The Best New Horror 5

by Ramsay Campbell

  Author, editor and critic Lester del Rey died May 10th from a heart attack, aged 77. Ramon Felipe San Juan Mario Silvio Enrico Smith Heathcourt-Brace Sierra y Alvarez-del Rey y de los Verdes was born in Minnesota in 1915. He sold his first short story, “The Faithful” to Astounding in 1938, and by the 1950s was editor or associate editor of such magazines as Space Science Fiction, Fantasy Magazine, Science Fiction Adventures and Rocket Stories. He also contributed features to Galaxy and If. He married his fourth wife, Judy-Lynn Benjamin in 1971 (she died in 1986) and together they built up the SF and fantasy lines at Ballantine Books. As editor of the Del Rey fantasy imprint, he discovered Stephen Donaldson, Terry Brooks, David Eddings and Barbara Hambly, amongst others. He wrote a number of adult and juvenile novels, and his short fiction is collected in And Some Were Human, Robots and Changelings, and Early Del Rey.

  Screenwriter Roger MacDougall, who scripted The Man in the White Suit and The Mouse That Roared, died on May 27th, aged 82.

  Florence Hanley, who ran the specialist Hanley’s Book Shop in Chicago for twenty-five years, died on June 4th after a short illness.

  Cartoonist Vincent Hamlin, who created caveman Alley Oop in the early 1930s, died on June 14th, aged 93.

  Bruce C. Herbert, the son of Dune author Frank Herbert, died of AIDS-related pneumonia on June 15th.

  Sir William Golding died from a heart attack on June 19th, aged 81. The author of Lord of the Flies, which has been filmed twice, his other books include Pincher Martin, The Spire, Darkness Visible, Fire Down Below, and the SF novel, The Inheritors. He won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1983 and was knighted in 1988.

  Thomas D. (Dean) Clareson, founder of the Science Fiction Research Association and Extrapolation: A Journal of Science Fiction and Fantasy, died July 6th from lung cancer after a long illness. He was 66. He also compiled a number of reference books.

  Film, radio and mystery expert Chris Steinbrunner died from a heart attack on July 7th, aged 59. He was co-editor, with Otto Penzler, of The Encyclopedia of Mystery and Detection, which won the Mystery Writers of America Edgar Award. His other books include Detectionary, The Films of Sherlock Holmes and Cinema of the Fantastic.

  Screenwriter John Beaird, whose credits include the psycho-thrillers My Bloody Valentine and Happy Birthday to Me, died on July 9th, aged 40.

  Anthropologist and science fiction author Chad Oliver (aka Symmes Chadwick Oliver), died after a long battle with cancer on August 9th, aged 65. His first SF sale was to Super Science Stories in 1950. His novels included Mists of Dawn, Shadows in the Sun, Winds of Time, Unearthly Neighbors, The Shores of Another Sea and The Cannibal Owl, while his short fiction is collected in Another Kind.

  Screenwriter Ken Englund died on August 10th, aged 79. Among his credits is The Secret Life of Walter Mitty starring Boris Karloff.

  Scriptwriter Ellis St Joseph died on August 21st, aged 82. Best known for his contributions to such TV shows as The Outer Limits and Logan’s Run, he also co-scripted the 1943 anthology movie Flesh and Fantasy.

  Cartoon and comedy writer Cal Howard died on September 10th after a long illness. He was 82, and his many credits include the Fleischer Studio’s animated Gulliver’s Travels and Mr Bug Goes to Town (aka Hoppity Goes to Town).

  Songwriter Harold Rome, who wrote “Horror Boys of Hollywood”, sung by The Ritz Brothers in One in a Million, died in late October. He was 85.

  Anthony Burgess (aka John Anthony Burgess Wilson) died of cancer on November 25th, aged 76. His first novel, Time for a Tiger, was published in 1956, but he is best remembered for A Clockwork Orange, which Stanley Kubrick turned into a controversial film in 1971. His other novels include The Wanting Seed, The End of the World News and A Dead Man in Deptford.

  Lyricist Mack David died December 30th, aged 81. Among his credits are the songs “A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes” and “Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo” from Disney’s Cinderella (1949), Scared Stiff, Hush . . . Hush, Sweet Charlotte, and the themes for such 1960s TV shows as 77 Sunset Strip and Hawaiian Eye.

  ACTORS/ACTRESSES

  American actor Glenn Corbett died of lung cancer on January 16th, aged 59. His credits include William Castle’s Homicidal and Hammer’s Pirates of Blood River.

  Oscar-winning, Belgium-born actress Audrey Hepburn (aka Edda van Heemstra Hepburn-Ruston) died of colon cancer on January 20th in Switzerland, aged 63. Her film credits include Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Paris When It Sizzles, Wait Until Dark, Robin and Marian and Steven Spielberg’s fantasy Always.

  7-foot, 4-inch professional wrestler and actor André the Giant (aka André René Roussimoff) died of an apparent heart attack on January 27th, aged 46. He appeared in The Princess Bride as the gentle giant Fezzick.

  Stuntman Tim “Tip” Tipping was killed when his parachute failed to open during a TV stunt on February 5th. He was aged 34 and had appeared in the Indiana Jones and James Bond series.

  British actress Jacqueline Hill died from cancer on February 18th. She was 63 and starred as Barbara Wright in the BBC’s Doctor Who series from 1963–66.

  American-born actor Eddie Constantine died at his home in Germany on February 25th. He was 75. Among his many film roles, he will be remembered as futuristic FBI agent Lemmy Caution in Jean-Luc Godard’s Alphaville and a series of lesser films.

  Muppeteer Eren Ozker died of cancer the same day. Aged 44, she joined The Muppet Show in 1976.

  American silent star Lillian Gish (aka Lillian de Guiche) died in her sleep on February 27th, aged 99. A discovery of D.W. Griffith, she made her debut in Birth of a Nation (1914) and went on to appear in Portrait of Jennie, Night of the Hunter, The Whales of August with Vincent Price, and a 1969 TV version of Arsenic and Old Lace co-starring Helen Hayes and Fred Gwynne.

  British actress Joyce Carey died on February 28th, aged 94. She appeared in the 1945 movie adaptation of Noel Coward’s Blithe Spirit and TV’s The Avengers.

  Supporting actor Terry Frost died of heart failure on March 1st, aged 86. His credits include Dick Tracy vs. Crime Inc., Captain America (1943), The Monster Maker, The Flying Serpent, Atom Man vs. Superman, Mysterious Island (1951) and many others.

  Bandleader Bob Crosby, the brother of Bing who appeared in Road to Bali, died of cancer on March 9th, aged 80.

  The First Lady of American Theatre, Helen Hayes (Brown), died on March 17th, aged 92. The winner of two Tony Awards, two Oscars and an Emmy, she appeared on Broadway in 1935 with Vincent Price in Victoria Regina and during the early 1970s she co-starred with Mildred Natwick in The Snoop Sisters series of TV movies (1973–74). Her film credits include Disney’s Herbie Rides Again and One of Our Dinosaurs is Missing. In tribute, the lights on Broadway were dimmed for one minute at 8 p.m. on the day she died.

  Actress Kate Reid died of cancer on March 27th, aged 62. She starred in The Andromeda Strain and Death Ship.

  Brandon Lee, the son of martial arts expert Bruce, was killed in a bizarre shooting accident on the set of The Crow on March 31st. He was 28.

  Mexican comic bullfighter, circus clown, prize-fighter and actor Mario Moreno Reyes, better known as Cantinflas, died of lung cancer on April 20th, aged 81. In Around the World in 80 Days (1956) he played Passepartout, Phineas Fogg’s faithful valet.

  Lon Ralph Chaney, son of Lon Chaney Jr and the grandson of Lon Chaney Sr, died on May 5th from injuries sustained in a car crash. He was 64.

  British actress Ann Todd died of a stroke on May 6th, aged 82. She played Mary Gordon in the 1936 SF classic Things to Come, and her other film credits include The Ghost Train (1931), The Seventh Veil, The Sound Barrier (aka Breaking the Sound Barrier) for then-husband David Lean, Hammer’s Taste of Fear (aka Scream of Fear) with Christopher Lee, and The Fiend (aka Beware! The Brethren).

  Silent star Mary Philbin died on May 7th, aged 89. As Christine she revealed Lon Chaney Sr’s horrific face to the world in The Phantom of the Opera (1925), and co-starred with Conrad Veidt in The Man Who Laughs and The Last Performance. Her career ended with the advent of talk
ies.

  Character actor Dan Seymour, who appeared in Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy, Return of the Fly, and Escape to Witch Mountain, died from a stroke on May 25th, aged 78.

  Evelyn Karloff, the widow of Boris Karloff, died of cancer on June 1st.

  Leading lady Alexis Smith (aka Gladys Smith) died of cancer on June 9th, aged 72. Her many films include The Smiling Ghost, The Horn Blows at Midnight, The Woman in White and The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane. She was married to actor Craig Stevens.

  Richard Webb, who portrayed TV’s titular Captain Midnight (aka Jet Jackson, Flying Commando) from 1954–58 shot himself to death on June 10th. He was 77 and had been suffering from a debilitating respiratory illness. He also appeared in such movies as The Night Has a Thousand Eyes, Among the Living, The Invisible Monster, Hillbillys in a Haunted House and Beware! The Blob (aka Son of Blob). A later interest in the supernatural led to him writing Great Ghosts of the West, Voices from Another World and These Came Back.

  Character actor Bernard Bresslaw died on June 11th, aged 59. Best known for his appearances in the Carry On films (including Carry On Screaming), his many other credits include Hammer’s The Ugly Duckling and Moon Zero Two, Blood of the Vampire, Vampira (aka Old Dracula), Jabberwocky, Hawk the Slayer and Krull.

  George “Spanky” McFarland, the chubby child star of the Our Gang and Little Rascals series, died on June 30th, aged 64.

  Fred Gwynne, who will always be remembered for his role as the Frankenstein Monster-like Herman in the TV series The Munsters (1964–66), died of pancreatic cancer on July 2nd. He was 66. He recreated the role of Herman Munster in the feature film Munster, Go Home! and the TV movie The Munsters’ Revenge, as well as appearing in the Stephen King adaptation Pet Sematary.

  Curly Joe DeRita, the last surviving member of the Three Stooges, died of pneumonia on July 3rd, aged 83. He joined the comedy team in the late 1950s, replacing Joe Besser, for such films as Have Rocket Will Travel, The Three Stooges Meet Hercules and Snow White and the Three Stooges.

  Actress Nan Grey (aka Eschal Miller) died of heart failure on July 25th, her 75th birthday. She appeared in Dracula’s Daughter, and co-starred with Vincent Price in Tower of London (1939), The Invisible Man Returns and The House of the Seven Gables. She was married to singer Frankie Laine.

  British actor James Donald, who starred as Dr Roney in Hammer’s Quatermass and the Pit (aka Five Million Years to Earth) died after a long illness on August 3rd. He was 76.

  British-born leading man Stewart Granger (aka James Lablanche Stewart) died of cancer on August 16th, aged 80. The swashbuckling star’s many films included Gaslight, King Solomon’s Mines (1950), Moonfleet, Footsteps in the Fog and the TV movies The Hound of the Baskervilles (1972, as Sherlock Holmes) and Chameleons.

  Actor and stage director Richard Jordan, who appeared in such films as Logan’s Run, Dune, Solarbabies and The Hunt for Red October, died of a brain tumour on August 31st. He was aged 56.

  Actress and author Rene Ray (aka Irene Creese) died on Jersey on August 28th, aged 81. Her film credits include High Treason, The Passing of the Third Floor Back, Once In a New Moon and The Return of the Frog. Her novel The Strange World of Planet X was the basis of a BBC-TV series and the 1957 film The Strange World (aka Cosmic Monsters).

  Hervé Villechaize, who played the diminutive Tatoo in TV’s Fantasy Island series, died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound on September 4th, aged 50. In a note he said he was despondent over longtime health problems. The 3-foot 11-inch, French-born actor also appeared in such movies as Seizure, The Man With the Golden Gun and Forbidden Zone.

  Canadian actor Raymond (William Stacy) Burr died on September 12th from metastatic cancer of the liver, aged 76. Although most famous for his TV roles in Perry Mason and Ironside, he also appeared (often playing the heavy) in such films as Black Magic, Gorilla at Large, Tarzan and the She-Devil, Rear Window, Bride of the Gorilla, Casanova’s Big Night, The Whip Hand, Godzilla King of the Monsters, Godzilla 1985, Delirious and the TV movie The Curse of King Tutankhamun’s Tomb.

  Zita Johann, who starred opposite Boris Karloff in The Mummy (1932) died of pneumonia on September 24th, aged 89. Her other film credits include Raiders of the Living Dead.

  Irish actor Cyril Cusack died of motor neuron disease in London on October 7th, aged 82. His many film credits include Fahrenheit 451 and Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984).

  Veteran actor Leon Ames (aka Leon Wycoff), the last surviving founder of the Screen Actors Guild, died following a stroke on October 12th. He was 91. His first film role was as the hero in Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932) opposite Bela Lugosi, and he also appeared in Thirteen Women, Mysterious Mr Moto, The Absent-Minded Professor, On a Clear Day You Can See Forever, Hammersmith Is Out, Jake Speed and Peggy Sue Got Married. He was a regular on the TV series Mr Ed.

  Horror great Vincent Price died on October 25th after a five-year battle against lung cancer. He was 82. His credits include more than 100 films and 75 stage plays. He appeared in Tower of London, The Invisible Man Returns, The House of the Seven Gables, Shock and Dragonwyck, before the 1953 3-D movie House of Wax turned him into a horror film star. For the next four decades he was typecast in such classics as William Castle’s House on Haunted Hill and The Tingler; Roger Corman’s Edgar Allan Poe series: The Fall of the House of Usher, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Raven, The Masque of the Red Death, etc., and Robert Fuest’s two Dr Phibes movies. Amongst his best films are The Fly (1958), The Tomb of Ligeia, Witchfinder General (aka The Conquerer Worm) and Theatre of Blood. In 1982 he teamed up with Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing and John Carradine for House of the Long Shadows, and in 1990 he played the kindly inventor in Tim Burton’s Edward Scissorhands.

  Twenty-three-year-old River Phoenix collapsed and died from a drug cocktail in Hollywood on Hallowe’en. He made his debut at the age of 15 in Explorers, and went on to star in Stand By Me and play the young Indy in Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade. At the time of his death he was working on a horror film, Dark Blood, and was set to have appeared as the reporter in Interview With a Vampire.

  Character actor Charles Aidman died of cancer in November 7th aged 68. He was the narrator on the new Twilight Zone TV series from 1985–87. His many film credits include Twilight’s Last Gleaming, Cult of the Damned, House of the Dead and the TV movie The Picture of Dorian Gray (1973).

  Actress Evelyn Venable died of cancer on November 16th, aged 80. The first model for Columbia Pictures’ Statue of Liberty logo, she starred opposite Frederic March in Death Takes a Holiday (1933) and was the voice of the sexy Blue Fairy in Disney’s Pinocchio. She retired in 1943.

  Veteran character actor Fritz Feld died on November 18th, aged 93. He made his film debut in the 1917 production Der Golem und die Tanzerin, and after moving to Hollywood in 1923, his many film credits include Bringing Up Baby, The Phantom of the Opera (1943), Passport to Destiny, The Catman of Paris, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty and Herbie Goes Bananas. On TV he appeared as intergalactic department store manager Zumdish in three episodes of Lost in Space.

  Actor/director Bill Bixby died on November 21st after a yearlong battle with cancer. He was 59. On TV he starred with Ray Walston in the SF sitcom My Favorite Martian (1963–66) and as scientist David Banner in The Incredible Hulk (1978–82). In the late 1980s he revived the character for a number of Incredible Hulk TV movies.

  Kenneth Connor, best remembered for his roles in the Carry On series, died of cancer on November 28th. He was 77. His other credits include the comedy/horror thriller What a Carve Up! (aka No Place Like Homicide), based on Frank King’s novel The Ghoul, and Captain Nemo and the Underwater City. He was awarded the MBE in 1991.

  Hollywood leading man Don Ameche (aka Dominic Felix Amici) died of prostate cancer on December 6th, aged 85. After starring in many films during the 1930s and ’40s, including the fantasy Heaven Can Wait, his career was revitalised in 1985 when he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for Cocoon. He went on to appear in Cocoon The R
eturn and Harry and the Hendersons (aka Bigfoot and the Hendersons).

  Hollywood leading actress Myrna Loy (aka Myrna Williams) died in New York City on December 14th, aged 88. She starred opposite Boris Karloff in The Mask of Fu Manchu, and co-starred with William Powell in the popular Thin Man series of the 1930s and ’40s. Her other credits include The Cave Man (1926), Noah’s Ark, Midnight Lace (1960), and the TV movies Death Takes a Holiday (1970), and Ants (aka It Happened at Lake Wood Manor/Panic at Lake Wood Manor).

  Actor Jeff Morrow died on December 26th after a long illness, aged 86. He starred as Exeter, the Metalunan scientist in the 1955 SF classic This Island Earth, and his other credits include The Creature Walks Among Us, Kronos, The Giant Claw, Octaman and Legacy of Blood.

  FILM/TV TECHNICIANS

  Writer, director and producer Joseph L. Mankiewicz died of heart failure on February 5th. He was aged 83. In 1929 he scripted The Mysterious Dr Fu Manchu, made his writing/directing debut with Dragonwyck starring Vincent Price, and was also responsible for the 1947 fantasy The Ghost and Mrs Muir.

  Film and TV director Douglas Heyes died of congestive heart failure on February 8th, aged 73. He scripted The Groundstar Conspiracy and directed various episodes of The Twilight Zone, Thriller and Night Gallery.

  Sharon Disney Lund, the daughter of Walt and an executive with the Walt Disney Co., died of cancer on February 16th, aged 56.

  British director (and father of critic Barry) Leslie Norman died of heart failure on February 18th, aged 81. His credits include The Night My Number Came Up, Hammer’s X the Unknown, and TV’s The Avengers. He was replaced by Michael Carreras on Hammer’s The Lost Continent (1968).

  Japanese director Inoshiro (aka Ishiro) Honda, best known for his series of Godzilla (aka Gojira) movies dating back to 1954, died on February 28th in Tokyo. He was 81, and his many other films include Rodan, The Mysterians, The H-Man, Atragon, Mothra, Frankenstein Conquers the World, King Kong Escapes etc.