthritis. She was aged 74, and her many film credits include Moonfleet, Hammer’s The Damned (US: These Are the Damned), Cauldron of Blood (aka Blind Man’s Bluff), The Hand (1981), Creepshow, Silent Madness, Frankenstein’s Auntie, The Exorcist III and Stargate.

  Actor Christopher Stone died of a heart attack on October 29th, aged 53. Married to actress Dee Wallace, his films include Love Me Deadly, The Howling, Cujo and The Annihilators.

  Actress Rosalind Cash died of cancer on Halloween, aged 56. A founding member of the Negro Ensemble theatre company, her many film credits include The Omega Man, Dr. Black and Mr. Hyde, The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension, Death Spa, Special Bulletin, The Offspring (UK: From a Whisper to a Scream) and Tales from the Hood.

  Character actor Paul Eddington died on November 4th of a rare form of skin cancer, aged 68. Best known for his roles on British TV, he co-starred with Christopher Lee in Hammer’s The Devil Rides Out (US: The Devil’s Bride) and also appeared in The Amazing Mr. Blunden.

  American actress Aneta Coursaut, who portrayed Steve McQueen’s girlfriend in The Blob (1958), and appeared in The Toolbox Murders, died of cancer on November 6th, aged 62.

  Distinguished stage and screen actor Sir Robert Stephens died on November 13th, aged 64. He played the title role in The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, and his other film credits include Morgan – A Suitable Case for Treatment (US: Morgan!), The Asphyx, The Shout and Afraid of the Dark. In 1992 he narrated the BBC-TV opera series The Vampyre.

  British actor-turned producer John Van Eyssen died of cancer the same day, aged 73. Best known for his portrayal of Jonathan Harker in Hammer’s Dracula (US: Horror of Dracula), he also appeared in The Four-Sided Triangle and Quatermass II (US: Enemy from Space) for the same studio.

  Russian actor and director Aleksandr Kaidanovsky died of a heart attack on December 2nd, aged 49. In 1979 he played the lead character in Andrei Tarkovsky’s Stalker.

  British character actor and comedian Jimmy Jewel died after a long illness on December 3rd, on the eve of his 83rd birthday. With his cousin Ben Warriss, he beca
me a leading light of the music hall scene, radio and television (including The Avengers). When their partnership broke up after 32 years, Jewel turned to straight acting.

  American musical star Vivian Blaine (Vivienne Stapleton) died on December 9th, aged 74. Most successful on Broadway, her films credits include Guys and Dolls, The Dark and Parasite.

  Character actress Butterfly McQueen (Thelma McQueen), aged 84, died on December 22nd following a fire. Her films include Gone With the Wind, Cabin in the Sky and The Phynx.

  British-born leading man Patric Knowles (Reginald Knowles) died of a cerebral haemorrhage on December 23rd, aged 84. He appeared in such classic Universal movies as The Wolf Man and Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, plus The Mystery of Marie Roget, The Strange Case of Dr. Rx, From the Earth to the Moon, Arnold and Terror in the Wax Museum.

  Relaxed singer and actor Dean Martin (Dino Crocetti) died of respiratory disease on December 25th, aged 78. During the 1940s and 50s he was successfully teamed with Jerry Lewis, until they split in 1956 and he became a solo star. His many film credits include Scared Stiff, Rio Bravo, What a Way to Go and Five Card Stud, and he portrayed Donald Hamilton’s secret agent Matt Helm in the silly sci-spy adventures The Silencers, Murderer’s Row, The Ambushers and The Wrecking Crew.

  Charlie Chaplin’s second wife, Lita Grey Chaplin (Lillita Louise MacMurray) died on December 29th, aged 87. She worked for Chaplin at his Hollywood studio when she was 12, and married him when she was 16 and he was 35. The couple had two sons before they were divorced three years later.

  FILM/TV TECHNICIANS

  Veteran Hammer Films make-up artist Roy Ashton died on January 10th, aged 85. The Australian-born Ashton was the studio’s chief make-up man from 1959 to 1966, creating many of Hammer’s classic monsters in such films as The Curse of the Werewolf, The Phantom of the Opera (1962), The Evil of Frankenstein, The Gorgon, She (1965), The Reptile, Plague of the Zombies and Dracula Prince of Darkness. In later years he also created the make-ups for Tales from the Crypt (1972), The Creeping Flesh, Legend of the Werewolf and The Monster Club.

  George Abbott, the veteran producer/director/writer for stage and screen, died of a stroke on January 31st, aged 107. He co-directed the movie version of his Broadway hit Damn Yankees in 1958.

  Animator John Halas died in January, aged 82. Born in Budapest, he originally worked with George Pal before creating his own animation studio, first in Hungary in 1935, and five years later in London in partnership with his wife, Joy Batchelor. Halas and Batchelor produced more than 2,000 short films and several features over the following four decades, including the 1954 version of George Orwell’s Animal Farm. Halas was awarded an OBE in 1972.

  Nigel Finch, who directed the 1992 BBC-TV opera series The Vampyre, died of AIDS on February 14th, aged 45.

  British producer/director Jack Clayton died on February 25th from an heart attack and liver problems. He was 73, and although best remembered for Room at the Top (1958), he also directed the terrifying The Innocents, Our Mother’s House and the underrated Something Wicked This Way Comes, based on the novel by Ray Bradbury.

  American-born director Cy Endfield died of cerebral vascular disease at his home in England on April 16th, aged 81. He scripted the Bowery Boys comedy Mr. Hex but after being blacklisted by the House Committee on Un-American Activities in 1951, he moved to the UK where he reputedly worked on the screenplay for Night of the Demon (US: Curse of the Demon) under the pseudonym “Hal E. Chester” and directed such movies as Tarzan’s Savage Fury, Mysterious Island (1961), Zulu and De Sade. In later years he became an inventor.

  Veteran Hollywood director Arthur Lubin died on May 11th, aged 96. His films include Abbott and Costello’s early vehicles Buck Privates and Hold That Ghost, Universal’s Technicolor Phantom of the Opera (1943) and Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, and such quickies as the Karloff-Lugosi Black Friday and the Gale Sondegaard-Rondo Hatton The Spider Woman Strikes Back. He was forced by the studio to accept a percentage of the profits to direct Francis (1949), about a talking mule, which was so successful it spawned six sequels (five of which he directed). Among his later credits are Footsteps in the Fog, Thief of Baghdad (1961), The Incredible Mr. Limpet and the TV series Mr. Ed (1961–1965).

  Animation pioneer and winner of five Academy Awards, (Isadore) Friz Freleng died on May 26th, aged 89. He began working for Walt Disney in the 1920s, but soon left to work on the Krazy Kat cartoon series, joining Warner Bros. in 1930, where he remained for the next thirty years. He was among the group of animators who created Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Tweety and Sylvester and a host of other well-known characters, and when Warner’s closed down its animation department in 1963, he went on to create The Pink Panther.

  Julian Blaustein, who produced The Day the Earth Stood Still and Bell, Book and Candle, died on June 20th, aged 82.

  Scottish director Gordon Flemying, whose credits include Dr. Who and the Daleks and Daleks’ Invasion Earth 2150 A.D., died on July 12th, aged 61.

  Hollywood composer Miklos Rozsa, aged 88, died of pneumonia on July 27th, three weeks after suffering a stroke. Winner of four Academy Awards, the Hungarian-born Rozsa started playing the violin and composing when he was five years old. In the 1930s he met fellow countryman Alexander Korda, who commissioned Rozsa to score such films as The Thief of Bagdad (1940) and Jungle Book (1942) for London Films. His other scores include Spellbound, A Double Life, Secret Beyond the Door, The Red House, Moonfleet, The Power, The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, The Golden Voyage of Sinbad, Fedora and Time After Time.

  Director Al Adamson (Albert Victor Adamson, Jr) was found murdered on August 2nd, his body buried in concrete under the whirlpool tub in his California home. He was 66. An “independent contractor”, Fred Fulford, aged 46, who had been living at Adamson’s house, was arrested in Florida five days later and charged with the murder of the exploitation film-maker. Adamson’s films often exist in differing versions with more or less sex and violence, under a variety of titles. His first film, in which he acted under the name of “Rick Adams”, was a 1955 Western Half-Way to Hell, but he is known for a series of schlocky 1960s and 70s horror pictures, using down-on-their-luck icons like John Carradine, Lon Chaney, Jr and J. Carrol Naish. Adamson’s numerous films include Blood of Dracula’s Castle, Five Bloody Graves, Satan’s Sadists, the pornographic Western Lash of Lust, the biker babe picture The Female Bunch, Horror of the Blood Monsters (aka Vampire Men of the Lost Planet), Dracula vs. Frankenstein (which was begun as The Blood Seekers), Brain of Blood, Blood of Ghastly Horror, Black Eliminator, Blazing Stewardesses, Jessie’s Girls and Nurse Sherri. His career faded out in the 1970s and he ran the Houston’s Pit Bar-B-Q in Santa Monica. His most persistent leading lady was Regina Carroll, an exotic dancer who became his wife and died in 1992.

  Former Columbia Pictures president David Begelman, whose admission to felony grand theft for forging a $10,000 cheque in 1977 scandalized Hollywood, apparently shot himself on August 7th. He was aged 74. He supervised such boxoffice hits as Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Taxi Driver and Murder By Death, and although he was reinstated as head of Columbia following the scandal, actor Cliff Robertson was subsequently blackballed by Hollywood for exposing the fraud.

  The father of actress/photographer Koo Stark, producer Wilbur Stark, whose credits include Cat People (1982), The Thing (1982) and more than 1,000 TV shows, died of cancer on August 11th, aged 83.

  Producer/director Frank Perry died of prostate cancer on August 29th, aged 65. His credits include Ladybug Ladybug, The Swimmer, Man on a Swing, Mommie Dearest and Hello Again.

  Pioneer visual effects supervisor Derek Meddings died on September 10th while undergoing routine surgery for a cancer-related illness. He was 64. His first major credits were for creating the miniature effects for Gerry Anderson’s TV series Supercar, Fireball XL5 and Thunderbirds in the 1960s. He moved on to create the special effects for numerous movies, winning both an American and British Academy Award for his contributions to Superman (
1978). He worked on many of the James Bond movies and the latest, Goldeneye, is dedicated to his memory.

  Independent director Harry Hurwitz died of heart failure on September 21st, aged 57. His credits include the cult favourite The Projectionist (1971) and, under the pseudonym “Harry Tampa”, Nocturna Granddaughter of Dracula, which featured John Carradine as the Count.

  Mexican producer/actor Abel Salazar died on October 21st, aged around 78. A Peter Cushing to German Robles’s Christopher Lee, Salazar (who produced most of the team’s vehicles) specialised in fearless monster-hunters in such films as Las Cinco Advertencias de Satansas, El Vampiro (aka The Vampire), El Ataúd del Vampiro (aka The Vampire’s Coffin), El Hombre y el Monstruo, El Vampiro Acecha, La Cabeza Viviente (aka The Living Head), and La Maldición de la Llorona. A break from type-casting was El Barfin del Terror (aka The Brainiac) in which he played a remarkable, long-tongued monster. He produced but did not appear in El Mundo de los Vampiros and El Espejo de las Brujas.

  Darleen Roddenberry-Bacha, the daughter of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, died on October 29th in a Las Vegas hospital from injuries sustained in an accident. She was 48.

  French “New Wave” director Louis Malle died of lymphoma complications on November 23rd, aged 63. His films include the “William Wilson” episode of Histoires Extraordinaires (US: Spirits of the Dead), Black Moon, Pretty Baby, Atlantic City, My Dinner With André and Damage. He was married to actress Candice Bergen.

  Mexican director Rafael Lopez Portillo died of prostate cancer on November 30th, aged 79. He directed more than fifty movies, including La Momia Azteca (aka Attack of the Mayan Mummy), La Maldición de la Momia Azteca (aka The Curse of the Aztec Mummy), La Momia contra el Robot Humano (aka The Robot vs. the Aztec Mummy) and La Isla de los Dinosaurios (aka The Island of the Dinosaurs).

  American child star-turned editor/director Robert Parrish died on December 4th, aged 79. His films include Casino Royale and Doppelgänger (US: Journey to the Far Side of the Sun).