Mexican-born actor Eric Mason (Ernesto Benitez Macias) died in California on April 26, aged 90. He was in Grave of the Vampire, Scream Blacula Scream and Kiss of the Tarantula, along with episodes of TV’s The Six Million Dollar Man, Wonder Woman, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, Fantasy Island and Voyagers!.
Veteran American serial queen Lorna Gray (Virginia Mae Pound, aka “Adrian Booth”) died on April 30, aged 99. She appeared with Boris Karloff in Columbia’s The Man They Could Not Hang before moving to Republic, where she memorably starred as the beautiful villainess “Vultura” in the serial Perils of Nyoka and appeared as the heroine in the serial Captain America (1944). Her other credits include Beware Spooks! and Valley of the Zombies before she retired from the screen in 1951.
American actor Vincent Baggetta, who starred in NBC’s The Eddie Capra Mysteries (1978-79), died on May 2, aged 72. He also appeared in Embryo and The Man Who Wasn’t There, along with episodes of TV’s The Twilight Zone (1963) and Freddy’s Nightmares.
British character actor Moray [Robin Philip Adrian] Watson died the same day, aged 88. He made his screen debut in the BBC serial The Quatermass Experiment (1953), and his other TV credits include episodes of The Avengers, Catweazle, Doctor Who, Tales of the Unexpected, Worlds Beyond, Star Cops and Tales of Mystery and Imagination, hosted by Christopher Lee (1995).
Israeli leading lady Daliah Lavi (Daliah Lewinbuk) died in North Carolina on May 3, aged 76. Discovered by Kirk Douglas, the striking actress appeared in The Return of Dr. Mabuse, The Demon (1963), Mario Bava’s The Whip and the Body (aka Night is the Phantom, with Christopher Lee), Ten Little Indians (1965), The Silencers, Casino Royale (1967), Jules Verne’s Rocket to the Moon (aka Those Fantastic Flying Fools) and Some Girls Do. In the 1970s she had a career as a pop singer in Germany.
Scottish-born actress and former beauty queen Quinn O’Hara (Alice Jones), who co-starred as “Sinistra” in AIP’s The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini (with Boris Karloff and Basil Rathbone), died of “multiple medical issues” in Los Angeles on May 5, aged 76. Her other movie credits include Larry Buchanan’s remake of Day the World Ended, In the Year 2889, and Cry of the Banshee (with Vincent Price). O’Hara also appeared on TV in episodes of The Man from U.N.C.L.E., UFO and Fantasy Island. She later became a nurse working with senior citizens.
American actor-stuntman Jerry “Jack” Catron (Jerry Eugene Catron) died on May 6, aged 85. During the 1960s he appeared in episodes of TV’s The Twilight Zone, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Bewitched, It’s About Time, The Green Hornet, Batman, The Time Tunnel, Star Trek and Land of the Giants.
German-born actor Curt Lowens (Kurt Löwenstein), who co-starred in Werewolf in a Girls’ Dormitory, died of complications from a fall in Beverly Hills on May 8, aged 91. A Holocaust survivor and member of the Dutch resistance, who was often cast as a Nazis, he also appeared in The Mephisto Waltz, Firefox, The Entity, Mandroid, Necronomicon: Book of the Dead, Invisible: The Chronicles of Benjamin Knight, and episodes of TV’s Tarzan, Matt Helm, The Six Million Dollar Man, Wonder Woman, Man from Atlantis, Battlestar Galactica (1979), Galactica 1980, The Greatest American Hero, V, Knight Rider, Alien Nation, Monsters (Robert Bloch’s ‘Reaper’), Babylon 5 and Flashforward.
American actor and singer Kenny Miller died of pneumonia the same day, aged 85. He appeared in AIP’s I Was a Teenage Werewolf (in which he performed the song ‘Eeny, Meeny, Miney, Mo’) and Attack of the Puppet People, along with the 1976 horror movie Blood Stalkers and an episode of TV’s Flash Gordon (1954). His autobiography, Surviving Teenage Werewolves, Puppet People and Hollywood, was published in 1999.
Greek actress and punk singer Mary Tsoni committed suicide on May 8, aged 30. She suffered from severe depression. Tsoni’s credits include the zombie movie Evil and its sequel, Evil: In the Time of Heroes.
American leading man Michael Parks (Harry Samuel Parks), who starred in and sang the closing theme song for the TV series Then Came Bronson (1969-70), died on May 9, aged 77. His body was buried at sea. Parks’ movie credits include The Werewolf of Woodstock, Distant Early Warning, The Savage Bees, Night Cries, The Evictors, Nightmare Beach, Sorceress (1995), From Dusk Till Dawn, From Dusk Till Dawn 3: The Hangman’s Daughter (as “Ambrose Bierce”), Bullfighter, The Dead One (2007), Grindhouse (aka Death Proof and Planet Terror), We Are What We Are and Tusk. On TV, he also appeared in episodes of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, Fantasy Island, War of the Worlds, Twin Peaks and SeaQuest 2032.
American singer and actress Lena [Mary Calhoun] Horne, whose best-known song was ‘Stormy Weather’, died the same day, aged 92. Her movie credits include Cabin in the Sky, I Dood It and The Wiz (as “Glinda the Good”). Reportedly, MGM often shot her musical numbers so that they could be easily cut out of films in more racially insensitive areas of the U.S.
San Francisco flower-seller Al Nalbandian died on May 9, aged 95. He also had small roles in The Mad Room, Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978), Wacko, Peggy Sue Got Married, So I Married an Axe Murderer, James and the Giant Peach and an episode of TV’s Captain Z-Ro.
British character actor [Albert] Geoffrey Bayldon, best remembered for playing the title sorcerer in the children’s TV series Catweazle (1970-71) and the creepy “Crowman” in Worzel Gummidge (1979-81), died of respiratory problems on May 10, aged 93. He was also in Hammer’s Dracula (aka Horror of Dracula) and Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed, and Amicus’ The House That Dripped Blood, Tales from the Crypt and Asylum, along with The Adventures of Alice (as the “White Knight”), Casino Royale (1967, as “Q”), Scrooge, The Frighteners, Gawain and the Green Knight, Alice Through the Looking Glass (1973, as the “White Knight” again), The Slipper and the Rose: The Story of Cinderella and The Monster Club. On TV, Bayldon appeared in the 1966 serial of Wilkie Collins’ The Woman in White and episodes of The Avengers, Journey to the Unknown, Once Upon a Time (‘Frankenstein’), Orson Welles’ Great Mysteries, The Tomorrow People (‘Into the Unknown’), Space: 1999, BBC2 Playhouse (‘The Mind Beyond: The Man with the Power’), Doctor Who (‘The Creature from the Pit’), Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson, Tales of the Unexpected, Star Cops, The Return of Sherlock Holmes, The Storyteller, Prince Caspian and the Voyage of the Dawn Treader (1989) and The New Adventures of Robin Hood (as “Merlin”). The actor also hosted the 2012 documentary Amicus: House of Horrors, and he portrayed the Doctor in two audio adventures of Doctor Who, ‘Auld Mortality’ and ‘A Storm of Angels’.
American tough-guy actor Powers [Allen] Boothe died in his sleep of pancreatic cancer-related cardiopulmonary arrest on May 14, aged 68. His movie credits include Southern Comfort, Red Dawn (1984), The Emerald Forest, By Dawn’s Early Light, Mutant Species, Frailty, Sin City and Sin City: A Dame to Kill For, and The Avengers. On TV, Boothe appeared as head Hydra honcho “Gideon Malick” in Season 3 of TV’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., and he was the voice of “Gorilla Grodd” in the animated Justice League and Justice League Unlimited series.
Russian-born actor Oleg [Borisovich] Vidov died of cancer on May 15, aged 73. He defected to America in 1985 and had small roles in 2090 and Wishmaster 2: Evil Never Dies. From 1992-2007, Vidov and his wife Joan distributed the Soyuzmultifilm Studio animation library around the world.
American actress Anne Kimbell (Anne Banks), who starred in Monster from the Ocean Floor (1954) produced by Roger Corman, died on May 16, aged 84. She appeared in Port Sinister and the “Bomba, the Jungle Boy” adventure The Golden Idol before moving to Britain and retiring from the screen in 1958.
Australian-born character actress, artist, gallerist and film director Clytie Jessop (Clytie Lloyd-Jones), who memorably appeared as the ghost of “Miss Jessel” in The Innocents (1961), died in London on May 18, aged 88. Her only other acting credits are Hammer’s Nightmare and Amicus’ Torture Garden, both for director Freddie Francis (who shot the earlier film). In 1971 she held a benefit exhibition entitled ‘Ozject D’Art’ at her gallery in Chelsea to help the editors of Oz magazine, who were then facing obscenity
charges.
American actress, socialite, fashion model and philanthropist Dina Merrill (Nedina Marjorie Hutton) died of complications from Lewy Body dementia on May 22, aged 93. On TV she appeared as “Calamity Jane” in three episodes of the 1960s Batman, along with episodes of Rod Serling’s Night Gallery, The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries (‘A Haunting We Will Go’) and Tales of the Unexpected. Merrill was also in movies Anna to the Infinite Power, Twisted, Fear, Suture, Mighty Joe Young (1998) and The Glow. On Broadway she co-starred in a 1975 revival of Patrick Hamilton’s play Angel Street. The daughter of Wall Street financier E.F. Hutton and cereal heiress Marjorie Merriweather Post, Merrill’s first husband was an heir to the Colgate-Palmolive fortune. Her second husband was actor Cliff Robertson (1966-89) and, following their divorce, she married an investment banker who purchased RKO Pictures, which she managed. It was estimated that she was the richest actress in the world.
British leading man Sir Roger [George] Moore, who starred as “Simon Templar” in TV’s The Saint (1962-69) and portrayed the second movie “James Bond” seven times, died in Switzerland on May 23, after a short battle with cancer. He was 89. Moore’s suave and sexist Bond was featured in Live and Let Die, The Man with the Golden Gun (with Christopher Lee), The Spy Who Loved Me, Moonraker, For Your Eyes Only, Octopussy and A View to a Kill, and the actor also appeared in The Man Who Haunted Himself, Sherlock Holmes in New York (as Holmes) and The Man Who Wouldn’t Die. On TV, Moore directed one of the best episodes of The Saint, ‘The House on Dragon’s Rock’ (1968), and he also appeared along with his successor in the role, actor Ian Ogilvy, in a feature-length pilot for another series of The Saint, which was finally released in 2017. He authored two books about playing 007: Roger Moore as James Bond: Roger Moore’s Own Account of Filming Live and Let Die (1973) and Bond on Bond (2012), while his 2008 autobiography was titled My Word is My Bond.
American TV actor Jared [Christopher] Martin, who starred in the science fiction series The Fantastic Journey (1977) and War of the Worlds (1988-90), died of pancreatic cancer on May 24, aged 75. His other credits include episodes of Rod Serling’s Night Gallery, Logan’s Run, The Six Million Dollar Man, Project U.F.O., Wonder Woman, The Incredible Hulk, Fantasy Island and Knight Rider. Martin was also in the movies Westworld, Rome 2072 A.D., The Sea Serpent and Lucio Fulci’s Aenigma.
Serbian stuntman-actor and special effects supervisor Dragomir Stanojevic-Bata Kameni died the same day, aged 75. His credits include Possession (1981), Strangler vs. Strangler and The Magic Snowman.
Italian actor Toni Bertorelli (Antonio Bertorelli), who played “Conte Dracula” in the contemporary comedy Zora the Vampire (2000), died after a long illness on May 26, aged 69. He was also in a 2008 TV movie of Pinocchio starring Bob Hoskins.
American stuntman-actor Vince Deadrick, Sr. died on May 27, aged 84. He worked on the Bond movie Diamonds Are Forever, Sisters of Death, The Beastmaster, Space Hunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone, Angel (1984), Ninja III: The Domination, Avenging Angel, D.A.R.Y.L., Short Circuit, The Golden Child, The Dead Pool, Ghostbusters II, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Total Recall (1990), Bedazzled (2000), Timecop: The Berlin Decision and Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, along with such TV series as The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Star Trek, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, Man from Atlantis, The Six Million Dollar Man and Star Trek: Enterprise.
American actress Elena [Angela] Verdugo died on May 30, aged 92. One of the last links with the Universal horror movies of the 1940s, she co-starred with Lon Chaney, Jr. in both House of Frankenstein (1944) and The Frozen Ghost (1945). Her other film credits include the “Jungle Jim” adventure, The Lost Tribe; the final “Charlie Chan” mystery, The Sky Dragon; and the “Bomba, the Jungle Boy” adventure, The Lost Volcano; plus Thief of Damascus (again with Chaney, Jr.) and Day of the Nightmare. Verdugo’s first husband was screenwriter Charles R. Marion.
British actress and glamour model Molly Peters (Mollie Peters), who had a brief screen career in the 1960s, including playing the nurse seduced by Sean Connery’s James Bond in Thunderball, died the same day. She was 75. Her movie career ended after a disagreement with her agent.
American actor Wendell Burton, who voiced the title character in You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown (1973)—a role he recreated from the original stage musical—died of brain cancer on May 30, aged 69. He later became a Christian minister in his native Texas.
American actor James [Paul] Burnett died the same day, aged 48. He was in Transcendence, Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials and an episode of TV’s From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series.
Danish actress Mimi Heinrich died on May 31, aged 80. She appeared in Denmark’s two most famous genre movies, Reptilicus (1961) and Journey to the Seventh Planet (1962).
British TV actor Roy Barraclough MBE, who played “Alec Gilroy” in the ITV soap opera Coronation Street (1972-98), died after a short illness on June 1, aged 81. His rare film appearances include The Slipper and the Rose: The Story of Cinderella, and he was in Mark Gatiss’ 2013 adaptation of M.R. James’ The Tractate Middoth. Barraclough also co-starred as the pompous “Mr. Cobbledick” in the children’s series Pardon My Genie (1972-73), and he was also in an episode of Woof!.
British character actor Peter [John] Sallis OBE, best-known to modern audiences as the voice of the hapless inventor “Wallace” in the stop-motion Wallace & Gromit films (including The Curse of the Were-Rabbit and A Matter of Loaf and Death), died on June 2, aged 96. He made his screen debut in a 1947 version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream and went on to appear in Stranger from Venus, Cinderella (1958), The Adventures of Alice (1960), The Mouse on the Moon, Scream and Scream Again (with Vincent Price, Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing), Wuthering Heights (1970), Frankenstein: The True Story and Full Circle (aka The Haunting of Julia, based on the novel by Peter Straub), along with Hammer’s The Curse of the Werewolf and Taste the Blood of Dracula (again with Lee). A regular on TV’s The Ghosts of Motley Hall (1976-78), Sallis was also in episodes of Strange Experiences, The Invisible Man (1959), The Avengers, Doctor Who (‘The Ice Warriors’), Catweazle, Mystery and Imagination (‘Sweeney Todd’), The Moonstone (1972), The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes, The Clifton House Mystery and Tales of the Unexpected. In 1965 he originated the role of “Dr. Watson” in the Broadway musical Baker Street, co-starred in the British production of Frederick Knott’s play Wait Until Dark (1966-67), and was featured in a 1968 BBC Radio production of The Day of the Triffids.
Polish-born actor Stefan Gryff, who played the police inspector in The Legend of the Werewolf (1975) opposite Peter Cushing, died in Britain on June 3, aged 78. He also appeared in episodes of TV’s The Avengers, The Champions, Whoops Apocalypse and Hammer House of Mystery and Susp-ense.
American actor and producer Roger [LaVerne] Smith, who co-starred in TV’s 77 Sunset Srip from 1958-63, died of complications from Parkinson’s disease on June 4, aged 84. He had also suffered from the muscle-nerve disorder myasthenia gravis for many years. In the 1957 Lon Chaney biopic Man of a Thousand Faces Smith portrayed Creighton Chaney (Lon Chaney, Jr.) opposite his mentor James Cagney. He was married to actress and singer Ann-Margret since 1967.
British actor, puppeteer, mime and ventriloquist Andy Cunningham (Andrew Cunningham), best known for the BBC children’s TV series Bodger and Badger (1989-99), died of cancer on June 5, aged 67. He was also the (uncredited) puppeteer for “Ephant Mon”, Jabba the Hutt’s head of security, in the second Star Wars sequel, Return of the Jedi (1983).
Sultry American 1950s B-movie actress Helene Stanton (Eleanor Stansbury) died on June 7, aged 91. Given her stage name by Hollywood columnist Louella Parsons, her movie credits include Jungle Moon Men (with Johnny Weismuller) and The Phantom from 10,000 Leagues, before she retired from the screen in 1957. Stanton was the seventh (1949-53) of nine wives of former silent film actor Kenneth Harlan.
American actress Glenne [Aimee] Headly, who played “Tess Truehart”, the girlfriend of Warren Beatty’s detective in Dick T
racy (1990), died of complications from a pulmonary embolism on June 8, aged 62. Her other movie credits include Woody Allen’s The Purple Rose of Cairo, Making Mr. Right (with her then-husband John Malkovich), Paperhouse (based on the YA novel by Catherine Storr) and The Circle. Headly co-starred in Hulu’s half-hour comedy SF series Future Man (2017), which was dedicated to her memory.
American actor Adam West (William West Anderson), who portrayed TV’s “Batman” in the eponymous 1966-68 ABC series and various spin-offs, died after a short battle with leukaemia on June 9, aged 88. On June 15, the city of Los Angeles shone the Bat-Signal on City Hall as a tribute to the actor. One of West’s earliest movie appeareances was an uncredited role in the Boris Karloff movie Voodoo Island (1957), and he was also in Robinson Crusoe on Mars, Batman: The Movie, The Eyes of Charles Sand, Poor Devil (with Christopher Lee), Warp Speed, Time Warp, One Dark Night, Zombie Nightmare, Doin’ Time on Planet Earth, Omega Cop, Maxim Xul, An American Vampire Story, Seance, Monster Island (as “Dr. Harryhausen”), Tales from Beyond and Angels with Angels (as “Alfred, the Butler”). On TV, he also starred in the series The Last Precinct (1986) and was a regular on Black Scorpion (2001), and he appeared in episodes of The Outer Limits (1964), Bewitched, Off to See the Wizard, Rod Serling’s Night Gallery, Fantasy Island, The Flash (1990), Tales from the Crypt, Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman and Goosebumps, and he was a regular voice on Family Guy as “Mayor Adam West” (2000-17). He recreated his iconic role as Batman in Legends of the Superheroes and the animated series The New Adventures of Batman, Tarzan and the Super 7, SuperFriends: The Legendary Super Powers Show, The Super Powers Team: Galactic Guardians, The Simpsons, and the full-length Batman: Return of the Caped Crusaders and Batman vs. Two-Face. The actor also voiced “The Gray Ghost” on an episode of Batman: The Animated Series, “Mayor Grange” in The Batman and “Thomas Wayne” in Batman: The Brave and the Bold. West’s 1994 autobiography was aptly titled Back to the Batcave.
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