French character actor Robert Hirsch died on November 16, aged 92. His film credits include The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1956) and Shock Treatment (1973).
American actor Earle Hyman died on November 17, aged 91. Best known as the voice of “Panthro” in the Thundercats (1985-89) cartoon series, he was also in the movie The Possession of Joel Delaney and an episode of TV’s The Wide World of Mystery (‘And the Bones Came Together’).
American actor turned TV prolific sitcom director Peter [DuBois] Baldwin died on November 19, aged 86. He appeared in The Space Children, I Married a Monster from Outer Space, Riccardo Freda’s The Ghost (with Barbara Steele), The Weekend Murders and episodes of TV’s Man Into Space and The Outer Limits. Baldwin directed the 1978 TV pilot Space Force and episodes of ALF, CBS Summer Playhouse (‘Shivers’) and Sabrina the Teenage Witch.
American actress Della Reese (Delloreese Patricia Early), who co-starred as the celestial “Tess” in CBS’ Touched by an Angel (1994-2003), died the same day, aged 86. She was also in the movies Psychic Killer, Emma’s Wish, Christmas Angel, Me Again, Dear Secret Santa and an episode of TV’s Picket Fences. Reese was ordained as a minister in the 1980s and formed her own church, Understanding Principles for Better Living.
Scottish character actor John Carlin also died on November 19, aged 88. He appeared in Holocaust 2000 and Around the World in 80 Days (1989), along with episodes of The Adventures of Don Quick, Sexton Blake and the Demon God, Leap in the Dark, Luna and She-Wolf of London.
83-year-old American cult leader and aspiring singer and songwriter Charles Manson (Charles Milles Maddox), whose “Family” of hippie groupies murdered actress Sharon Tate, the heavily-pregnant wife of director Roman Polanski, and several others in the summer of 1969, died the same day in a California hospital following gastrointestinal bleeding. In 1971, Los Angeles prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi used his “Helter Skelter” theory (based on The Beatles’ song) to convict Manson and several female followers of seven murders. Manson was subsequently convicted of two other killings. Initially sentenced to death, which was later commuted to life imprisonment, his parole requests were repeatedly denied. He was portrayed by Steve Railsback in the movie Helter Skelter (1974) and Jeremy Davies in the 2004 mini-series Helter Skelter, Gethin Anthony in the TV series Aquarius (2015) and Evan Peters in several 2017 episodes of American Horror Story: Cult, and Michael Reed MacKay in Summer Dreams: The Story of the Beach Boys.
1970s teenage heartthrob, American actor and singer David [Bruce] Cassidy, died of organ failure on November 21, aged 67. He had struggled with alcoholism for most of his life, and in February he annnounced that he was suffering from dementia and would retire from performing. The son of actor Jack Cassidy, from 1970-74 Cassidy starred in ABC-TV’s The Partridge Family with his real-life stepmother Shirley Jones. He later turned up in episodes of Fantasy Island, Tales of the Unexpected, Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1988) and The Flash (1991), along with the time-travel comedy movie The Spirit of ’76. At his most popular, David Cassidy was the world’s highest-paid live entertainer. Despite that, he filed for bankruptcy in 2015.
British character actor Rodney Bewes died the same day, aged 79. Best known for co-starring with James Bolam in the BBC sitcoms The Likely Lads (1964-66) and Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads? (1973-74), he was also in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1972), Jabberwocky and Disney’s The Spaceman and King Arthur (aka Unidentified Flying Oddball), along with two episodes of Doctor Who (‘Resurrection of the Daleks’).
German character actor, scriptwriter and producer Peter Berling died in Rome, Italy, on November 21, aged 83. He co-wrote the 1978 giallo The Rings of Fear and appeared in The Long Swift Sword of Siegfried, Tex and the Lord of the Deep, The Name of the Rose, Haunted Summer and Angel of Death.
American character actor and Florida breakfast TV host Dan Fitzgerald (Daniel Louis Fitzgerald) died the same day, aged 88. He had supporting roles in such movies as Mako: The Jaws of Death, The Final Countdown, Island Claws, Eyes of a Stranger, Invasion U.S.A. (1985), Whoops Apocalypse and Nighmare Beach, along with two episodes of TV’s Superboy (1991).
American actress Carol [Ann] Vogel, who starred in the Andy Milligan movies Depraved! and The Ghastly Ones, was found dead in a field behind her house on November 22, aged 75. She had been reported missing by her family two days earlier. Her other credits include episodes of TV’s Wonder Woman, The Phoenix, Automan, Highway to Heaven and Starman. From 1979-84 Vogel was married to actor Jared Martin, who died six months before she did.
Veteran American character actor Rance Howard (Harold Engle Beckenholdt), the father of actors Clint and Ron Howard and the grandfather of Bryce Dallas Howard, died on November 25, aged 89. His numerous credits include Bert I. Gordon’s Village of the Giants, Locusts (1974), The Kid with the Broken Halo, The Fantastic World of D.C. Collins, Disney’s Splash, Cocoon, Creator, Innerspace, B.O.R.N., The ’Burbs, Limit Up, Universal Soldier, Wishman, Ticks, Ed and His Dead Mother, Tim Burton’s Ed Wood and Mars Attacks!, Bigfoot: The Unforgettable Encounter, Children of the Corn III: Urban Harvest, Independence Day, The Sender, Small Soldiers, Psycho (1998), How the Grinch Stole Christmas, D-Tox (aka Eye See You), Legend of the Phantom Rider, Tobe Hooper’s Toolbox Murders (2004), Sasquatch Mountain, Grizzly Park, Audie & the Wolf, Within, Jonah Hex, InSight, Rosewood Lane and The Lone Ranger (2013). On TV, Howard was in episodes of Rod Serling’s Night Gallery, Battlestar Galactica, Mork & Mindy, Superboy, Quantum Leap, Tales from the Crypt, Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction, Babylon 5, Angel, Ghost Whisperer and the revival of The X Files.
American actor Julio Oscar Mechoso died of a heart attack the same day, aged 62. He appeared in Flight of the Navigator, Virus, Jurassic Park III, Planet Terror, Rise: Blood Hunter and Inheritance, along with episodes of TV’s Quantum Leap, Touched by an Angel, Good vs Evil, Ghost Whisperer, Invasion, Flashforward and From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series.
American actress Heather [May] North, best known as the voice of “Daphne Blake” in TV’s Scooby Doo, Where Are You! and various spin-offs from 1970 until 1997, died on November 29, aged 71. She was also in an episode of Circle of Fear (‘Elegy for a Vampire’, based on a story by Elizabeth Walter). In 2003, North reprised her role as Daphne for the animated movies Scooby-Doo and the Legend of the Vampire and Scooby-Doo and the Monster of Mexico.
American comedy actor and singer Jim Nabors (James Thurston Nabors), who played TV’s gormless “Gomer Pyle” on The Andy Griffith Show (1962-64) and his own sitcom Gomer Pyle: USMC (1964-69), died of immune system deficiencies in Hawaii on November 30, aged 87. He had had a liver transplant in 1994. Nabors also starred in the SF sitcom The Lost Saucer (1975-76), and his other credits include two episodes of Off to See the Wizard and the 1973 pilot The Addams Family Fun House. In 2013, at the age of 82, he married his longtime partner, former firefighter Stan Cadwallader, in a same-sex ceremony in Washington State.
American character actor and singer Clifford David died the same day, aged 89. His credits include Hamlet (1964), Resurrection, Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure (as “Beethoven”), The Exorcist III (aka Legion), Signs and an episode of TV’s Great Ghost Tales.
British character actor Alfie Curtis also died on November 30, aged 87. He had small roles in the first Star Wars (in the Mos Eisley Cantina sequence) and The Elephant Man.
Popular French singer and actor Johnny Hallyday (Jean-Philippe Léo Smet) died of lung cancer on December 5, aged 74. A national treasure in his native country, where he was known as the “French Elvis Presley”, Hallyday appeared in Diabolique (1955), Malpertius, Terminus and Crimson Rivers 2: Angels of the Apocalypse (with Christopher Lee). He sold more than 100 million records in France alone, where he had thirty-three #1 hit singles.
American actor, producer and director Conrad Brooks (Conrad Biedrzycki), best remembered for his role as a policeman in Edward D. Wood, Jr.’s infamous Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959), died after a short illness on December 6, aged 86. Brooks also appeared uncredited in su
ch other Wood productions as Glen or Glenda and Bride of the Monster (both with Bela Lugosi), as well as Night of the Ghouls and The Sinister Urge. Brooks was also apparently an extra in The Mad Magician (starring Vincent Price), and he also had small roles in The Beast of Yucca Flats, A Polish Vampire in Burbank, Deathrow Gameshow, Curse of the Queerwolf, Puppet Master III: Toulon’s Revenge, Test Tube Teens from the Year 2000 and Tim Burton’s biopic Ed Wood. In the early 1990s, thanks to the release of several Plan 9 documentaries around that time, Brooks became something of a cult figure, and he went on to appear in numerous no-budget independent movies such as Conrad Brooks vs. the Werewolf, Bikini Drive-In, Little Lost Sea Serpent, Baby Ghost, Toad Warrior, The Saturn Avenger vs. the Terror Robot, Rollergator, Guns of El Chupacabra (aka Crimes of the Chupacabra), The Ironbound Vampire, Ice Scream, Alien Agenda: Under the Skin, Dead Students Society, I Woke Up Early the Day I Died (based on an unproduced outline by Ed Wood), Hollywood Mortuary, The Masked Strangler, Silent Scream (1999), The Atomic Space Bug, The Vampire Hunter’s Club, The Monster Man, Max Hell: Frog Warrior, Raising Dead, Bikini Planet, Zombiegeddon, Minds of Terror, Corpses Are Forever, Dr. Horror’s Erotic House of Idiots, Brain Robbers from Outer Space, Super Hell, 2020: An American Nightmare (which he also co-produced), Tomb of Terrors, Shadows in the Woods, Skeleton Key, Zeppo: Sinners from Beyond the Moon!, Super Hell 2, The Girl, Skeleton Key 2: 667 Neighbor of the Beast, Skeleton Key 3: The Organ Trail, Celluloid Bloodbath: More Prevues from Hell, Psychotic State, Super Hell 3: Dreams of Horror, Plan 9, Bite School, Movie Night 2, Pitfire of Hell, Killer Waves, Midnight Massacre, Subconcious Reality, Don’t Let the Devil In, Skeleton Key 3 Part 2 and Toilet Gator, along with several other titles which may or may not have been filmed and/or released. In 1960, Brooks wrote, produced, directed and appeared in the short film Mystery in Shadows, and later in his career he produced, directed and was featured in Out of This World, Blood Slaves of the Vampire Wolf, Jan-Gel: The Beast from the East, Jan-Gel 2: The Beast Returns, Jan-Gel 3: Hillbilly Monster, Gypsy Vampire, Gypsy Vampires Revenge and Gypsy Vampire: The Final Bloodlust, most of which he also scripted.
Native American character actor Steve Reevis died on December 7, aged 55. His credits include Grim Prarie Tales and Monsterwolf.
American character actor George Touliatos died on December 8, aged 87. He was in Virus, Prom Night (1980), The Last Chase and Firebird 2015 AD, along with episodes of TV’s Seeing Things, The Twilight Zone (1989), The Ray Bradbury Theatre (‘The Long Years’), Forever Knight, The X Files, M.A.N.T.I.S., Sliders, The Outer Limits (1995), Strange Luck, The Sentinel, Dead Man’s Gun, Stargate SG-1 and Supernatural.
British leading lady Suzanna Leigh (Sandra Anne Eleen Smith) died of liver cancer in Florida on December 11, aged 72. The goddaughter of actress Vivien Leigh (from whom she took her stage name), she appeared as an uncredited extra in George Pal’s Tom Thumb (1958) before going on to star in Amicus’ The Deadly Bees, Deadlier Than the Male, Hammer’s The Lost Continent (1968, based on the novel by Dennis Wheatley) and Lust for a Vampire, The Fiend (aka Beware My Brethren), and the comedy Son of Dracula (1974). The actress also appeared in an episode of TV’s Journey to the Unknown, and she starred with Elvis Presley in the musical Paradise, Hawaiian Style (1966). Her 1998 autobiography was entitled Paradise, Suzanna Style.
British children’s TV presenter Keith “Cheggers” Chegwin died of the lung condition idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) the same day, aged 60. A recovered alcoholic, he had been a heavy smoker all his adult life. As a child actor, Chegwin starred in the Children’s Film Foundation (CFF) movies The Troublesome Double and Egghead’s Robots as inventor “Paul ‘Egghead’ Wentworth”. He went on to host such popular TV shows as Record Breakers (1976-80), Multi-Coloured Swap Shop (1976-82), Cheggers Plays Pop (1978-86) and Saturday Superstore (1982-87), and in 2004 he appeared in four episodes of the game show I’m Famous and Frightened, set in a “haunted” castle. Chegwin’s other film credits include Roman Polanski’s Macbeth, Aladdin and the Forty Thieves (1984), Whatever Happened to Harold Smith?, Shaun of the Dead and Kill Keith, and he was also in a 1975 The Tomorrow People serial on TV. The younger brother of DJ and Top of the Pops presenter Janice Long, his first wife was co-presenter Maggie Philbin.
American stuntman/supporting actor Louie (Nicholas) Elias died on December 13, aged 84. The older brother of actor James Stacy and a former professional football player, his numerous movie credits include War of the Colossal Beast, The Incredible Mr. Limpet, Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine, Batman: The Movie, Planet of the Apes (1968), Sssssss, Westworld (1973), The Man with Two Brains, B.O.R.N., Solar Crisis and Dick Tracy (1990), along with episodes of TV’s The Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits (as the titular alien in the episode ‘Behold Eck!’), Batman, Get Smart, The Wild Wild West, Star Trek, Future Cop, The Six Million Dollar Man, Logan’s Run and Knight Rider.
American leading lady and former model Darlanne Fluegel died on December 15, aged 64. She had been diagnosed eight years earlier with early onset Alzheimer’s disease. Fluegel’s credits include Eyes of Laura Mars, Battle Beyond the Stars, Fatal Sky (aka Project: Alien), Pet Sematary II, Slaughter of the Innocents, Scanner Cop, Relative Fear and Darkman III: Die Darkman Die, along with 1986 episodes of TV’s The Twilight Zone (Stephen King’s ‘Gramma’) and Alfred Hitchcock Presents. She retired from the screen in 1996.
British actor [David] Jeremy Wilkin died on December 19, aged 87. Best known for his voice work on such Gerry Anderson TV puppet series as Thunderbirds (as “Virgil Tracy”), Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons (as “Captain Ochre”), Joe 90 and The Secret Service, he also starred in the SF serial Undermind (1965) and appeared in episodes of UFO, Doctor Who (‘Revenge of the Cybermen’), The New Avengers and Blakes 7. Wilkin’s film credits include Curse of the Fly, Thunderbirds Are GO, Thunderbird 6, Doppelgänger (aka Journey to the Far Side of the Sun), The Spy Who Loved Me and Hyper Sapien: People from Another Star.
American actor Richard Venture (Richard Charles Venturella) died the same day, aged 94. He was in Dark Intruder, Man on a Swing, The Dark Secret of Harvest Home, Looker and Series 7: The Contenders, plus episodes of TV’s The Powers of Matthew Star, The Adventures of Brisco County Jr. and Now and Again.
Canadian leading lady Heather Menzies [-Urich], who portrayed runner “Jessica” in CBS’ short-lived Logan’s Run TV series (1977-78), died of brain cancer on December 24, aged 68. She also starred in Sssssss, Joe Dante’s Piranha and Captain America (1979). The actress had a small role in Endangered Species, and appeared in an episode of The Six Million Dollar Man before retiring from the screen in 1990. Menzies posed nude in the August 1973 issue of Playboy, and she was married to actor Robert Urich from 1975 until his death in 2002.
British actress, model and singer Luan Peters (Carol Hirsch) died the same day, aged 71. Best known for her roles in the Hammer horrors Lust for a Vampire and Twins of Evil (with Peter Cushing), she was also in The Flesh and Blood Show, Vampira (aka Old Dracula) and The Devil’s Men (aka Land of the Minotaur, again with Cushing). Peters also appeared on TV in episodes of Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased), Strange Report and Doctor Who, and starred in the unsold pilot Go Girl (aka Give Me a Ring Sometime), in which she played a crime-fighting go-go dancer. As “Karol Keyes” she released a number of pop singles in the late 1960s, and followed them up with a few more in the 1970s under her own name. She also fronted the band 5000 Volts on Top of the Pops, replacing actual singer Tina Charles.
American character actress Florence Schauffler (Florence Cornelia Brown) also died on December 24, aged 97. Best known for her role as the old witch, Haggis, in Pumpkinhead (1988), she was also in Stranded and the TV movie Goddess of Love.
American voice actor and radio producer Dick Orkin (Richard Orkin) died of a stroke the same day, aged 84. He created and starred in the syndicated superhero spoof radio serial Chickenman in 1966, and he produced, co-scripted and voiced the title character in the 1988 animated version of Oscar Wilde’s The Cantervil
le Ghost.
Rugged American leading man Thomas [O’Driscoll] Hunter died on December 27, aged 85. He worked in Europe for many years, where he starred in a number of spaghetti Westerns, along with The Vampire Happening, Madness—Gli occhi della luna and Equinozio. Hunter also co-scripted The Final Countdown (1980).
American actress, singer and vaudeville performer Rose Marie [Mazetta] died on December 28, aged 94. Best known for co-starring as “Sally Roberts” in the TV sitcom The Dick Van Dyke Show (1961-66), she began her screen career in the late 1920s as “Baby Rose Marie”. By the age of five, she had her own musical radio show on NBC. Marie was in Bridge Across Time (aka Terror at London Bridge, scripted by William F. Nolan), Witchboard, Sandman, Shriek If You Know What I Did Last Friday the Thirteenth and an episode of TV’s The Monkees (‘Monkees in a Ghost Town’ with Lon Chaney, Jr.). The actress also supplied the uncredited voice of “Norma Bates” in Gus Van Sant’s 1998 remake of Psycho. According to her twitter account, she had read all Stephen King’s books and was a big fan of the author.
Welsh-born leading lady Peggy Cummins (Augusta Margaret Diane Fuller) died in London on December 29, aged 92. She had suffered a stroke. Cummins began her screen career in 1940 and co-starred in Jacques Tourneur’s classic 1957 movie Night of the Demon (aka Curse of the Demon, based on “Casting the Runes” by M.R. James). Her other film credits include Moss Rose (with Vincent Price and George Zucco) and the Ealing comedy Meet Mr. Lucifer. She retired from the screen in the mid-1950s.
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