Jeff Slaten, who sold some stories to Atlas Comics in the mid-1970s, died of a heart attack on May 7th, aged 49. He also co-wrote the 1979 SF novel Death Jag (with Albert C. Ellis) and collaborated with Robert E. Vardeman on a story.
Television writer Stanley Silverman, whose credits include Science Fiction Theatre, The Green Hornet and Land of the Giants, died on May 9th, aged 90.
Disney animator Brian Wesley Green collapsed and died on May 12th. He worked on The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Atlantis the Lost Empire, Dinosaur and Fantasia 2000.
Low budget screenwriter, playwright and film critic Ed Kelleher (aka “Edouard Dauphin”) died of a degenerative brain disease on May 14th, aged 61. His screenplay credits include the 1970s cult favourites Invasion of the Blood Farmers and Shriek of the Mutilated, along with Lurkers, Prime Evil, Madonna and Voodoo Dolls. Kelleher also wrote six horror novels in collaboration with Harriette Vidal, plus biographies of punk rock performance artist Wendy O. Williams and David Bowie. From 1979 to 1986 he was the tour manager and publicist for the singer-songwriter Melanie.
Comics artist Paul H. Cassidy, one of the first illustrators to draw Superman and credited with adding the “S” to the Man of Steel’s cape, died on May 15th, aged 94. He began working in Joe Schuster’s studio in 1938 and was a ghost artist on the strip for the next two years.
29-year-old composer/orchestrator Linda Martinez, whose credits include the 2002 TV remake of Carrie, committed suicide on May 19th.
SF editor Samuel H. (Herbert) Post died of inoperable cancer on May 20th, aged 81. During the 1950s and 1960s he was paperback editor at MacFadden-Bartell, where he published Philip K. Dick, Damon Knight, A. E. van Vogt, Poul Anderson and others. He edited (uncredited) the 1960s anthologies The 6 Fingers of Time and Other Stories and The Frozen Planet.
57-year-old American SF writer and elementary school teacher Pat (Patricia) York, who was nominated for a Nebula Award in 2001, died on May 21st in Columbus, Ohio, when a bus collided with the car in which she was a passenger. Her short stories appeared in Full Spectrum, Realms of Fantasy and other publications, and she was twice a finalist in the Writers of the Future competition.
Fanzine editor Noreen Shaw (Noreen Mary Kane), who edited the Hugo-nominated Axe with her husband, SF editor Larry Shaw (who died in 1985), died on May 25th, aged 74. She also co-chaired the 1955 Worldcon with her first husband, Nick Falasca.
Television writer Frank Barton, who worked on TV’s The Invaders, died on May 31st, aged 87.
Composer Jaime Mendoza-Neva died of complications from diabetes the same day, aged 79. His many credits include Edward D. Wood’s Orgy of the Dead, The Witchmaker, The Brotherhood of Satan, Legacy of Blood, Legend of Boggy Creek, Grave of the Vampire, Garden of the Dead, The House on Skull Mountain, A Boy and His Dog, The Town That Dreaded Sundown, Creature from Black Lake, Shadow of Chikara, Vampire Hookers, The Evictors, Psycho from Texas, Mausoleum and Terror in the Swamp.
American science fiction and fantasy novelist and poet Warren [Carl] Norwood died of liver and kidney failure on June 3rd, aged 59. His books include The Windhover Tapes: An Image of Voices and its sequels, Midway Between, Polar Fleet, Final Command, Shudderchild and True Jaguar. With Mel Odom he collaborated on three “Time Police” novels (Vanished, Trapped! and Stranded), and he was a John W. Campbell Award finalist in 1983 and 1984.
Minneapolis bookseller and collector Peder D. Wagtskjold died of acute liver and renal failure on June 6th, aged 41. He began his career as a bookseller in 1985 at DreamHaven Books, where he worked for almost twelve years. He then started his own mail-order venture, PDW Books, and was associated with small press publisher Fedogan & Bremer for a number of years.
American Dungeons & Dragons artist David C. Sutherland III died on June 7th, aged 56.
Former SF short story writer, turned playwright and screenwriter, Michael R. Farkash was found dead after a long illness on June 9th, aged 53.
Composer David Diamond died on June 13th, aged 89. His credits include Zombies of Mora Tau and 20 Million Miles to Earth.
British scriptwriter N. J. Crisp died on June 14th, aged 81. He wrote the TV movie The Masks of Death (with Peter Cushing as Sherlock Holmes) plus episodes of Orson Welles’ Great Mysteries and Doom Watch.
Film and TV writer Samuel Roeca died on June 17th, aged 85. His credits include Sabu and the Magic Ring, The Night Visitor and episodes of Tarzan and Land of the Lost.
British experimental composer and drummer Basil Kirchin, whose film credits include the 1971 film The Abominable Dr. Phibes starring Vincent Price, died of cancer on June 18th, aged 77. He also contributed scores to The Shuttered Room and The Mutations (aka The Freakmaker).
Comics publisher and dealer Bruce Hamilton died after a long illness the same day, aged 72. In the 1980s he founded the Gladstone Publishing Co. to publish Walt Disney characters. An early advisor to The Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide, he also worked with Disney artist Carl Barks to produce limited edition lithographs.
Television writer Richard Tuber also died on June 18th, of a heart attack, aged 74. During the 1950s and 1960s he often worked for TV producer Ivan Tors and his credits include Around the World Under the Sea and episodes of Science Fiction Theater.
Comic book artist Sam Kweskin (aka “Irv Wesley”) died on June 23rd, aged 81. He started at Atlas Comics (later Marvel) in the early 1950s, working on such titles as Adventures Into Terror. After a stint in advertising and commercials from 1957 onwards, he returned to comics in the early 1970s to draw for Daredevil, Sub-Mariner and Dr. Strange.
Cartoonist and animator Rowland B. (Bragg) Wilson died of heart failure on June 28th, aged 74. Named Playboy’s Cartoonist of the Year in 1982, he was also a layout designer on such Disney cartoon films as The Little Mermaid, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Tarzan and Hercules.
Book dealer and collector John [Kevin] McLaughlin, whose Book Sail specialised in rare books and artwork, died at his home in California on June 30th, aged 63. In 1984 he purchased the only surviving final draft typescript of Dracula (under the original title The Un-Dead), bearing numerous corrections in Bram Stoker’s own hand. The manuscript failed to reach its $1 million reserve at a Christie’s auction on 2002, but subsequently sold to an anonymous buyer for $944,000.
Hollywood author/screenwriter/producer/director Ernest Lehman, whose credits include Alfred Hitchcock’s North by Northwest and Family Plot, died of a heart attack on July 2nd, aged 89. In 2001 he was the first screenwriter to receive an honorary Academy Award.
SF and fantasy author Chris (Christopher) [Renshaw] Bunch, who often collaborated with his brother-in-law Allan Cole, died of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease on July 4th, aged 61. A Vietnam war veteran and former combat correspondent, his numerous books include the popular eight-volume “Sten” series with Cole plus such titles as The Far Kingdoms, The Wind After Time, The Darkness of God, The Empire Stone, Storm of Wings, The Last Battle and The Dog from Hell. Bunch and Cole also scripted a number of TV series, including episodes of The Incredible Hulk, Werewolf and The A-Team. In 1997, Bunch shot a squatter during an argument, but the killing was judged “justified and excusable” homicide.
Evan Hunter (Salvatore A. Lombino), who also published police procedural novels under the name “Ed McBain”, died of cancer of the larynx on July 6th, aged 78. His many books include The Blackboard Jungle, Lizzie (the story of Lizzie Borden), Tomorrow’s World (as by “Hunt Collins”) and the popular “87th Precinct” police procedural series, which he began publishing in 1956 and which has become the longest-running crime series in print, comprising fifty-five titles. His anthology Transgressions, published two months before his death, included new novellas by Stephen King, Joyce Carol Oates, John Farris and others. As well as having his own work filmed, he also adapted Daphne du Maurier’s short story, “The Birds” into a screenplay for Alfred Hitchcock (the author detailed the experience in his 1997 memoir Me and Hitch). He was named a Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America in 1985 and i
n 1998 was the first American to be honoured with the Cartier Diamond Dagger Lifetime Achievement Award presented by the Crime Writer’s Association of Great Britain.
55-year-old Lewis Carroll enthusiast and chairman of the H. G. Wells Society Giles Hart was killed in the London suicide bus bombing on July 7th. He was due to give a talk that evening on Carroll’s lesser-known works. Born in Sudan, Hart was posthumously awarded a Knight’s Cross of the Order of Merit by the Polish president on July 22nd for his prominent support of the Polish Solidarity movement during the 1980s.
Book packager, publisher and editor Byron [Cary] Preiss died of injuries sustained in a car accident in East Hampton, New York, on July 9th, aged 52. Preiss launched Byron Preiss Visual Publications in 1974, publishing fantasy, science fiction and graphic novels. After embracing digital publishing in the early 1990s with Byron Preiss Multimedia, he founded iBooks in 1999. He was responsible for such titles as the graphic novel of The Stars My Destination, The Illustrated Harlan Ellison, the Isaac Asimov Robot City and Weird Heroes shared world series and such theme anthologies as The Ultimate Dracula, The Ultimate Frankenstein, The Ultimate Werewolf, The Ultimate Zombie, The Ultimate Alien, The Ultimate Dinosaur, The Ultimate Dragon and The Ultimate Witch. Preiss also wrote such books as Dragonworld (with J. Michael Reaves), The Little Blue Brontosaurus and The Vampire State Building.
British-born critic, author and Oscar-nominated screenwriter Gavin Lambert, whose best-known novel is Inside Daisy Clover, died of pulmonary fibrosis on July 17th, aged 80. A former editor of the BFI’s Sight and Sound magazine (1949–55), he emigrated to Hollywood in the 1950s and worked as an assistant to director Nicholas Ray (with whom he had a brief affair). Lambert contributed additional dialogue to Whoever Slew Auntie Roo? and his short fiction was collected in a number of volumes, beginning with The Slide Area: Scenes of Hollywood Life (1959). He also wrote biographies of Natalie Wood, Lindsay Anderson, George Cukor and Norma Shearer, amongst others.
Disney animator Ruben Apocaca died the same day, aged 73. He worked on Sleeping Beauty, Mary Poppins and The Jungle Book, as well as such TV shows as The Flintstones and Alvin and the Chipmunks.
Self-taught comics artist Jim (James) [Nicholas] Aparo died after a long battle against cancer on July 19th, aged 72. He started out at Charlton in the early 1960s, and during his almost thirty years with DC Comics he illustrated the adventures of Batman, Green Arrow, Aquaman, the Phantom Stranger and The Spectre, amongst others. He had been retired for around four years.
American radio and TV scriptwriter Shirley Thomas Perkins, who created the 1950s series Men in Space, died of cancer on July 21st, aged 85.
Reclusive American film collector Alois F. Dettlaff was found dead at his home in Wisconsin on July 26th. He was 84. In 1980, Dettlaff revealed that he had the only known surviving print of Thomas Edison’s long thought lost Frankenstein (1910). He finally made it available to other collectors on home video in 2003.
American composer and lyricist Robert Wright died on July 27th, aged 90. His collaborations with George Forrest (who died in 1999) include the score for the Tony Award-winning 1953 Broadway musical Kismet and the movies I Married an Angel and After the Thin Man. His hits include “Stranger in Paradise” and “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad”.
British film critic, author, TV and radio presenter and scriptwriter Tom Hutchinson died in his sleep after a long illness on August 3rd, aged 75. For many years the chief film critic of The Sunday Telegraph, he also worked for Picture Guide, Mail on Sunday, The Guardian and Radio Times. Hutchinson was the author of Horror & Fantasy in the Cinema and The Horror Film, and he contributed many of the horror star entries to Kim Newman’s The BFI Companion to Horror. His other books included biographies of Marilyn Monroe and Rod Steiger.
German-born Hollywood composer-arranger Lyle “Spud” Murphy, who transformed “Three Blind Mice” into the theme for Three Stooges shorts at Columbia, died of surgery complications on August 5th, aged 96. His composing process, the Equal Interval System, was adopted by hundreds of professional musicians.
DreamWorks animator Timothy Gruver died of a grand mal seizure on August 9th, aged 33. He worked on Shrek, El Dorado and Prince of Egypt.
UFO sceptic Philip J. [Julian] Klass died of prostate cancer the same day, aged 85. His seven books include UFO Abductions: A Dangerous Game (1989), and for many years he offered a reward of $10,000 to anyone who could provide scientific evidence of alien visitations. The money was never claimed.
45-year-old Joe Ranft, the Oscar-nominated co-writer of Toy Story and story supervisor at Pixar Animation Studios, was one of two people killed on August 16th when their vehicle veered off the highway in Mendocino County, California, plunging 130 feet into the Pacific ocean. Ranft’s other credits include The Nightmare Before Christmas, The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, The Lion King, A Bug’s Life, Toy Story 2, Monsters Inc. and Cars. As a voice actor he portrayed Heimlich the Bavarian caterpillar in A Bug’s Life and Wheezy the penguin in Toy Story 2.
Children’s author William Corlett died in France the same day, aged 66. Best known for his “Magician’s House” sequence – The Steps Up the Chimney, The Door in the Tree, The Tunnel Behind the Waterfall and The Bridge in the Clouds (the first three dramatized by the BBC, 1999–2000) – his other books include The Summer of the Haunting.
Legendary German-born portrait photographer Horst Tappe, whose subjects include Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dali and Alfred Hitchcock, died after a long battle with cancer in Switzerland on August 21st, aged 67.
French SF editor and anthologist Daniel Riche died of cancer the same day, aged 56. Starting in the 1960s, he edited and published the fanzine Nyarlathotep before going on to become a book and magazine editor. In the 1980s he edited the “Gore” line of splatterpunk novels for Fleuve Noir, while Le Livre d’Or de Richard Matheson was a “ Best of” collection of the author’s work. He also appeared as a demon in the 1991 film Ma vie est un enfer (My Life is Hell).
Disney imagineer Fred Joerger died on August 26th, aged 91. He helped create the models and art direct such attractions as Sleeping Beauty’s Castle, Pirates of the Caribbean, Submarine Voyage and EPCOT.
American composer Richard Loring died of cancer on August 28th, aged 86. His credits include House on Haunted Hill.
Animator Marty Scully died of Lou Gehrig’s disease on August 30th, aged 42. He worked on Mr. Magoo, The Pagemaster and Rugrats Go Wild.
Philippines-born comic book artist Fred Carrillo also died in August, aged 79. He worked on such titles as The Phantom Stranger and Swamp Thing.
Polish artist Henryk Tomaszewski, who is credited with creating the distinctive post-war Polish Poster School style, died in Warsaw from a progressive nerve degeneration on September 11th, aged 91.
French-born author Vladimir Volkoff died on September 13th, aged 72. Although best known for his spy fiction, he published a couple of SF novels in the 1980s and won the 1963 Jules Verne Award for Metro Pour L’Enfer (Metro to Hell).
67-year-old film and Broadway composer Joel Hirschhorn, who won an Academy Award for Best Song for co-writing “The Morning After” from The Poseidon Adventure, died of a heart attack on September 17th after breaking his shoulder in a fall the previous day. His other credits, usually in collaboration with Al Kasha, include The Towering Inferno (another Oscar winner for the song “We May Never Love Like This Again”), Freaky Friday (1976), Dorothy Meets Ozma of Oz, Pete’s Dragon, All Dogs Go to Heaven and The Giant of Thunder Mountain.
89-year-old science fiction author and US patent attorney Charles L. (Leonard) Harness died on September 20th, following a stroke earlier in the year. He published his first story in 1948, and his relatively small number of books include Flight Into Yesterday (aka The Paradox Man), The Ring of Ritornel, Wolfhead, The Catalyst, Firebird, Redworld, Krono, Lurid Dreams and Lunar Justice. Harness’ short fiction is collected in The Rose and An Ornament to His Profession, and in 2004 he was named an “Author of Distinction” by
the SFWA.
Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal, who was the inspiration for Laurence Olivier’s character in The Boys from Brazil, died on September 20th, aged 96.
Popular British children’s author Helen Cresswell died of ovarian cancer on September 26th, aged 71. The author of more than 120 books, including Snatchers, The Bongleweed, Moondial, Bag of Bones, six witchy Lizzie Dripping fantasies (assembled from the BBC-TV series Jackanory in the 1970s) and “The Bagthorpe Saga”, beginning with Ordinary Jack and adapted as a TV series in 1981. Cresswell’s TV scripts include an adaptation of Five Children and It, The Phoenix and the Carpet and The Demon Headmaster, and she received The Phoenix Award in 1988 for The Night-Watchmen.
American puppeteer and Emmy Award-winning scriptwriter Jerry (Jerome) [Ravn] Juhl died of complications from cancer on September 27th, aged 67. He joined the Jim Henson Company in 1961 and from 1977–81 was head writer on The Muppet Show. He also worked on five Muppet spin-off movies, various specials, and the TV series Sesame Street and Fraggle Rock. Guests were given funny noses at his memorial service.
Shakespearean scholar and biographer John [Charles] McCabe [III], who created the Sons of the Desert organisation honouring screen legends Laurel and Hardy, died of congestive heart failure the same day, aged 84. His 1961 book on the comedy duo is widely considered the definitive work, and his other volumes include biographies of James Cagney, George M. Cohan and Charlie Chaplin.
Screenwriter Louis A. Garfinkle died of complications from Parkinson’s disease on October 2nd, aged 77. Nominated for an Academy Award in 1977 for The Deer Hunter, he also wrote and produced I Bury the Living and Face of Fire.
The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 17 Page 64