British leading man Jon Finch was found dead in his flat on December 28. He was 70 and had suffered from diabetes for many years. Although he began his career on TV in the 1960s (including the short-lived BBC SF series Counterstrike), it was his appearances in Hammer’s The Vampire Lovers and The Horror of Frankenstein that led to him starring in Roman Polanski’s Macbeth, Alfred Hitchcock’s Frenzy and The Final Programme (aka The Last Days of Man on Earth, based on the novel by Michael Moorcock). However, after reportedly turning down a number of key roles, including that of James Bond in Live and Let Die, and being forced by illness to pull out of Alien after just one day’s filming, his career floundered somewhat. Later credits include Doktor Faustus (1982), Merlin of the Crystal Cave, H. P. Lovecraft’s Lurking Fear, Darklands, and episodes of TV’s The New Avengers, The Martian Chronicles miniseries, Hammer House of Horror (“Witching Time”) and The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes. In the 1980s he was married to actress Catriona MacColl.
Former beauty contest winner and model Gloria Pall (Gloria Palitz, aka Voluptua) died of heart failure on December 30, aged 85. Because of her striking figure, she had small parts (often uncredited) in Abbott and Costello Go to Mars, Disney’s 20000 Leagues Under the Sea, The Night of the Hunter, Jailhouse Rock and episodes of TV’s Space Patrol, Commando Cody: Sky Marshall of the Universe and The Twilight Zone. Pall wrote 13 books about the movie industry, including her memoirs.
FILM & TV TECHNICIANS/PRODUCERS
Acclaimed Japanese designer Eiko Ishioka died of pancreatic cancer on January 21, aged 73. Best known for her outlandish Oscar-winning costumes for Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992), she also worked on The Cell, The Fall, Immortals and Mirror Mirror, and designed the costumes for the stage musical Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark.
Prolific Emmy Award-winning American TV director and producer John Rich died on January 29, aged 86. Although best known for directing comedy, his credits include two episodes of the original The Twilight Zone series.
American cinematographer Ric (Richard) Waite died of a heart attack on February 18, aged 78. His credits include Dead of Night (1977), Revenge of the Stepford Wives, Red Dawn, The Triangle and episodes of TV’s Wonder Woman and Nowhere Man.
Japanese visual effects art director Yasuyuki Inoue died of heart failure on February 19, aged 90. His numerous credits for Toho Studios include The War of the Gargantuas, King Kong Escapes, Destroy All Monsters!, Yog – Monster from Space, Godzilla on Monster Island (aka War of the Monsters), Godzilla vs. the Smog Monster, Catastrophe 1999: The Prophecies of Nostradamus, Terror of Mechagodzilla, Battle in Outer Space 2, Deathquake, Godzilla 1985 and Princess from the Moon.
Oscar-nominated cinematographer Bruce [Mohr Powell] Surtees died on February 23, aged 74. Best known for his work with Don Siegel and Clint Eastwood, amongst the movies he shot are The Beguiled, Play Misty for Me, Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, High Plains Drifter, Firefox, Tightrope, Pale Rider, Psycho III, Ratboy, Back to the Beach and The Birds II: Land’s End.
Production illustrator Robert Temple Ayres died of heart failure on February 25, aged 98. His most famous work was the map used in the opening titles of TV’s Bonanza, and he also worked on Disney’s The Black Hole.
Former Hollywood juvenile actor turned producer and TV director Jerome Courtland (Courtland Jourolman, Jr) died on March 1, aged 85. His directing credits include episodes of The Flying Nun and Fantasy Island, while for Disney he produced Escape to Witch Mountain (1975), Pete’s Dragon, Return from Witch Mountain, The Ghosts of Buxley Hall and The Devil and Max Devlin.
Japanese director Nobru Ishiguro, best known for the popular anime film and TV series Space Cruiser Yamato, died on March 20, aged 73. His other credits include Megazone 23, Robotech: The Movie and episodes of Astroboy and Legend of the Galactic Heroes. Ishiguro was also the co-author of a 1980 history of Japanese animation.
Stylish British production designer turned film director and scriptwriter Robert [Bernard] Fuest, best remembered for the macabre comedies The Abominable Dr. Phibes and Dr. Phibes Rises Again (both starring Vincent Price), died on March 21, aged 84. Following his work as a designer on Out of This World and The Avengers, Fuest’s other directing credits include Wuthering Heights (1970), And Soon the Darkness, The Final Programme (based on the novel by Michael Moorcock), The Devil’s Rain, The Gold Bug (1980, based on the story by Edgar Allan Poe), Revenge of the Stepford Wives and Mystery at Fire Island, along with episodes of TV’s The Avengers, The New Avengers and Worlds Beyond.
American-born film producer Hal E. Chester (Harold Ribotsky, aka “Hally Chester”) died in London, England, on March 25, aged 91. He began his career as a child actor in 1938 (as one of Monogram’s “East Side Kids” and Universal’s “Junior G-Man”), before becoming a producer with such films as The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms and Night of the Demon (aka Curse of the Demon).
British cinematographer Brian Morgan died on April 6, aged 69. His credits include the TV series Children of the Stones and Robin of Sherwood, and an episode of She-Wolf of London.
Charles McNabb, who was part of Ricou Browning’s underwater support team on Creature from the Black Lagoon, Revenge of the Creature and The Creature Walks Among Us, died the same day, aged 84.
American film producer Martin Poll died of pneumonia and kidney failure on April 14, aged 89. He began his career by producing a number of films in Germany and France for international release, along with 31 half-hour episodes of the 1954–55 Flash Gordon TV series. His later credits include The Possession of Joel Delaney, Night Watch, Arthur the King, Haunted Summer (with Alice Krige as Mary Shelley) and the TV mini-series The Dain Curse. In 1956 he opened the Gold Medal Studios in New York and three years later was sworn in as the Commissioner of Motion Picture Arts for that same city – the only individual to ever hold that title.
Emmy Award-winning American TV director Paul Bogart (Paul Bogoff) died on April 15, aged 92. His credits include Shirley Temple’s Storybook (“The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”, 1958), Hansel and Gretel (1958), Ten Little Indians (1959), Golden Showcase (“The Picture of Dorian Gray”, 1961), Carousel (1967), The Canterville Ghost (1986, starring John Gielgud), and episodes of ’Way Out (hosted by Roald Dahl), The Nurses (“Night of the Witch”) and Get Smart. Bogart also directed the 1984 comedy sequel Oh, God! You Devil.
British visual effects designer Peter Wragg, who created the spaceship and other props for BBC-TV’s Red Dwarf, died on April 15, aged 65. He also worked on Thunderbirds Are GO, Threads, The Moonstone (1997), and episodes of Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons, The Flipside of Dominick Hide, Another Flip for Dominick, Doctor Who, The Hound of the Baskervilles (1982) and Ghostbusters of East Finchley.
Emmy-winning musical variety and game show producer and host Dick Clark (Richard Wagstaff Clark), chairman and CEO of Dick Clark Productions, died from a massive heart attack following a hospital procedure on April 18. He was 82. Although best known for such TV shows as American Bandstand, he also produced or executive produced the movies Psych-Out, The Werewolf of Woodstock, The Dark (1979), The Man in the Santa Claus Suit, The Demon Murder Case, The Power (1984), Night Shadows (aka Mutant), Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins (aka Remo: Unarmed and Dangerous), Remo Williams (1988) and Death Dreams. Clark also appeared in Wild in the Streets, The Phynx, Spy Kids, and episodes of Batman, Sabrina the Teenage Witch and The X Files.
Jim (James) Isaac, who co-produced and directed the superior sequel Jason X (2001), died of cancer on May 6, aged 51. He began his career in special effects, and worked on such movies as Gremlins, Enemy Mine, House II: The Second Story, Virtuosity and eXistenZ. Isaac’s directing credits include The Horror Show (1989), Skinwalkers and Pig Hunt, and he also worked in various capacities on Return of the Jedi, The Fly (1986), DeepStar Six, Naked Lunch and Children of the Corn V: Fields of Terror.
Pioneering British-born hair stylist Vidal Sassoon CBE died of complications from leukaemia in Los Angeles on May 9. He was 84. Sassoon was famous for creating Mia Farrow’s distinc
tive and much-copied hairstyle in Roman Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby (1968). Sassoon met the second of his four wives, Canadian-born actress Beverly Adams, while styling her hair on the Amicus film Torture Garden (1967). They were married for almost 14 years, until their divorce in 1981.
American sound effects editor Jerry Christian, who worked on Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho and The Birds, died on May 26, aged 86. He eventually became head of Universal’s sound effects department, and won an Emmy Award for his work on Steven Spielberg’s Duel. His other credits include Jaws, The Six Million Dollar Man and Knight Rider.
American visual effects designer Matt (Matthew) Yuricich, who won a Special Achievement Oscar for his work on Logan’s Run (1976), died on May 28, aged 89. A talented matte artist, he also worked (often uncredited) on Prince Valiant (1954), Forbidden Planet, The World the Flesh and the Devil, Tarzan the Ape Man (1959), Atlantis the Lost Continent, Lost Horizon (1973), Soylent Green, Westworld, Young Frankenstein, Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze, Futureworld, Damnation Alley, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, The Last Chase, Blade Runner, V, Brainstorm, Ghostbusters, 2010, Fright Night (1985), Poltergeist II: The Other Side, Solarbabies, Masters of the Universe, The Monster Squad, Field of Dreams and Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey.
Japanese director and screenwriter Kaneto Shindô died on May 29, aged 100. He was the oldest film-maker in Japan. As a writer, his credits include Onibaba, Kuroneko (which he also directed) and Jishin rettô (aka Deathquake).
British cinematographer Christopher [George Joseph] Challis died on May 31, aged 93. He began his film career in the late 1930s and was a second unit cameraman on The Thief of Bagdad. Challis went on to work as a lighting camerman/camera operator on such Powell-Pressburger productions as A Matter of Life and Death (aka Stairway to Heaven), Black Narcissus and The Red Shoes, before becoming director of photography on The Tales of Hoffman, Footsteps in the Fog, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes and The Little Prince.
Hollywood art director and production designer Stan Jolley, the son of veteran character actor I. Stanford Jolley, died of gastric cancer on June 4, aged 86. Best known for his work with producer Irwin Allen on Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Land of the Giants, City Beneath the Sea and The Swarm, his many other credits include The Phynx, Night of the Lepus, Terror in the Wax Museum and Knife for the Ladies, along with episodes of TV’s Mister Ed and Get Smart. Jolley was also responsible for designing such Disneyland attractions as the Golden Horseshoe Saloon, the Storybook Land Canal Boats and the interior of Sleeping Beauty’s Castle.
Sixty-three-year-old American production designer J. (John) Michael Riva, the grandson of actress Marlene Dietrich, died after suffering a stroke on June 7. His many credits include Ilsa Harem Keeper of the Oil Sheiks, The Hand, Halloween II (1981), The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension, The Goonies, The Golden Child, Scrooged, Congo, Evolution, Stealth, Zathura, Spider-Man 3, Iron Man, Iron Man 2 and The Amazing Spider-Man. Riva also directed an episode apiece of TV’s Amazing Stories and Tales from the Crypt, and he was a visual consultant on the 1999 remake of House on Haunted Hill.
British-born TV producer and director Norman [Frances] Felton, best-known for co-creating the 1960s series The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and The Girl from U.N.C.L.E., died in California on June 25, aged 99. He also produced the TV pilots Ghostbreakers (1967) and Baffled! (1973), along with the series Strange Report (1969–70).
Hollywood film producer Richard D. (Darryl) Zanuck, the son of legendary 20th Century Fox executive Darryl F. Zanuck, died of a heart attack on July 13, aged 77. He was involved in such films as Sssssss (aka Ssssnake), Jaws, Jaws 2, The Island, Cocoon, Cocoon: The Return, Deep Impact, Planet of the Apes (2001), Reign of Fire, Big Fish, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005), Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007), Alice in Wonderland (2010) and Dark Shadows.
American producer and director William [Milton] Asher, the son of veteran Universal horror producer Ephraim M. Asher, died of complications from Alzheimer’s disease on July 16. He was 90. Best known as the producer/director of TV’s Bewitched (1967–72), Asher also directed 100 episodes of I Love Lucy. His other credits include episodes of The Twilight Zone and the Bewitched spin-off Tabitha, and the films The 27th Day, Night Warning (aka The Evil Protégé) and I Dream of Jeannie . . . Fifteen Years Later. For AIP, Asher created the popular “Beach Party” musical movie series and directed Beach Party, Muscle Beach Party, Bikini Beach, Beach Blanket Bingo and How to Stuff a Wild Bikini. He was married to Bewitched star Elizabeth Montgomery from 1963-74.
Experimental French film-maker Chris Marker (Christian François Bouche-Villeneuve) died on his 91st birthday on July 29. His credits include the 1962 experimental SF short La Jetée, which was remade as Terry Gilliam’s Twelve Monkeys (1995). Marker (who took his pseudonym from the Magic Marker pen) reportedly studied philosophy with Jean-Paul Sartre in the 1930s and never granted an interview.
British camera operator John Harris died in July, aged 87. He began his career as a clapper-loader and focus-puller for Gainsborough Pictures in the early 1940s, and the many films he worked on include The Collector, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Tales from the Crypt (1972), The Creeping Flesh, Vault of Horror, —And Now the Screaming Starts!, Live and Let Die, The Man with the Golden Gun, Lisztomania, The People That Time Forgot, Orca, Superman (1978), Superman II, Millennium (1989), Popcorn and the TV movie I Still Dream of Jeannie.
Documentary film-maker Mel Stuart (Stewart Solomon), who directed Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971), died of cancer on August 9, aged 83. He was a first cousin of Stan Lee.
Oscar-winning Italian special effects artist Carlo Rambaldi died after a long illness on August 10, aged 86. Best known for creating the title character in Steven Spielberg’s E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, Rambaldi’s credits include La vendetta di Ercole, Perseus Against the Monsters, Mario Bava’s Planet of the Vampires and A Bay of Blood, La notte dei diavoli, Frankenstein ’80, Flesh for Frankenstein, Blood for Dracula, Deep Red, the controversial 1976 remake of King Kong, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Alien, Nightwing, The Hand, Possession, Conan the Destroyer, Dune, Cat’s Eye, Silver Bullet, King Kong Lives and Cameron’s Closet.
American film editor George A. Bowers died of complications from heart surgery on August 18, aged 68. His many credits include The Pom Pom Girls, Galaxina, The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension, The Stepfather (1987), The Preacher’s Wife and From Hell. Bowers also directed the creepy 1980 horror film The Hearse starring Joseph Cotton.
British-born Hollywood producer and director Tony Scott (Anthony D. L. Scott), the younger brother of Ridley Scott, committed suicide on August 19 by jumping to his death from the Vincent Thomas Bridge in Los Angeles. He was aged 68. As a director, his films include The Hunger (based on the novel by Whitley Strieber), Crimson Tide, The Fan and Deja Vu. Through the brothers’ Scott Free Productions, he was involved with such projects as The Hunger TV series, The Andromeda Strain (2008) and Coma (2012) mini-series, and the movies Tell-Tale, Prometheus and Stoker.
Canadian producer Jake Eberts (John David Eberts), who founded Goldcrest Films in the 1970s, died of uveal melanoma on September 6, aged 71. His credits include The Name of the Rose, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988), The Princess and the Cobbler, Super Mario Bros, James and the Giant Peach, The Wind in the Willows (1996), Chicken Run and The Illusionist.
British exploitation producer and director Stanley A. (Alfred) Long died on September 10, aged 78. Although best known for a string of sexy softcore movies in the 1960s and 1970s, he began his career as an uncredited camera operator of Roman Polanski’s Repulsion before going on to photograph such films as The Sorcerers (starring Boris Karloff) and The Blood Beast Terror (starring Peter Cushing). As Al Beresford, he and Michael Armstrong co-directed the 1986 fix-up horror movie Screamtime, while his distribution company Alpha Films released such titles as Night of the Living Dead, Daw
n of the Dead, Shivers, Rabid, The Brood and Maniac in the UK. His autobiography, X-Rated: Adventures of an Exploitation Filmmaker, was published in 2008.
British film and TV animation producer John Coates died of cancer on September 16, aged 84. He worked as a production supervisor on Yellow Submarine and the 1979 version of The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe before going on to produce the “Soft Landing” sequence in Heavy Metal, The Snowman, When the Wind Blows, Father Christmas, The Wind in the Willows (1995) and The Snowman and the Snowdog.
American cinematographer Harris Savides died of brain cancer on October 9, aged 55. His credits include Se7en (additional photography), The Game and Zodiac (2007).
American TV producer Henry Colman died on November 7, aged 89. Best known for such popular series as The Love Boat and Hotel, he also produced the 1975 TV movie The Dead Don’t Die, written by Robert Bloch, and Colman himself scripted an episode of the superhero series Isis.
British director, producer and sceenwriter Bob (Robert) Kellett died on November 27, aged 84. Best known for such bawdy film comedies as Up Pompeii and Are You Being Served? (both based on popular television series), he also directed three episodes of the 1970s TV series Space: 1999 and was second unit director on Haunted (1995), based on the novel by James Herbert.
American-born visual effects producer Eileen [Mary] Moran died in New Zealand on December 3, aged 60. She began her career at Digital Domain, working on such movies as Lake Placid and Frequency, before moving to Weta Digital in 2001, where she supervised the effects on Peter Jackson’s King Kong (which she co-produced), the Lord of the Rings trilogy, The Lovely Bones and The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (also as co-producer), along with I Robot, X-Men: The Last Stand, Eragon, The Bridge to Terabithia, 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer, 30 Days of Night, The Water Horse, Jumper, The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, The Day the Earth Stood Still, District 9, Avatar, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn and Prometheus.
The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 24 (Mammoth Books) Page 49