Screenwriter/director Burt Kennedy, best known for his comedy Westerns, died of cancer on February 15th, aged 78. He had undergone heart surgery the previous month, after which his kidneys had failed. Among his many credits are The Killer Inside Me, Suburban Commando and the TV movies The Wild Wild West Revisited andMore Wild Wild West.
Former president of production at Paramount, producer Howard W. Koch reportedly died of Alzheimer’s disease on February 16th, aged 84. His credits include The Manchurian Candidate, The President’s Analyst, On a Clear Day You Can See Forever, Heaven Can Wait (1978), Dragonslayer, The Keep and Ghost. During the 1950s he was a partner with Aubrey Schenck in independent production company Bel-Air, which produced such low-budget chillers as The Black Sleep, Pharaoh’s Curse and Voodoo Island, and he directed Frankenstein 1970 starring Boris Karloff.
French film director Robert Enrico, whose early films include the Oscar-winning 1961 short La Riviere Du Hibou (Incident at Owl Creek), based on the story by Ambrose Bierce, died of cancer in Paris the same day, aged 69. In America, his short film was shown as part of The Twilight Zone TV series.
American producer/director Stanley [Earl] Kramer, whose classic films include High Noon, The Caine Mutiny and Judgment at Nuremberg, died of pneumonia on February 19th, aged 87. His other credits include The 5,000 Fingers of Dr T, On the Beach (1959), Inherit the Wind and It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World. During the 1950s he kept Lon Chaney, Jr. in high-profile films, while both Karloff and Lugosi were scrabbling for work.
German-born American cinematographer Ralf D. Bode, whose credits include Dressed to Kill, died of lung cancer on February 27th, aged 59.
The same day saw the death of film and TV producer Stan Margulies from cancer at the age of 80. His credits include Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.
Former actor, director and cinematographer John A. Alonzo died on March 13th, aged 66. After starring in The Hand of Death (1962), the Mexican-American cinematographer began as James Wong Howe’s camera operator on Seconds (1966) before working with such directors as Martin Ritt, Roger Corman, Roman Polanski, John Frankenheimer and Brian De Palma. He photographed parts of Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Look What’s Happened to Rosemary’s Baby, Blue Thunder, Terror in the Aisles, The Guardian, Meteor Man, Star Trek Generations and the live TV movie remake of Fail Safe (2000).
British film director Ralph Thomas, the older brother of the late Carry On director Gerald Thomas, died after a long illness on March 17th, aged 85. Best known for his series of Doctor comedies (1953-70), based on the novels by Richard Gordon, his other films include Helter Skelter (1948), The 39 Steps (1959), Hot Enough for June, Deadlier Than the Male, Some Girls Do, Percy, Percy’s Progress and Quest for Love (based on a story by John Wyndham). His son is producer Jeremy Thomas.
Motion picture designer and conceptual artist Mentor Huebner, who designed Robby the Robot for MGM’sForbidden Planet, died on March 19th after several vascular bypass surgeries on his right leg. He was 83, and among his more than 250 other credits are many conceptual drawings for Alfred Hitchcock’s films, The Time Machine (1960), Planet of the Apes (1967), King Kong (1976),Flash Gordon (1980), Blade Runner, Dune (1984), Cat’s Eye, The Addams Family, Honey I Shrunk the Kids, So I Married an Ax Murderer, Total Recall and Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Early in his career he had worked at Disney as an animator, drawing the ‘Heigh-Ho’ sequence for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
Cartoon director and producer William [Denby] Hanna, who with partner Joseph Barbera founded Hanna-Barbera Productions in 1957, died on March 22nd, aged 90. He had been in declining health for several years. Among the many TV shows he helped to create were The Flintstones, The Jetsons, Jonny Quest, Captain Caveman and Scooby-Doo, winning eight Emmys for his work. The duo began their collaboration in 1937 at MGM, where they won seven Oscars for Tom and Jerry before the studio closed down its animation department in 1957. They also combined cartoon sequences with live action for such films as Anchors Aweigh, Dangerous When Wet and Invitation to the Dance.
Lawrence M. Lansburgh, who joined Walt Disney in the mid-1940s and directed eighteen features and episodes of TV’s The Wonderful World of Disney, died on March 25th, aged 89.
Polish-born cinematographer Piotr Sobocinski was found dead in a Vancouver hotel room on March 26th, soon after completing the Stephen King adaptation Hearts in Atlantis.
67-year-old Larry Tucker who, with Paul Mazursky, co-developed, co-produced and scripted The Monkees TV series, died on April 1st of complications from multiple sclerosis and cancer. A former stand-up comedian, he appeared in Samuel Fuller’s Shock Corridor and produced and scripted Mazursky’s Alex in Wonderland.
French film director Jean-Gabriel Albicocco, whose credits include the 1966 international hit Le Grand Meaulnes (The Wanderer), died forgotten and destitute in Brazil on April 10th. He was 65.
French-born Canadian film and TV producer Nicolas Clermont, who as co-founder of Filmline International was responsible for the long-running Highlander series and The Secret Adventures of Jules Verne, died of cancer on April 11th, aged 59.
American visual effects artist Sean Dever died on April 13th, aged 32. His credits include such overblown blockbusters as Red Planet, Thirteen Days, The Sixth Day, Waterworld, Angels in the Outfield, True Lies, The Fifth Element, Flubber, My Favorite Martian, Sphere and Batman and Robin.
American film and television director Michael Ritchie died of complications from prostate cancer on April 16th, aged 62. His credits include The Island, The Golden Child, A Simple Wish and TV’s The Man from U.N.C.L.E.
Italian director Giacomo Gentilomo died the same day in Rome, aged 92. His films include Goliath and the Vampires and Hercules Against the Moon Men.
Director, producer and writer Jack Haley, Jr., the son of the Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz, died on April 21st, aged 67. He created MGM’s That’s Entertainment! series and numerous award-winning TV specials and documentaries based around the Golden Age of Hollywood (The Making of the Wizard of Oz, etc.). He also directed the 1970, 1974 and 1979 Academy Award shows and was once married to Liza Minnelli.
British screenwriter and director Ken Hughes died of complications from Alzheimer’s disease in a California nursing home on April 28th, aged 79. A former cinema projectionist, his film credits include The Brain Machine, The Atomic Man (aka Time-slip), Joe Macbeth, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and Casino Roy ale (both based on books by Ian Fleming), Sextette with an 86-year-old Mae West and the slasher film Night School (aka Terror Eyes).
Veteran animator Maurice J. Noble died on May 18th, aged 91. Co-director of the Oscar-winning short The Dot and the Line, he worked on such Disney classics as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Bambi, Fantasia and Dumbo, and more than sixty Warner Bros, cartoons (including Duck Dodgers in the 24 y2 Century). With business partner Chuck Jones he also produced many Dr Seuss (Ted Geisel) cartoons, including The Cat in the Hat, Horton Hears a Who and How the Grinch Stole Christmas!.
83-year-old Herbert Wise Browar, former vice-president of production at Filmways Television, died of a cerebral haemorrhage on May 19th. He served as an associate producer on such popular TV shows as Mr Ed (1961-65) and The Addams Family (1964 - 66).
Italian director Alfonso Brescia died on June 6th, aged 71. He directed more than fifty films (often credited to ‘A1 Bradley’), including The Conqueror of Atlantis, The Super Stooges vs. the Wonder Women, War in Space, Battle of the Stars, Iron Warriors and many more.
French cinematographer Henri Alekan, whose credits include Jean Cocteau’s Beauty and the Beast and Wim Wenders’s Wings of Desire, died on June 15th following a brief hospitalization for leukaemia. He was 92.
Michael Green, the chairman of leading independent British film distributor Entertainment, died on June 17th, aged 84. After co-founding Regal Films International in the late 1950s, he launched Entertainment Film Distributors in 1978, since when the company has released everything from Hellraiser to Lord of the Rings and produced the sci-f
i flop Slipstream.
Entertainment attorney Paul Schreibman, who was responsible for making the deals with Toho to bring Godzilla, Mothra, Varan etc. to America, died on June 23rd, aged 92.
Oscar-winning special effects supervisor A.D. Flowers died from complications of emphysema and pneumonia on July 5th, aged 85. Chief of mechanical special effects at Twentieth Century-Fox for many years, his film credits include The Poseidon Adventure, Steven Spielberg’s 1941 and Apocalypse Now.
Disney animator Ted Berman died on July 15th, aged 81. He worked on Fantasia, Bambi, Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, Mary Poppins, Bedknobs and Broomsticks and co-scripted and co-directed The Black Cauldron.
Producer Jules Buck, whose credits include What’s New Pussycat and The Ruling Class, died on July 19th, aged 83.
Record producer and songwriter Milton Gabler, who founded the independent jazz label Commodore Records in 1937 and produced Bill Haley and the Comets’ ‘Rock Around the Clock’ in one take, died on July 20th, aged 90.
Film and TV director Alan Rafkin died of complications during heart surgery in Los Angeles on August 6th, aged 73. A former nightclub comic, he began his career in 1958 with such TV series as 77 Sunset Strip, directing more than eighty prime-time sitcoms along with a number of movies, including Ski Party, Angel in My Pocket and The Ghost and Mr Chicken.
Former film editor and TV producer Art Seid died on August 9th, aged 87. He edited Lost Horizon (1937) and A Taste of Evil.
Oscar and Emmy Award-nominated American sound designer and sound editor Richard Jay Shorr died of melanoma at his home in Paris on August 13th, aged 58. In 1979 he wrote and directed Witches Brew, a comic adaptation of Fritz Leiber’s novel Conjure Wife, which was completed by Herbert L. Strock. Switching to sound production, Shorr also worked on The Day After, Die Hard, Poltergeist III, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Highway to Hell.
Music editor Daniel Adrian Carlin died of lung cancer and pulmonary fibrosis on August 14th, aged 73. His credits include Ghost, Ghostbusters, Fatal Attraction and All That Jazz.
Hollywood make-up artist John Chambers, best known for creating Mr Spock’s Vulcan ears on TV’s Star Trek (1966 - 68) and the make-up for the original Planet of the Apes (1967) and its sequels, died of diabetes complications on August 25th, aged 78. His many other credits include The Three Stooges in Orbit, The Human Duplicators, Slaughterhouse-Five, The Mephisto Waltz, Superbeast, Ssssssss, Phantom of the Paradise, Embryo, The Island of Dr Moreau (1977), Halloween II and TV’s Beauty and the Beast (1976). Chambers won an honorary Oscar for his work on Planet of the Apes, and he was also rumoured to have created the famous Bigfoot creature filmed by Californian ‘researchers’ in 1967.
Film editor and producer Thomas Ralph Fries, the son of producer Charles Fries, died of a protracted cardiopulmonary illness on September 10th, aged 47. His credits include The Martian Chronicles, Starcrossed, Bridge Across Time and Flowers in the Attic. In 1989 he produced Phantom of the Mall: Eric’s Revenge.
54-year-old American television producer David Angell and his wife Lynn were among the sixty-five passengers and crew aboard United Airlines Flight 175, travelling from Boston to Los Angeles, that terrorists crashed into the South Tower of New York’s World Trade Center on September 11th. The co-creator and executive producer of NBC-TV’s Frasier, he also scripted episodes of the comedy shows Wings and Cheers, sharing six Emmy Awards for his television work.
Fred (Frederick) De Cordova, who directed Bedtime for Bonzo and Bonzo Goes to College starring Ronald Reagan and a chimpanzee, died on September 15th, aged 90. His fifty-year career included directing numerous TV shows (including episodes of Bewitched) a TV version of Blithe Spirit starring Noel Coward, Lauren Bacall and Claudette Colbert, and he was executive producer of Johnny Carson’s The Tonight Show (1971-92).
Samuel Z. Arkoff, the cigar-chewing executive producer and co-founder (with James H. Nicholson, who died in 1972) of American International Pictures, died on September 16th, aged 83. His many films date from The Beast With a Million Eyes (1955) to Hellhole (1985), and include I Was a Teenage Werewolf, I Was a Teenage Frankenstein, Blood of Dracula, Roger Corman’s Edgar Allan Poe series, The Amityville Horror (which grossed $65 million in America) and Dressed to Kill. His autobiography (with Richard Trubo), Flying Through Hollywood by the Seat of My Pants, was published in 1992. Arkoff’s wife Hilda, who provided home-cooked meals for AIP wrap parties, died on July 26th.
Canadian-born film and TV director Gerald Mayer, the nephew of legendary MGM mogul Louis B. Mayer, died of complications from pneumonia on September 21st, aged 82. His credits include episodes of Thriller, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, The Invaders, Tarzan, Six Million Dollar Man and Logan’s Run.
Computer special effects wizard Robert Abel, who created the slit-scan effect for the ‘Star Gate’ sequence in2001: A Space Odyssey and also worked on Disney’s Tron, died on September 23rd, five weeks after suffering a heart attack. He was 64.
William [‘Herbert’] Coleman, Alfred Hitchcock’s associate producer and right-hand man for a decade, died on October 3rd, aged 93. He worked on such titles as Rear Window, The Trouble With Harry andVertigo, and produced the TV series Alfred Hitchcock Presents andThe Alfred Hitchcock Hour.
British TV special effects director Jim Francis died on October 5th, aged 47. His numerous credits include Doctor Who, Red Dwarf, Blakes 7, The Hitch-hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, The Tenth Kingdom and such films as Hardware, Nostradamus and Grim.
American director, dancer and choreographer Herbert Ross, who often collaborated with Neil Simon, died of heart failure on October 9th, aged 76. After staging the musical sequences for the Cliff Richard films The Young Ones and Summer Holiday, he worked on Doctor Dolittle before becoming a director with such films asPlay It Again Sam, The Last of Sheila, The Seven-Per-Cent Solution andPennies from Heaven. From 1988-2001 he was married to Jackie Kennedy’s sister, Lee Bouvier Radzi-well.
Italian opera designer, film director, writer and illustrator of children’s books, Beni Montresor died on October 11th, aged 75. During the 1950s he worked at Rome’s Cine Citta studios, where Ricardo Freda asked him to design I Vampiri (aka The Devil’s Commandment!Lust of the Vampire) in 1956.
Music director and supervisor Raoul Kraushaar, who supplied music cues for such cartoons as Huckleberry Hound and Yogi Bear, died on October 13th, aged 93. He was also involved in the music for SOS Coast Guard, Prehistoric “Women, Bride of the Gorilla, Untamed Women, Invaders from Mars (1953), Curucu Beast of the Amazon, The 30 Foot Bride of Candy Rock, Island of Lost Women, Jesse James Meets Frankenstein’s Daughter, Billy the Kid vs. Dracula and the Abbott and Costello TV show.
Known as the ‘father of television syndication’, Frederic W. Ziv died the same day, aged 96. Among the many shows his company created were Science Fiction Theatre, Sea Hunt and The Cisco Kid.
Sound supervisor Robert Reed Rutledge, who won an Oscar for his work on Back to the Future, died of a heart attack on October 15th, aged 53. His other credits include Star Wars, The Beastmaster and The Witches of Eastwick.
British film editor Ray Lovejoy, whose credits include Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey and The Shining, died on October 19th. His other films include The Ruling Class, Aliens, Krull, Batman and Lost in Space.
65-year-old Czechoslovakian director Jaromil Jires, whose best-known film is Valerie and Her Week of Wonders, died on October 24th after a long illness caused by head injuries sustained in a serious car accident.
John Roberts, who borrowed $1.8 million against his trust fund to co-produce Woodstock (1969), died of cancer on October 27th, aged 56.
American director Adrian Weiss, whose credits include Edward D. Wood, Jr.’s The Bride and the Beast, died on October 28th, aged 88.
British film director and producer Roy Boulting, best remembered for his affair with young star Hayley Mills, whom he later married, died after a long illness on November 5th, aged 88. With his twin brother John (who died in 1985) he became director of
British Lion Films in the 1960s, and their films together include Thunder Rock, Brighton Rock, Seven Days to Noon, Twisted Nerve and Endless Night. Roy also directed Run for the Sun, another variation on ‘The Most Dangerous Game’. His son with Hayley Mills, Crispian, became the lead singer of the pop group Kula Shaker.
American TV director Paul Krasny died in Las Vegas on November 12th, aged 66. His many credits include episodes of Gemini Man, Logan’s Run, The Powers of Matthew Starr and Wizards and Warriors.
Former actor turned director Gunnar Hellstrom died of a stroke on November 28th, aged 73. His credits includeThe Name of the Game is Kill and episodes of TV’s The Powers of Matthew Starr.
British independent film distributor Charles Cooper, who founded Contemporary Films in the early 1950s as a supplier of high-quality foreign and artistic movies, died the same day, aged 91.
Former matador and maverick director Oscar ‘Budd’ Boetticher, Jr., best known for his ‘B’ Westerns starring Randolph Scott and Audie Murphy, died of multiple organ failure from cancer on November 29th, aged 85. His first wife was actress Debra Paget, and his other film credits include Escape in the Fog and the Boston Blackie entry One Mysterious Night.
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