Best New Horror #26

NECROLOGY: 2014 (Stephen Jones & Kim Newman)

ONCE MORE WE note the passing of writers, artists, performers and technicians who, during their lifetimes, made significant contributions to the horror, science fiction and fantasy genres (or left their mark on popular culture in other, often fascinating, ways)…

American author Alexander Malec, whose SF fiction was collected in Extrapolasis (1967), died on January 1, aged 84.

British author Elizabeth Jane Howard CBE died on January 2, aged 90. In 1946 she joined the newly created Inland Waterways Association as a part-time secretary to co-founder Robert Aickman. After three years of marriage to naturalist (Sir) Peter Scott (the son of the famous Antarctic explorer), she walked out on her husband and baby daughter and began an affair with the already married Aickman. Together they wrote the collection We Are the Dark: Six Ghost Stories (1951) before the relationship ended. She then went on to become a successful novelist, while her collections included Mr. Wrong and the omnibus volume Three Miles Up and Other Strange Stories. Howard had a reconciliatory meeting with Aickman shortly before his death from cancer in 1981, and her third husband was novelist Sir Kingsley Amis. Her auto-biography is entitled Slipstream (2002).

American playwright and SF and fantasy author and critic Michael Hemmingson died of apparent cardiac arrest in Tijuana, Mexico, on January 9. He was 47. Hemmingson was an expert on the works of Robert Silverberg and published critical works on Star Trek and Barry Malzberg. His books include The Mammoth Book of Short Erotic Novels (co-edited with Maxim Jakubowski), Poison from a Dead Sun/The Chronotope and Judas Payne: A Weird Western.

American science fiction and mystery author Neal Barrett, Jr. died after a long illness on January 12, aged 84. He began his writing career in 1960, and his novels include the “Aldair” and “Through Darkest America” series, along with the short story collections Slightly Off Center: Eleven Extraordinarily Exhilarating Tales, Perpetuity Blues and Other Stories, A Different Vintage, Way Out There and Other Seasons: The Best of Neal Barrett, Jr. He also wrote “Tom Swift” novels under the house name “Victor Appleton” and “Hardy Boys” books as “Franklin W. Dixon”, along with Batman, Judge Dredd and Babylon 5 tie-ins, although the latter was actually written by Al Sarrantonio. Barrett was named SFWA Author Emeritus at the Nebula Awards in 2010.

59-year-old Janrae Frank, who co-edited the 1994 feminist anthology New Eves: Science Fiction About the Exraordinary Women of Today and Tomorrow with Forrest J Ackerman and Jean Marie Stine, died of a stroke in hospital the same day. Her first short story appeared in the World Fantasy Award-winning anthology Amazons! (1979) and introduced her character Chimquar the Lionhawk, while her short fiction was collected in In the Darkness, Hunting (2004).

Prolific Danish-born artist Erik Blegvad, best known for his pen-and-ink illustrations for Mary Norton’s 1957 novel Bed-Knob and Broomstick and The Complete Book of Dragons by E. Nesbit, died in London on January 14, aged 90. He also illustrated his own translation of Hans Christian Anderson and more than 100 other children’s books, including many by his wife, Lenore Blegvad (who died in 2008). His short illustrated memoir, Self-Portrait (1979), is only nominally aimed at children.

Norwegian law professor, academic, and SF author and editor Jon Bing died the same day, aged 69. With his close friend Tor-Åge Bringsværd, he was instrumental in creating Norwegian fandom in the mid-1960s. Bing and Bringsværd went on to edit around twenty anthologies and create and edit a genre line for publisher Gyldendal from 1967-80. His short story collections and novels (again in collaboration with Bringsværd) include Rundt solen i ring (Ring Around the Sun) and Oslo 2084, and he was a Guest of Honour at the 1997 Eastercon in Britain.

American comedy writer and producer Ben (Benjamin) Starr died of congestive heart failure on January 19, aged 92. He scripted episodes of TV’s Mr. Ed, My Favorite Martian and Mork & Mindy, along with the movies Our Man Flint and William Castle’s The Busy Body and The Spirit is Willing.

Italian film composer Riziero “Riz” Ortolani died of bronchitis on January 24, aged 87. His many credits include Horror Castle, Castle of Blood and its remake Web of the Spider, Seven Blood-Stained Orchids, The Dead Are Alive, Seven Deaths in the Cat’s Eye, Death Steps in the Dark, Cannibal Holocaust, House on the Edge of the Park, Fantasma d’amore, Revenge of the Dead and Killer Crocodile and Killer Crocodile 2.

American author Stepan Chapman, who made his debut in 1969 in Analog, died on January 27, aged 63. He had earlier suffered a couple of heart attacks that he had reportedly kept hidden, even from his wife. Chapman’s short fiction was collected in Danger Music and Dossier, and his 1998 novel The Troika won the Philip K. Dick Award.

American soundtrack composer, songwriter and arranger John Cacavas died on January 28, aged 83. His movie credits include Horror Express and Hammer’s The Satanic Rites of Dracula (both starring Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing), Airport 1975 and Airport ‘77, The Time Machine (1978), Hangar 18, Once Upon a Spy, Cry for the Strangers and Mortuary, along with episodes of TV’s The Bionic Woman and Buck Rogers in the 25th Century.

American editor, artist, film-maker and fan Larry Ivie died of lung cancer in January, aged 77. He co-edited (with Ken Beale) the first three issues of Calvin T. Beck’s Castle of Frankenstein magazine in the 1960s, as well as supplying the cover paintings for several early issues. Ivie later went on to edit seven issues of his own magazine, Monsters and Heroes (1967-70), featuring his character “Altron Boy”, and contributed scripts to Warren’s Creepy and Eerie, as well as Tower Comics’ T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents and several Marvel Comics titles. His artwork also turned up in 1960s fanzines and issues of Galaxy, If and Astounding/Analog.

The death was announced in January of British experimental author and former libel lawyer Alan Burns, who was 83. He began his career writing for such SF magazines as Authentic and New Worlds, and his genre background influenced such novels as Europe After the Rain, Babel and Dreamerika! A Surrealist Fantasy. In 1982 he co-edited The Imagination on Trial: British and American Writers Discuss Their Working Methods with Charles Sugnet, which included interviews with J.G. Ballard and Michael Moorcock.

61-year-old American writer and artist Mark E. (Earl) Rogers, best known for several illustrated “Adventures of Samurai Cat” volumes beginning in 1980, died of an apparent heart attack on February 2 while hiking with his family in Death Valley. Rogers’ novella ‘The Runestone’ was filmed in 1990, and his novels include Zorachus, The Nightmare of God, The Dead, Yark and “The Blood of the Lamb” and “Zancarthus” series.

Emmy Award-winning American scriptwriter, producer and crime novelist Eric Bercovici, who adapted Shogun as a TV mini-series, died of a heart attack in Hawaii on February 9, aged 80. He also came up with the story for The Man from U.N.C.L.E. episode ‘The Fox and Hounds Affair’ featuring Vincent Price, and co-scripted Change of Habit starring Elvis Presley and the TV movie The Fifth Missile.

Oscar-winning documentary film-maker and screenwriter Robert M. Fresco died of cancer on February 14, aged 83. Back in the 1950s he co-scripted such movies as Universal’s Tarantula and The Monolith Monsters, worked uncredited on The 27th Day, The Alligator People and Invasion of the Animal People, and wrote three episodes of TV’s Science Fiction Theatre.

American fantasy, SF and horror witer Michael Shea died on February 16, aged 67. He won World Fantasy Awards for the novel Nifft the Lean (1982) and the novella ‘The Growlimb’ (reprinted in The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror #16), and his other books include A Quest for Simbilis, the Lovecraft-inspired The Color Out of Time, In Yana the Touch of Undying, The Mines of Behemoth and A’rak, while Polyphemus from Arkham House, The Autopsy and Other Tales and Copping the Squid and Other Mythos Tales collected some of his short fiction. Shea reportedly completed a fourth novel in his “Nifft” series shortly before his death.

American publisher and comics historian Bill Baker died on February 20, aged 55. Along with conducting interviews with Neil Gaiman, Alan Moore, George Perez and others, Baker also wrote Icons: The DC Comics and WildStorm Art of Jim Lee.

Spanish author Juan José Plans [Martínez], whose novel El juego de los niños was made into the 1976 film Island of the Damned (aka Would You Kill a Child?) and the 2012 remake Come Out and Play, died of an aneurysm February 24, aged around 70. He also scripted six episodes of the TV series Crónicas fantásticas (1974).

American writer, editor, cartoonist, underground film-maker and fan Bhob Stewart, who is credited with originating the term “underground comics” during a convention panel in 1966, died in a nursing home of emphysema the same day, aged 76. In 1953 he published the early comics fanzine The EC Fan Bulletin, and from 1960-63 he was co-editor and art director for the Hugo Award-winning fanzine Xero. He edited Castle of Frankenstein from 1963 into the 1970s, and he wrote a column for Andrew I. Porter’s Algol/Starship on film and other visual media, as well as contributing to such magazines as Cinefantastique, Heavy Metal and TV Guide. Stewart co-authored The EC Horror Library of the 1950s (with Bill Gaines), Screen Queens: Heroines of the Horrors (with Calvin [T.] Beck), and he also wrote Against the Grain: MAD Artist Wally Wood and MAD Style Guide. His artwork appeared in Venture Science Fiction, Cavalier and the Village Voice, and he created a number of series of trading cards.

American Star Wars author and spin-off role-playing game designer Aaron [Dale] Allston suffered an apparent heart attack at a convention and died on February 27, aged 53. He wrote the computer game Savage Empire, and his books include Web of Danger, Galatea in 2-D, Doc Sidhe and its sequel Sidhe-Devil, and the “Bard’s Tale” novels, Thunder of the Captains and Wrath of the Princes, both written with Holly Lisle.

French-born Belgium SF writer Philippe Ebly (Jacques Gouzou) died on March 1, aged 93. His many novels include the “Fantastic Conquerors” series (more than nineteen titles) and the “Time Runaways” series (ten titles). Since 1971, his books sold more than two million copies and were translated into a several languages.

Austrian-born American author, editor and publisher Peter A. Ruber died on March 6, aged 73. He had been suffering from diabetes and congestive heart failure. Ruber knew and published Arkham House founder August Derleth from 1962 until Derleth’s death in 1971, often under his Candlelight Press imprint. After James Turner left to found Golden Gryphon Press, Ruber became the editor for Arkham House in 1997 until he suffered a stroke seven years later. He wrote the biographies The Last Bookman: A Journey Into the Life and Times of Vincent Starrett: Journalist, Bookman, Bibliophile (1968) and King of the Pulps: The Life & Writings of H. Bedford Jones (with Darrell C. Richardson and Victor A. Berch, 2003), compiled the collections Reunion at Dawn and Other Uncollected Ghost Stories by H. Russell Wakefield and Night Creatures by Seabury Quinn for Ash-Tree Press, and edited the controversial anthology Arkham’s Masters of Horror: The 60th Anniversary Anthology for Arkham House in 2000.

American screenwriter S. Lee Pogostin died on March 7, the day before his 88th birthday. He scripted the movies Golden Needles, Nightmare Honeymoon and The UFO Incident.

American author and editor Alan [Paul] Rodgers died on March 8, aged 54. He had spent more than two years in hospital following a series of strokes and other illnesses. Rodgers won a Bram Stoker Award in 1987 for his first story, ‘The Boy Who Came Back from the Dead’, while Blood of the Children (1990) was nominated for a Bram Stoker Award for Best First Novel. His other novels include Fire, Night, Pandora, the Stoker-nominated Bone Music, Her Misbegotten Son, The River of Our Destiny, Alien Love and Battlestar Galactica: Rebellion (with Richard Hatch), and his short fiction was collected in New Life for the Dead and Ghosts Who Cannot Sleep. Between 1984-87 Rodgers was Associate Editor at Rod Serling’s The Twilight Magazine, and he edited the companion title Night Cry from 1985-87. He was married to editor and author Amy Stout for fifteen years.

American television writer Don Ingalls (Donald G. Ingalls) died on March 10, aged 95. He scripted episodes of Star Trek, The Sixth Sense and Fantasy Island, the TV movies The Initiation of Sarah (1978) and Captain America (1979), and the disaster movie Airport 1975. Ingalls was also executive story consultant on the series The Sixth Sense (1972) and Fantasy Island (1977-84), producing the latter in the early 1980s as well as directing two episodes.

British commercial artist Sam Peffer (Samuel John Peffer), who signed his artwork “Peff”, died on March 14, aged 92. Through the 1950s and ‘60s he painted hundreds of paperback books covers (including the James Bond titles and the film tie-in to Midnight Lace for Pan Books) and moved on to film and video posters over the following two decades (the Creatures of Evil/Blood Devils double-bill, Prisoner of the Cannibal God, Flesh Gordon etc.). Peffer would often use himself and his wife Kitty as models, along with his movie stuntman brother-in-law, Jack Cooper.

British comics writer Steve Moore, who created the UK’s first comics fanzine, Orpheus, in 1971, died on March 16, aged 64. He worked for Marvel UK and such titles as 2000 AD, Doctor Who Weekly, Warrior and Sounds (in collaboration with Alan Moore, who he is credited with teaching how to write comics). Moore was also an editor at Fortean Times and Fortean Studies, and he novelised the 2006 movie V for Vendetta.

Acclaimed American fantasy, SF and magical realism author Lucius [Taylor] Shepard died after a short illness on March 18, aged 70. Recent health complications had included a stroke and a spinal infection. He made his genre debut in 1983 and his first novel, Green Eyes, was published the following year. It was followed by, amongst many other titles, Life During Wartime, The Scalehunter’s Beautiful Daughter, Kalimantan, The Golden, Floater, Louisiana Breakdown, Softspoken, Trujillo and Other Stories and the Arkham House collection The Jaguar Hunter. Shepard also wrote a long-running film review column for The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, and his many awards included the John W. Campbell Award, the Nebula Award, the Hugo Award, the World Fantasy Award, the International Horror Guild Award and the Shirley Jackson Award.

American author, journalist, English professor and playwright Stewart H. Benedict, who edited the 1963 anthology Tales of Terror and Suspense, died on March 19, aged 89.

British children’s author John Rowe Townsend died on March 24, aged 91. He won an Edgar Award for Best Juvenile Mystery in 1971 for The Intruder, and his other titles include Widdershins Crescent, Forest of the Night, Noah’s Castle (filmed for TV in 1980), The Visitors, The Creatures and The Invaders.

Best-selling American non-fiction writer Jonathan Schell, whose 1982 book The Fate of the Earth was the primary inspiration for the nuclear holocaust TV film The Day After (1983), died of cancer on March 25, aged 70. Schell was also a staff writer on The New Yorker for two decades.

American screenwriter Lorenzo Semple, Jr. (Lorenzo Elliott Semple, III), who created the 1960s Batman TV series and scripted the 1966 spin-off movie, died on March 28, the day after his 91st birthday. He began his career in the early 1950s writing short stories for The Saturday Evening Post and Collier’s Weekly. Semple also scripted a two-part episode of The Green Hornet, along with the movies Thompson’s Ghost, Daddy’s Gone A-Hunting, King Kong (1976), Flash Gordon (1980), Never Say Never Again and Sheena.

British film and music journalist Phil Hardy (Philippe George Hardy) died of a heart attack on April 8, aged 69. He co-founded The Brighton Film Review and wrote for such magazines as Time Out and Variety. His many book projects include editing the seminal reference works The Aurum Film Encyclopedia: Science Fiction and The Aurum Film Encyclopedia: Horror.

Acclaimed Colombian-born author Gabriel [José de la Concordia] García Márquez, who won the Nobel Literature Prize for his works of magic realism, died at his home in Mexico City on April 17. He was 87 and had been hospitalised earlier in the month for an infection and dehydration. Márquez’s best-known novel is One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967), and his other books include The Autumn of the Patriarch, Chronicle of a Death Foretold, Of Love and Other Demons and the memoir, Living to Tell the Tale.

58-year-old British editor and writer Andy [W.] Robertson, who was the assistant editor of Interzone for almost twenty years from 1984, died in hospital of a heart attack and stroke the same day. He had been suffering from Parkinson’s disease. Robertson also published a number of works as part of The Night Land Project, based on the writings of William Hope Hodgson, including the British Fantasy Award-winning anthology William Hope Hodgson’s Night Lands, Volume 1: Eternal Love (2003).

William H. Patterson, Jr., one of the founders of the Heinlein Society and its first president, died on April 22, aged 62. His massive study Robert A. Heinlein: In Dialogue with His Century, was published by Tor Books in two volumes (2011 and 2014).

American SF writer and fan George C. (Clifford) Willick died on April 26, aged 76. He had been suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. In the 1950s Willick edited the fanzine Parsection, and during the following two decades he published a handful of short stories in Galaxy and elsewhere. In later years he maintained a number of online research sites, including the Spacelight website.

Legendary EC comics artist, writer and editor Al (Albert Bernard) Feldstein died on April 29, aged 88. Best known for his work on such horror and SF titles as Tales from the Crypt, Vault of Horror, Weird Fantasy and Weird Science, he was also editor of MAD Magazine from 1965-85. Feldstein later became a wildlife and landscape painter, and he received an HWA Bram Stoker Lifetime Achievement Award in 2011.

American comic book artist Dick Ayers (Richard Bache Ayers) died on May 4, aged 90. After studying art under Burne Hogarth in the late 1940s, he co-created (with Ray Krank) the horror-themed Western character Ghost Rider and began drawing strips for such Atlas Comics titles as Adventures Into Terror, Astonishing, Journey Into Mystery, Journey Into Unknown Worlds, Menace, Mystery Tales, Mystic, Strange Tales and Uncanny Tales, and Charlton’s The Thing. Teaming up with Jack Kirby as an inker, when Atlas became Marvel Comics Ayers found himself working on such titles as The Fantastic Four, Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos, The Incredible Hulk, Journey Into Mystery, Strange Tales (‘Fin Fang Foom!’), Tales of Suspense and Tales to Astonish. When writers Roy Thomas and Gary Friedrich revived a version of The Ghost Rider for Marvel in 1967, Ayers was chosen to illustrate it. The artist was inducted into the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame in 2007.

American scriptwriter Stanford Whitmore died on May 8, aged 88. His credits include The Eyes of Charles Sands, Hammersmith is Out and The Dark, along with episodes of TV’s The Wild Wild West, Night Gallery and The Hitchhiker.

British romantic historical author Mary Stewart (Mary Florence Elinor Rainbow, aka Lady Stewart), best known for her Arthurian “Merlin Chronicles” (The Crystal Cave, The Hollow Hills, The Last Enchantment, The Wicked Day and The Prince and the Pilgrim), died at her home in Scotland on May 9, aged 97. Her 1962 suspense novel The Moon-Spinners was filmed by Disney, and she also wrote a number of Gothic romances and children’s books.

British fantasy and surreal artist Patrick [James] Woodroffe died after a short illness on May 10, aged 73. During the 1970s he produced nearly 100 book covers for such authors as Michael Moorcock, Peter Valentine Timlett and Roger Zelazny. He also illustrated a number of record cover sleeves, including those for the Judas Priest album Sad Wings of Destiny (1976) and David Greenslade’s symphonic The Pentateuch (1979). The artist’s luminous, detailed work is collected in such volumes as the best-selling Mythopœikon: Fantasies Monsters Nightmares Daydreams (1976), A Closer Look at the Art Techniques of Patrick Woodroffe (1986), Pastures in the Sky, Patrick Woodroffe: Master of Fantasy and Benign Icons: Patrick Woodroffe’s World.

Acclaimed Swiss artist H. (Hansreudi) R. (Rudolf) Giger died on May 12 from injuries suffered during a fall. He was 74. Giger is best known for his iconic Oscar-winning designs for Ridley Scott’s Alien (1979), and his conceptual work was also featured in Alien³, Species, Killer Condom, Alien: Resurrection, Species II, AVP: Alien vs. Predator, Alien vs. Predator: Requiem and Alejandro Jodorowsky’s ill-fated adaptation of Dune in the mid-1970s. Giger also directed documentary shorts, including Giger’s Necronomicon and Giger’s Alien, and his distinctive “biomechanical” artwork has been featured in such books as A Rh+, H.R. Giger’s Necronomicon, H.R. Giger’s Alien, H.R. Giger’s Biomechanics and Baphomet, amongst other titles. He was named a Spectrum Grandmaster in 2005 and inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 2013.

Innovative American graphic designer and illustrator Tony Palladino (Anthony Americo Paladino), who created the fractured logo type for Robert Bloch’s 1959 novel Psycho (and the subsequent movie series), died of complications from pneumonia on May 14, aged 84. “How do you do a better image of Psycho than the word itself?” he once said.

British comics editor Vanessa “Vee” Morgan died of cancer on May 17, aged 63. During the late 1970s and early ‘80s she edited a number of DC Comics reprint magazines for London Editions Magazines, including The Super Heroes Monthly and Superman Spectacular, for which she also commissioned original material by such newcomers as Alan Moore, Brian Bolland, Garry Leach and others. She later compiled reprints from 2000 AD for Dez Skinn’s Quality Communication and edited the children’s newspaper Scoop.

Romanian academic and historian Professor Radu [Nicolae] Florescu died of complications from pneumonia in France on May 18, aged 88. With his colleague Raymond T. McNally (who died in 2002), he wrote the 1972 bestseller In Search of Dracula: The History of Dracula and Vampires, which linked Bram Stoker’s fictional character to the historical 15th-century voivod Vlad Tepes. Florescu’s other books included In Search of Frankenstein: Exploring the Myths Behind Mary Shelley’s Monster, In Search of the Pied Piper, Dracula’s Bloodline (with Matei Cazacu) and, again with McNally, Dracula: A Biography of Vlad the Impaler, The Essential Dracula: A Completely Illustrated & Annotated Edition of Bram Stoker’s Classic Novel, Dracula: Prince of Many Faces: His Life and Times and In Search of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

British SF fan Ken Brown, who regularly reviewed books for Interzone when the magazine was edited by David Pringle, died of pancreatic cancer on May 19, aged 57.

American publisher Oscar Dystel, who turned around failing US imprint Bantam Books in the early 1950s and remained as Chairman until 1980, died on May 28, aged 101. Among his best-selling acquisitions were William Peter Blatty’s The Exorcist, Peter Benchley’s Jaws and the Star Trek franchise.

American movie and television historian and critic Steven H. (Henry) Scheuer died of congestive heart failure on May 31, aged 88. He edited seventeen editions of the innovative reference guide Movies on TV (1958-93), and his other books include Who’s Who in Television and Cable and The Complete Guide to Videocassette Movies.

American SF and fantasy author Jay Lake (Joseph Edward Lake, Jr.) died on June 1, aged 49. He had been suffering from cancer since 2008. His novels include Rocket Science, Trial of Flowers, Mainspring, Escapement, Madness of Flowers, Green, Pinion, Endurance, Kalimpura and Lady of the Islands (with Shannon Page). He also edited the anthologies All-Star Zeppelin Adventure Stories (with David Moles), TEL: Stories, Spicy Slipstream Stories (with Nick Mamatas), The Exquisite Corpuscle (with Frank Wu), Other Earths (with Nick Gevers), Footprints (with Eric T. Reynolds) and the first six volumes of Polyphony (with Deborah Layne, 2002-06). Lake’s acclaimed short fiction was collected in Greetings from Lake Wu, Green Grow the Rushes-Oh, American Sorrows, Dogs in the Moonlight, The River Knows Its Own, The Sky That Wraps and the posthumous The Last Plane to Heaven, while his stories ‘The Goat Cutter’ and ‘The American Dead’ appeared, respectively, in volumes #15 and #18 of The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror. In 2004, Lake received the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer.

Herb (Herbert) Yellin, who founded the Californian literary imprint Lord John Press in 1978 to publish signed limited editions of modern authors, died on June 13, aged 79. Amongst the many writers he published were Ray Bradbury, Stephen King, Ursual K. Le Guin, Dan Simmons, Joyce Carol Oates and John Updike. Dennis Etchison edited the original anthology Lord John Ten in 1987, which included contributions from Bradbury, Robert Bloch, Ramsey Campbell, William F. Nolan, Whitley Strieber, Roberta Lannes and many others.

American author Daniel Keyes died on June 15, aged 86. He was best known for his Hugo Award-winning SF short story ‘Flowers for Algernon’ (in the April 1959 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction) and the Nebula Award-winning expanded novel version in 1966. It was subsequently filmed as Charly (1968) starring Cliff Robertson, who won an Academy Award for his performance. In the early 1950s, Lester del Rey helped Keyes get a job as an associate editor with the pulp publisher Stadium Publications, where he worked on Marvel Science Stories and the struggling Atlas Comics line. Under the pen names “Kris Daniels” and “A.D. Locke”, he also wrote scripts for such EC comics as Shock Illustrated and Confessions Illustrated. ‘Flowers for Algernon’ was adapted for radio and TV, and as a stage play, a modern dance work, and a musical. Keyes received the SFWA Author Emeritus Life Achievement Award in 2000.

74-year-old American film historian John Cocchi (John Robert Cocchi, Jr.), author of the ground-breaking reference work Second Feature: The Best of the ‘B’ Films (1991) from Citadel Press, was determined to have died circa June 16 after having gone missing on April 25. His body was found in a shipping channel off Sandy Hook, Staten Island. Cocchi also wrote The Westerns: A Picture Quiz Book, contributed to such magazines as Castle of Frankenstein, Box Office and Classic Images, and worked (uncredited) on publicity for Al Adamson’s 1969 movie Five Bloody Graves.

Ditmar Award-winning Australian SF author Philippa [Catherine “Pip”] Maddern died of cancer the same day. She was also an expert on, and teacher of, medieval history.

American graphic designer Anthony Goldschmidt died of liver cancer on June 17, aged 71. Through his firm Intralink Film Graphic Design he created many iconic movie posters, including Steven Spielberg’s E.T. The Extra-terrestial, and worked on the title designs for such movies as Young Frankenstein, Pee-wee’s Big Adventure, The Witches of Eastwick, Spaceballs, The Lost Boys, Scrooged, Stargate, Batman Forever and Batman & Robin.

British publisher Felix Dennis, whose roster of magazines included Fortean Times, died on June 22, aged 67.

American YA, children’s and LGBT author Nancy Garden (Antoinette Elisabeth Garden) died on June 24, aged 76. Her controversial 1982 novel, Annie on My Mind, was banned in the Kansas City school system because of its teen lesbian characters. Her many other books include Vampires, Werewolves, Witches, Devils and Demons, Fours Crossing, Mystery of the Night Raiders, The Ghost Inside Me, Prisoner of the Vampires, My Sister the Vampire and My Brother the Werewolf.

American musical composer and children’s author Mary Rodgers, the daughter of composer Richard Rodgers, died on June 26, aged 83. She is best known for her body-swap fantasies Freaky Friday (which has been filmed by Disney three times), A Billion for Boris and Summer Switch. Rodgers also collaborated with lyricist Sammy Cahn on the children’s album Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves for Little Golden Records, which featured performances by Bing Crosby. Her other projects include Once Upon a Mattress (1959), based on the story ‘The Princess and the Pea’ by Hans Christian Anderson; The Mad Show, a 1966 Off Broadway musical review based on MAD Magazine; the screenplay for Disney’s The Devil and Max Devlin (1981), and a 1991 musical adaption of her own novel Freaky Friday.

Jan Shepherd (Janet E. Evenden), who was the first art editor of British comic 2000 AD in 1977 (she created the iconic ‘Judge Dredd’ title logo), died on June 27, aged around 79. She also worked as a designer on such comics as Valiant, Starlord, Tornado, Eagle and Scream!.

American author Jory [Tecumseh] Sherman (aka “Cort Martin”), best known for his series of “Gunn” adult Westerns, died on June 28, aged 81. He published more than 300 books, including seven psychic investigator “Chill” Chillders titles between 1978-80, beginning with Satan’s Seed.

Author, editor and pulp magazine collector Frank M. (Malcolm) Robinson died on June 30, aged 87. He had suffered from health problems, including heart trouble, in recent years. In the early 1940s Robinson had worked as an office boy at Amazing Stories before World War II intervened. His first SF sale was to Astounding Stories in 1950, and his first novel, The Power (1956), was filmed by George Pal in 1967. With Thomas N. Scortia he co-wrote the techno-thrillers The Glass Inferno (filmed as The Towering Inferno), The Prometheus Crisis, The Nightmare Factor, The Gold Crew and Blowout!, while his own books include The Dark Beyond the Stars, Waiting and The Donor, along with the collections A Life in the Day of…and Other Short Stories, Through My Glasses Darkly and The Worlds of Joe Shannon. Robinson was an expert on pulp magazines, and he shared his knowledge in Pulp Culture: The Art of Fiction Magazines (with Lawrence Davidson), the Hugo Award-winning Science Fiction of the Twentieth Century: An Illustrated History, Art of Imagination (with Robert Weinberg and Randy Broecker) and The Incredible Pulps: A Gallery of Fiction Magazine Art. He was also managing editor at Rogue (1959-65) and Cavalier (1965-66), a staff writer for Playboy (1969-73), and during the 1970s he was a speech-writer for openly gay San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk (Robinson basically played himself in a cameo in the 2008 movie).

British fan writer and editor Di Reynolds (aka Di Wathen) also died in June. She had been suffering from bowel cancer for a couple of years. With her former husband, Mike Wathen, she was involved in running the British Fantasy Society and various Fantasycons during the 1980s and early ‘90s, and they were in charge of registration and hotel bookings for the 1988 World Fantasy Convention in London.

American YA and children’s author Walter Dean Myers (Walter Milton Myers), died on July 1, aged 76. He wrote more than 100 books, including the fantasies Shadow of the Red Moon and Dope Stick, along with the ghost story ‘Things That Go Gleep in the Night’.

American space expert Frederick I. (Ira) Ordway, III died the same day, aged 87. Inspired by the SF pulp magazines as a child, in his early twenties he met and befriended Arthur C. Clarke. Fifteen years later Ordway was a top official at NASA, working closely with the rocket scientist Wernher von Braun, when on Clarke’s reccomendation he became the chief technical consultant and scientific advisor on Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). Ordway wrote more than two dozen books, including History of Rocketry and Space Travel (1975) with von Braun and 2001: The Heritage and Legacy of the Space Odyssey (2014) with Robert Godwin.

41-year-old Hachette Australia CEO and Hachette New Zealand chairman Matthew Richell was was killed in a surfing accident in New South Wales on July 2, when he was swept onto rocks and suffered a fatal head injury. Richell worked in the UK for such imprints as Bloomsbury, Pan Macmillan and John Murray before taking over as marketing director of Headline and Hodder in Australia in 2006. He was promoted to CEO in 2013.

American horror, hard-boiled crime and comics writer C. (Christopher) J. (John) Henderson (Christopher Henderson) died of cancer on July 4, aged 62. Best known for his “Teddy London” supernatural detective series (written as “Robert Morgan”), under his own name he also wrote the “Jack Hagee” and “Piers Knight” series, along with Misery and Pity, Baby’s First Mythos, To Battle Beyond, The Reign of the Dragon Lord, A Rattling of Bones, The Spider: Shadow of Evil and a Quantum Leap tie-in. His short fiction is collected in numerous volumes, including The Occult Detectives of C.J. Henderson, The Tales of Inspector Legrasse (with H.P. Lovecraft) and Degrees of Fear and Others. Henderson co-edited the anthology Hear Them Roar (with Patrick Thomas), wrote the graphic novel William Shatner Presents Man O’ War, contributed to such comics series as Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight and Neil Gaiman’s Lady Justice, and combined investigative journalist Carl Kolchak with various Lovecraftian horrors in a series of illustrated novellas for Moonstone Books. His non-fiction includes The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction Movies: From 1987 to the Present and Breaking Into Fiction Writing! (with Bruce Gehweiler).

Hungarian-born British children’s author and illustrator Val Biro (Balint Stephen Biro) died the same day, aged 92. Best known for his adventures about the vintage car “Gumdrop”, which appeared in thirty-seven picture books between 1966-2001, he also published such titles as Charles Perrault’s Mother Goose Fairy Tales and Tales from the Arabian Nights, illustrated numerous book covers (most notably for the “Hornblower” series), and was a regular contributor to Radio Times magazine for twenty-one years.

American author James H. (Harvey) Cobb, best known for his quartet of “Amanda Garrrett” futuristic naval techno-thrillers starting with Choosers of the Slain (1996), died of cancer on July 8, aged 61. He also “collaborated” with Robert Ludlum on the “Covert-One” thriller The Arctic Event (2007).

American author Curt Gentry, whose 1968 disaster novel The Last Days of the Late, Great State of California saw most of the West Coast disappear into the sea following a giant earthquake, died after a long battle with lung cancer on July 10, aged 83. His other twelve books include the Edgar Award-wining Helter Skelter (co-written with Vincent Bugliosi), about the Charles Manson murders.

Reclusive American author Thomas [Louis] Berger, best known for his satirical Western Little Big Man (1964), subsequently filmed starring Dustin Hoffman, died on July 13, aged 89. His books also include the horror novel Killing Time, the fantasies Being Invisible, Changing the Past and Arthur Rex: A Legendary Novel, and the SF-themed Vital Parts, Regiment of Women and Adventures of the Artificial Woman. Berger’s serio-comic novels Neighbours (filmed in 1981), The Houseguest, Meeting Evil and Suspects also contain nightmarish elements.

British book collector and film fan Jeffrey Myers died in an East Sussex nursing home on July 15, aged around 67. A stalwart of the British Fantasy Society and H.G. Wells Society for many years, he had been suffering from multiple sclerosis for some time. From 1987-88 Myers was the publisher of the groundbreaking genre movie magazine Shock Xpress, allowing the title to move to professional design and full-colour covers.

Best-selling, but often controversial, British Western author J. (John) T. (Thomas) Edson died after a long illness on July 17, aged 86. He had 137 books published, selling more than 27 million copies around the world. Between 1975-90 he published four novels in the Tarzan-related “Bunduki” series (a fifth title remains unpublished), along with four short stories. The first three books were issued with permission of both the Edgar Rice Burroughs Estate and Philip José Farmer due to connections with those authors’ work.

Nancy Carrigan who, with her husband Richard, collaborated on the 1971 SF novel The Siren Stars and had a story in a 1976 issue of Analog, died on July 18, aged 81.

American horror author, actor, director and podcast host Lawrence P. Santoro died of cancer of the duodenum on July 25, aged 71. His 2000 novella God Screamed and Screamed, and Then I Ate Him was nominated for a Bram Stoker Award, as was his audio-drama version of Gene Wolfe’s The Tree is My Hat (2002) starring Neil Gaiman, P.D. Cacek and Gahan Wilson. He also published the novel Just North of Nowhere in 2007 and Drink for the Thirst to Come, a collection of short fiction, appeared four years later. Santoro was known as the “Vincent Price of Podcasts” for his award-winning Tales to Terrify series, and during the 1990s he wrote a Weekender section on film for the Chicago Sun-Times.

American author, radio journalist and Wiccan high priestess Margot Adler, whose books include the non-fiction study Vampires Are Us: Understanding Our Love Affair with the Immortal Dark Side (2014), died of cancer on July 28, aged 68. In 1972, Adler founded the Hour of the Wolf radio show, devoted to SF, fantasy and related fields. As a correspondent for National Public Radio she interviewed J.K. Rowling for the first time on American radio, and her best known book is the neo-paganism study Drawing Down the Moon: Witches, Druids, Goddess-Worshippers, and Other Pagans in America Today (1979).

Italian film composer Giorgio Gaslini died on July 29, aged 84. His credits include Night of the Devils, So Sweet So Dead (aka The Slasher), Five Women for the Killer, Dario Argento’s Deep Red and the TV series La porta sul buio (Door Into Darkness).

Indian-born British journalist and espionage author [Harry] Chapman Pincher died on August 5, aged 100. He had suffered a small stroke seven weeks earlier. He joined the Daily Express in 1946, and worked for the newspaper for thirty years reporting on science and defence. His books include the SF novel Not With a Bang (1965), while The Giantkiller, The Penthouse Conspiracy, The Eye of the Tornado and One Dog and Her Man by Dido contain genre elements.

American literary agent and anthologist Kirby McCauley died of renal failure on August 30, aged 72. He had been suffering from diabetes. In the 1980s he famously represented such soon-to-be-Big Names as Stephen King, Peter Straub, George R.R. Martin, Roger Zelazny and others, including many of the older pulp authors. He edited the horror anthologies Night Chills and the World Fantasy Award-winning Frights and Dark Forces. McCauley helped found, and chaired, the first World Fantasy Convention in 1975 in Providence, Rhode Island. He received the Special Convention Award at World Fantasy in 1979.

American comics artist Stan Goldberg who, in the 1960s, created the original colour designs for Spider-Man, the Hulk and the Fantastic Four, died on August 31, aged 82.

Frederic Mullally, British author, journalist and publicist (clients included Frank Sinatra and Audrey Hepburn), died on September 7, aged 96. Amongst his books is the 1975 alternate-history novel Hitler Has Won. Mullally was married to actress Rosemary Nicols (TV’s Department S).

British scriptwriter Jane Baker died on September 8. With her husband Pip she scripted the movie Captain Nemo and the Underwater City, along with additional scenes and dialogue for Night of the Big Heat (aka Island of the Burning Damned, starring Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing). For TV the couple also worked on Doctor Who, creating the character of renegade female Time Lord “The Rani” (memorably portrayed by Kate O’Mara), as well as an episode of Space: 1999. The pair also co-wrote the Doctor Who novelisations Mark of the Rani, Ultimate Foe, Time and the Rani and Terror of the Vervoids, along with the Doctor Who “find your fate” book, Race Against Time.

British author Graham [William] Joyce died of aggressive lymphoma on September 9, aged 59. He made his debut in 1991 with the novel Dreamside, and followed it up with the British Fantasy Award-winning Dark Sister, Requiem, The Tooth Fairy, The Stormwatcher, Memoirs of a Master Builder (as by “William Heaney”), Some Kind of Fairy Tale and the World Fantasy Award-winning The Limits of Enchantment, along with House of Lost Dreams, Spiderbite, Indigo, Smoking Poppy, How to Make Friends with Demons, The Silent Land and The Year of the Ladybird (aka The Ghost in the Electric Blue Suit). Joyce’s books for teens include TWOC, Do the Creepy Thing (aka The Exchange), Three Way to Snog an Alien and The Devil’s Ladder. His short fiction was collected in Partial Eclipse and Other Stories and the retrospective 25 Years in the Word Mines from PS Publishing, and he had stories in The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror #4, #12, #13 and #14.

American screenwriter [Allison] Sam(uel) Hall died on September 26, aged 93. He was a head writer on the daily Gothic soap opera Dark Shadows (1967-71) and also wrote the spin-off movies House of Dark Shadows and Night of Dark Shadows. Hall co-scripted (with producer Dan Curtis) the pilot for Dead of Night: A Darkness in Blaisedon (1969), which starred Kerwin Mathews as psychic investigator “Jonathan Fletcher”, and he wrote the TV movies Frankenstein (1973) and The Two Deaths of Sean Doolittle. He was married to Dark Shadows star Grayson Hall (who died in 1985) and was a creative consultant during the show’s brief revival in the early 1990s.

Nebula Award-winning American short story writer Eugie Foster died of respiratory failure on September 27, aged 42. She had been diagnosed with a cancer in her sinuses a year earlier. A director of Dragon*Con and editor of their newsletter, The Daily Dragon, her stories appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies, including A Vampire Quintet: Five Sinister and Seductive Vampire Stories, and her short fiction was collected in Returning My Sister’s Face (2009).

Claire Walsh (Claire Churchill), the long-time companion of author J.G. Ballard, died on October 6, aged 73. A well-known figure in the London literary and artistic world during the 1960s and ‘70s, she was introduced to Ballard in 1967 by Michael Moorcock and acted as a sounding-board for the writer’s ideas long before he started writing them down. Walsh worked as a publicity manager for Studio Vista, Michael Joseph, Gollancz, Allen Lane and other publishers.

American children’s writer Zilpha Keatley Snyder died of complications from a stroke on October 8, aged 87. Best known for her Newbery Honor titles The Egypt Game, The Headless Cupid and The Witches of Worm, she published more than forty books, including Black and Blue Magic, The Changeling, A Fabulous Creature, Song of the Gargoyle, The Unseen and William’s Midsummer Dreams.

Brazilian comic book artist André Coelho died in mid-October, aged 35. He worked for both Marvel and DC Comics on a number of titles, including X-Men, Suicide Squad, Ms Marvel and The Flash.

American screenwriter, producer and actor L.M. Kit Carson (Lewis Minor Carson) died after a long illness on October 20, aged 73. He scripted The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 and two episodes of TV’s The Hitchhiker, as well as co-producing The Crow: Wicked Prayer. Carson was married to actress Karen Black from 1977-83.

American SF author [John] Hayden Howard died on October 23, aged 88. He made his debut in a 1952 issue of Planet Stories, and went on to contribute short fiction to If, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Galaxy and Analog. Howard’s only book was the fix-up novel The Eskimo Invasion (1967).

Romanian author, editor, translator and radio host Stefan Ghidoveanu died on October 27, aged 59. For Romanian Public Radio he hosted the SF and fantasy show Exploratorii Lumii de Miine (Explorers of Tomorrow’s World) from 1990 onwards.

Belgium-born author and editor Michel [Patrick] Parry died of cancer at his home in Banbury, England, on November 1. He was 67. He began his career in the 1960s as the British correspondent for the monster movie magazine Castle of Frankenstein (as “Mike Parry”), before editing his first anthology, Beware of the Cat: Weird Tales About Cats, in 1972. He followed it with The Hounds of Hell: Weird Tales About Dogs, Strange Ecstasies, Dream Trips, The Devil’s Children: Tales of Demons and Exorcists, Jack the Knife: Tales of Jack the Ripper, The Supernatural Solution, The Roots of Evil: Beyond the Secret Life of Plants (as “Carlos Cassaba”), The Devil’s Kisses and the controversial More Devil’s Kisses (both as “Linda Lovecraft”), Waves of Terror: Weird Stories About the Sea, Savage Heroes: Tales of Sorcery and Black Magic (as “Eric Pendragon”), The Rivals of Dracula: A Century of Vampire Fiction, The Rivals of Frankenstein: A Gallery of Monsters and The Rivals of King Kong: A Rampage of Beasts, Spaced Out, Superheroes and Sex in the 21st Century (with Milton Subotsky), along with the YA titles Santa 2000 and Ghostbreakers. With actor Christopher Lee, Parry compiled Christopher Lee’s ‘X’ Certificate, Archives of Evil, The Great Villains: An Omnibus of Evil and Lurking Fear, and he also edited six volumes of The Mayflower Book of Black Magic Stories (1974-77) and four volumes of Reign of Terror: The Corgi Book of Great Victorian Horror Stories (1976-78). He novelised the Hammer film Countess Dracula in 1971, and his other books include Sloane: Fastest Fist in the West and Sloane: Fistful of Hate (both as “Steve Lee”, with Steve Moore), Agro (as “Nick Fury”), and with Garry Rusoff he co-wrote the SF novels Chariots of Fire and Throne of Blood. Some of his short fiction was collected in the chapbook Three Demonic Tales. For several years Parry was a junior story editor at American International’s London office and worked as a part-time consultant for Anthony Cheetham’s Sphere Books. He wrote and directed the 1969 short film Hex; scripted the 1977 anthology movie, The Uncanny, starring Peter Cushing, Ray Milland and Donald Pleasence; came up with the original story for Xtro (1982), and adapted Manly Wade Wellman’s story ‘Rouse Him Not’, starring Alex Cord as John Thunstone, for the TV series Monsters (1988).

American academic, critic and author George [Edgar] Slusser died on November 4, aged 75. Co-founder and Curator Emeritus of The J. Lloyd Eaton Collection of Science Fiction & Fantasy Literature, amongst the books he wrote or edited are Robert A. Heinlein: Stranger in His Own Land, The Farthest Shore of Ursula K. Le Guin, The Bradbury Chronicles, Harlan Ellison: Unrepentant Harlequin, The Space Odysseys of Arthur C. Clarke, The Delany Intersection: Samuel R. Delany Considered as a Writer of Semi-Precious Words, and Nursery Realms: Children in the Worlds of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror. He taught the first courses in science fiction studies at UC Riverside and originated the Eaton Conference, which he chaired for more than twenty years. In 1986 Dr. Slusser was a recipient of the Pilgrim Award from the Science Fiction Research Association for Lifetime Achievement in the field of science fiction scholarship.

American actress turned scriptwriter Leigh Chapman (Rosa Lee Chapman), who portrayed Napoleon Solo’s secretary “Sarah Johnson” in six 1965 episodes of TV’s The Man from U.N.C.L.E., died of cancer the same day, aged 75. Chapman scripted episodes of My Favorite Martian and The Wild Wild West, as well as several action-adventure movies.

Brazillian SF writer André Carneiro died of respiratory failure on November 4, aged 92. His stories were translated in such anthologies as The Best SF of the Year, The Penguin World Omnibus of Science Fiction and Tales from the Planet Earth.

German publisher and publicist Eckhard Schwettmann, who was head of publishing for the “Perry Rhodan” franchise, died the same day, aged 57.

45-year-old Karen Jones, who was the art director for the online magazines Lightspeed and Nightmare, was found dead of natural causes in her Brooklyn, New York, home in early November.

American writer and publisher R. (Raymond) A. (Almira) Montgomery died on November 9, aged 78. As co-publisher of Crossroads Press with his former wife Constance Cappel, he was the first publisher of the series that eventually became Bantam Books’ best-selling “Choose Your Own Adventure” line. Montgomery also wrote more than thirty volumes in the series.

American horror writer and editor J. (Jesus) F. Gonzalez died of cancer on November 10, aged 50. With Buddy Martinez he founded and edited the early 1990s horror fanzines Iniquities and Phantasm, which lasted for three and four issues respectively, before going on to publish many short stories and novels. Clickers, written with Mark Williams, was a tribute to Guy N. Smith’s “Crabs” series that led to three sequels written with Brian Keene. His other titles include Conversion, Shapeshifter, Maternal Instinct, Old Ghosts and Other Revenants, Survivor, Fetish, The Beloved, Bully, When the Darkness Falls, The Killings and Hero (both with Wrath James White), Primitive, The Corporation, The Summoning and Other Eldritch Tales, Back from the Dead and Libra Nigrum Scientia Secreta (with Keene again). Gonzalez also edited the 2002 anthology Tooth and Claw.

American writer, artist and comic bookstore-owner Edward [Toby] Summer died of cancer on November 13, aged 68. Founder of the Buffalo International Film Festival, he wrote for Marvel Comics during the 1970s and ‘80s, and DC Comics in the 1980s and ‘90s. He was an associate producer on the 1982 movie Conan the Barbarian and wrote the original treatment, appeared in John Landis’ Schlock, and worked as a marketing consultant on Phantom of the Paradise, The Towering Inferno and the first Star Wars.

Charles Champlin, influential film and book critic for the Los Angeles Times, died of complications from Alzheimer’s disease on November 16, aged 88. His own books include George Lucas: The Creative Impulse. Lucasfilm’s First Twenty Years (1992).

American TV writer Ernest Kinoy died of pneumonia on November 19, aged 89. He began his career as a staff writer for the NBC science fiction radio series Dimension X and X Minus One. He moved on to TV with scripts for such shows as Lights Out, Fireside Theatre (an adaptation of Shirley Jackson’s ‘The Lottery’) and Alcoa Premiere (‘The Witch Next Door’). Kinoy also worked on TV movies Brigadoon (1966), Pinocchio (1968), Crawlspace (1972) and The Henderson Monster, along with the 1971 feature film Brother John.

American SF writer and pagan priestess Kris Jensen (Kristine Marie Jensen) died of breast cancer on November 21, aged 61. Her 1990s “Ardel” trilogy comprised FreeMaster, Mentor and Healer.

American aerospace physicist and film historian Walt Lee (Walter W. Lee, Jr.) died of complications from Alzheimer’s disease on November 23, aged 83. In the early 1970s he wrote (assisted by Bill Warren) and self-published three volumes of the influential Reference Guide to Fantastic Films: Science Fiction, Fantasy, & Horror, which received a Worldcon Special Convention Award in 1975. Lee also co-authored the 1987 horror novel Shapes with Richard Delap.

American writer John Tomerlin died of a heart attack on November 25, aged 84. A close friend of the late Charles Beaumont and a core member of “The Group” in the 1950s (which also included Richard Matheson, William F. Nolan and George Clayton Johnson), he wrote several novels, including Run from the Hunter (with Beaumont, 1957) and The High Tower (1980). Tomerlin also scripted the classic Twilight Zone episode ‘Number 12 Looks Just Like You’, even though it is credited solely to Beaumont, whose story it is based on.

British author and parapsychologist Peter Underwood died on November 26, aged 91. A leading authority on Borley Rectory (“the most haunted house in England”), he published more than fifty books about ghost-hunting and the paranormal, along with The Vampire’s Bedside Companion: The Amazing World of Vampires in Fact and Fiction, Jack the Ripper—100 Years of Mystery, Favourite Tales of the Fantastical and Horror Man: The Life of Boris Karloff (aka Karloff: The Life of Boris Karloff, 1972), the first hardcover biography of the actor. Underwood was life president of the Ghost Club Society (founded in 1862) and president of the Unitarian Society for Psychical Studies, where Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s daughter Jean would introduce him as “the Sherlock Holmes of psychical research”. His autobiography, No Common Task: The Autobiography of a Ghost Hunter, was published in 1983.

Hugo Award-winning fan artist Stu (Stuart) Shiffman died the same day, aged 60. Following various medical problems over the years, he had suffered a fall the previous month, from which he never regained consciousness after an operation. Shiffman was nominated for a Hugo in the Best Fan Artist category fourteen times, appearing on the ballot every year from 1979-86 and 1989-94. In the late 1970s he published the fanzine Raffles with Larry Carmody.

British crime and mystery writer P. (Phyllis) D. (Dorothy) James OBE (aka Baroness James of Holland Park) died on November 27, aged 94. Best known for her character of Scotland Yard Inspector “Adam Dalgliesh” in fifteen novels (1966-2008), she introduced murder to the sedate world of Jane Austen with Death Comes to Pemberley, while her 1992 SF novel Children of Men was filmed in 2006 starring Julianne Moore and Clive Owen.

New Zealand-born Horror Writers Association president (2010-14) and Stephen King expert Rocky Wood died of complications from amyotophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) in Melbourne, Australia, on December 1. He was 55. His non-fiction books include The Complete Guide to the Works of Stephen King, Stephen King: Uncollected Unpublished, The Stephen King Collector’s Guide, Stephen King: The Non-Fiction and the Bram Stoker Award-winning Stephen King: A Literary Companion. Wood assisted King with research on Doctor Sleep, the author’s sequel to The Shining, and he also wrote the Stoker Award-winning non-fiction graphic novel Witch Hunts: A Graphic History of the Burning Times. The HWA announced the formation of the Rocky Wood Memorial Scholarship for non-fiction writers.

Commercial space artist Roy G. Scarfo, who was creative art director at the General Electric Space Technology Center and illustrator/consultant for NASA, Voice of America, the U.S. Senate and others, died of pancreatic cancer on December 8, aged 88. He collaborated with such scientists and authors as Wernher von Braun, Isaac Asimov and Willy Ley, and his illustrations appeared in more than forty books, most notably Dandridge M. Cole’s Beyond Tomorrow: The Next Fifty Years in Space (1964). Scarfo was a fellow and trustee of the International Association of Astronomical Artists.

American author Donald Moffitt died on December 10, aged 83. He made his SF debut in 1960 in Fantastic, and his novels include The Jupiter Theft, The Genesis Quest, Crescent in the Sky, A Gathering of Stars and Jovian. Under the pen name “Paul Kenyon” he also wrote the Modesty Blaise-inspired “Baroness” series of eight spy novels (1974-75).

American attorney and literary agent Sidney Kramer died the same day, aged 99. The co-founder of Bantam Books and, later, New American Library, he famously refused to publish Richard Nixon’s biography “because we thought he was a rascal”.

American animation inker and painter Martha [Goldman] Sigall died on December 13, aged 97. During her fifty-three year career, she worked on many classic “Looney Tunes” and “Merrie Melodies” cartoons before moving over to MGM studios. Her autobiography, Living Life Inside the Lines: Tales from the Golden Age of Animation, was published in 2005.

French journalist Michel Caen, co-founder and editor-in-chief (with Alain Le Bris) of the influential magazine Midi-Minuit Fantastique, died on December 15, aged 72. Midi-Minuit Fantastique ran for only twenty-four issues from 1962-71, but it influenced many publications that came after it, including Cinefantastique and Video Watchdog. Caen also wrote for Cahiers du Cinema.

Spanish publisher, editor and translator Francisco Porrú a died on December 18, aged 92. His genre imprint Ediciones Minotauro published his own translations (under various pseudonyms) of The Lord of the Rings, The Martian Chronicles, The Left Hand of Darkness and many other titles. Between 1964-68, Porrúa published and edited ten issues of Minotauro (Minotaur), which took its contents from The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.

68-year-old American children’s author Robert [Daniel] San Souci died on December 19 after suffering a head injury due to a fall in San Francisco earlier in the week. His retellings of supernatural folktales included Short & Shivery: Thirty Chilling Tales, More Short & Shivery: Thirty Terrifying Tales, Even More Short & Shivery: Thirty Spine-Tingling Tales, A Terrifying Taste of Short & Shivery: Thirty Creepy Tales, Dare to be Scared: Thirteen Stories to Chill and Thrill and Haunted Houses (Are You Scared Yet?). San Souci also wrote picture books (often illustrated by his brother Daniel), including Young Merlin, N.C. Wyeth’s Pilgrims and Cinderella Skeleton, and he created the original story for Walt Disney’s Mulan, for which he also acted as consultant.

American writer, film historian and teacher Mark A. (Andrew) Miller died of cancer on December 24, aged 58. His special interest in post-war British cinema led to articles in Filmfax and Shivers magazines and the reference works Christopher Lee and Peter Cusing and Horror Cinema: A Filmography of Their 22 Collaborations and The Christopher Lee Filmography: All Theatrical Releases, 1948-2003 (with Tom Johnson). Miller also wrote “The Druid Legacy” fantasy fiction trilogy.

American alternate history author [Joseph] Robert Conroy died of cancer on December 30, aged 76. His novels include the Sidewise Award-winning 1942.

Veteran American character actress Juanita Moore died on January 1, aged 99. She began her film career in 1939 and was cast in uncredited roles in Cabin in the Sky and Tarzan’s Peril before going on to appear in Abby (1974) and Disney’s The Kid (2000), along with episodes of TV’s Ramar of the Jungle, Alfred Hitchcock Presents and The Alfred Hitchcock Hour. She was nominated for an Oscar for her role in Imitation of Life (1959).

American character actress Carmen [Margarita] Zapata died of heart failure on January 5, aged 86. She appeared on TV in episodes of Kolchak: The Night Stalker, Wonder Woman, The Phoenix, Fantasy Island and Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction.

91-year-old Canadian-born character actor and voice artist Larry D. Mann died on January 6 in Los Angeles. In a prolific career, he appeared in Disney’s The Strange Monster of Strawberry Cove and Charlie and the Angel, along with episodes of TV’s The Unforeseen, My Favorite Martian, Get Smart, Captain Nice, The Green Hornet, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Bewitched and Night Gallery.

Former “Marlbro man” Eric [Layton] Lawson, who appeared in print and billboard ads for the cigarette brand during the late 1970s and early ‘80s, died of smoking-related respiratory failure due to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease on January 10. He was 72, and gave up the habit when diagnosed with COPD. Lawson was also a character actor, often playing sheriffs or cowboys, in Rattlers, Skeeter, Tall Tale, Rumplestiltskin (1995), When Time Expires, King Cobra and Invisible Mom II, along with episodes of TV’s Automan and The Adventures of Brisco County Jr.

Dependable British character actor Jerome [Barry] Willis died on January 11, aged 85. His film credits include The Magus, Doomwatch, Lifeforce, Sherlock Holmes and the Leading Lady and Incident at Victoria Falls (both as “Mycroft Holmes” opposite Christopher Lee’s Sherlock) and Perfume: The Story of a Murderer. On TV Willis was a regular on Gerry Anderson’s Space Precinct (as “Captain Podly”) and he also appeared in episodes of Out of This World (hosted by Boris Karloff), The Avengers, Out of the Unknown, Adam Adamant Lives!, Doctor Who and Edgar Allan Poe’s Tales of Mystery & Imagination (hosted by Lee).

Striking British actress Alexandra Bastedo, who starred as “Sharon Macready” in the TV sci-spy series The Champions (1968-69), died after a long battle with cancer on January 12, aged 67. She appeared in William Castle’s 13 Frightened Girls!, the Bond spoof Casino Royale (1967), The Blood Splattered Bride (as “Mircalla Karstein”), The Ghoul (with Peter Cushing), Stigma, La veritat oculta and Batman Begins. The actress was also in episodes of Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) and The Starlost.

British character actor Roger Lloyd-Pack, the son of Hammer actor Charles Lloyd-Pack, died of pancreatic cancer on January 15, aged 69. His numerous TV credits include episodes of The Avengers, Survivors (1976 and 2010), Archer’s Goon, U.F.O., Murder Rooms: The Dark Beginnings of Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Who. Lloyd-Pack was also in the films The Magus, Hamlet (1969), Fright (1971), Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984), Interview with a Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles, The Young Poisoner’s Handbook, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (as “Bartemius ‘Barty’ Crouch”) and The Living and the Dead, while his scenes as a scientist were cut from The Avengers (1998). He later became a popular comedy actor on British TV.

American character actor Russell [David] Johnson, who played “The Professor” in TV’s Gilligan’s Island (1964-67) and several spin-offs, died of kidney failure on January 16, aged 89. He appeared in the movies It Came from Outer Space, This Island Earth, Roger Corman’s Attack of the Crab Monsters, The Space Children, The Horror at 37,000 Feet and The Ghost of Flight 401. On TV Johnson was in episodes of Adventures of Superman, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Thriller (‘The Hungry Glass’), Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits, The Invaders, Wonder Woman, Beyond Westworld, ALF, Monsters and Meego.

Another American TV legend, Canadian-born comedy actor Dave Madden (David Joseph Madden) who co-starred in The Partridge Family (1970-74), died of congestive heart and kidney failure the same day, aged 82. Madden was a regular on Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In (1968-69) and appeared in episodes of Bewitched, Fantasy Island and Sabrina the Teenage Witch. He was also in the TV movies Skinflint: A Country Christmas Carol and More Wild Wild West, and contributed voice work to the animated Charlotte’s Web (1973).

Ruth Robinson Duccini, the last female member of the diminutive troupe of actors to portray Munchkins in The Wizard of Oz (1939), also died on January 16 after a short illness. She was 95.

British-born actress Sarah [Lynne] Marshall died in Los Angeles of stomach cancer on January 18, aged 80. She appeared in episodes of Thriller (‘God Grante That She Lye Stille’), Twilight Zone (‘Little Girl Lost’), Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, My Favorite Martian, Get Smart, The Wild Wild West, Star Trek (‘The Deadly Years’), Strange Report and Orson Welles’ Great Mysteries. Many years later she turned up in the horror movie Bad Blood and its sequel, Bad Blood: The Hunger.

Cuban-born character actor Luis Ávalos died in California on January 22, aged 67. He had recently suffered a heart attack. Between 1972-77 Ávalos played “Igor” on PBS’ The Electric Company, and his other TV credits include episodes of Highcliffe Manor and The Incredible Hulk. He was also in The Ghost of Flight 401, Ghost Fever, The Butcher’s Wife and Wishcraft.

British character actress Lisa Daniely (Mary Elizabeth Bodington), who co-starred in the TV series H.G. Wells’ The Invisible Man (1958-60), died on January 24, aged 83. She was in the film Curse of the Voodoo (aka Curse of Simba) and episodes of TV’s The New Adventures of Charlie Chan, Out of the Unknown, Doctor Who (‘The Space Pirates’), Strange Report, Menace and The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. In her late seventies she recorded some audio shows of Sapphire and Steel with David Warner and Susannah Harker.

Former child actress Ann Carter, who appeared in Val Lewton’s production The Curse of the Cat People (1944), died after a long battle with ovarian cancer on January 27, aged 77. She also appeared in I Married a Witch, The Two Mrs. Carrolls, The Boy with Green Hair and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (1949). She retired from acting in the early 1950s after contracting polio in her early teens.

American cult star Christopher Jones (William Franklin Jones), who starred as the rebel rock star in Wild in the Streets (1968), died of cancer on January 31, aged 72. He also appeared in 3 in the Attic and an episode of The Man from U.N.C.L.E. before suffering a nervous breakdown following Sharon Tate’s murder and retiring from acting in 1970. In later years Jones was described as “reclusive and eccentric”. He was married to actress Susan Strasberg between 1965-68.

Oscar-winning Austrian actor and director Maximilian Schell died of pneumonia on February 1, aged 83. His film credits include Hamlet (1960), The Castle, Disney’s The Black Hole, The Phantom of the Opera (1983, as the “Phantom”), The Eighteenth Angel, John Carpenter’s Vampires, Deep Impact and Darkness (aka T.M.A.).

46-year-old American actor Philip Seymour Hoffman was found dead with a hypodermic needle in his arm in the bathroom of his New York apartment on February 2. He died from acute mixed drug intoxication, with heroin, cocaine, benzodiazepines and amphetamines all found in his system. The Oscar-winning Hoffman appeared in My Boyfriend’s Back, Red Dragon, The Invention of Lying, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire and The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1 and Part 2 (as “Plutarch Heavensbee”). In the 2012 movie The Master he basically played L. Ron Hubbard.

American actor Richard Bull, who was often cast as doctors, died of pneumonia on February 3, aged 89. Best known for his recurring roles on TV’s Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea and Little House on the Prairie, he also appeared in Hammer’s failed pilot Tales of Frankenstein, The Satan Bug, In Like Flint, The Andromeda Strain (1971), Sweet Sweet Rachel, Heatwave!, Mr. Sycamore and The Golden Gate Murders, along with episodes of Men Into Space, The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, Bewitched, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Herbie the Love Bug, Amazing Stories and Highway to Heaven.

Chinese actor and director Wu Ma (Hung-Yuan Feng) died on February 4, aged 71. His many films include The Demons in the Flame Mountain, Spooky Encounters, Mr. Vampire, Xiao sheng meng jing hun, A Chinese Ghost Story (1987) and Mr. Vampire Saga.

Former Hollywood child star Shirley [Jane] Temple, who received a special Academy Award when she was six, died of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease on February 10, aged 85. She made her movie debut in 1932 and appeared in The Bluebird (instead of The Wizard of Oz) and the TV series Shirley Temple’s Storybook (1958-61) before retiring from acting in the early 1960s. Her signature song, ‘On the Good Ship Lollipop’, sold 500,000 sheet music copies. A staunch Republican and vocal supporter of the Vietnam War, she became an American ambassador to Ghana and later, Czechoslovakia. Temple’s first husband (1945-50) was actor John Agar.

Pioneering American comedian and actor Sid Caesar (Isaac Sidney Caesar) died on February 12, aged 91. In a long show business career he appeared in William Castle’s The Busy Body and The Spirit is Willing, Curse of the Black Widow, America 2100, The Fiendish Plot of Dr. Fu Manchu, The Munsters’ Revenge, Alice in Wonderland (1985), The Wonderful Ice Cream Suite (based on the story and play by Ray Bradbury) and Mark Hamill’s Comic Book: The Movie, along with episodes of TV’s General Electric Theatre (‘The Devil You Say’) and Amazing Stories.

American actor and director Ralph [Harold] Waite, who starred as the patriarch on The Waltons (1972-81), died on February 13, aged 85. He was also in the movies Red Alert, Crash and Burn, Timequest and Spirit, along with episodes of Time Trax, the revived The Outer Limits and Carnivàle.

British character actor Ken Jones died of bowel cancer the same day, aged 83. He had small roles in the films Murder by Decree, Whoops Apocalypse and Stanley’s Dragon, and appeared in episodes of TV’s The Guardians, Thriller (1974), Dead Ernest, Mr. Majeika and Goodnight Sweetheart.

48-year-old John [Paul] Henson, the son of Muppets creator Jim Henson, died of a heart attack while building a snow igloo with one of his daughters on February 14. As a Muppet performer and the voice of “Sweetums” he contributed to Muppet Treasure Island, Muppets from Space, It’s a Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie and The Muppets’ Wizard of Oz.

American character actress Mary Grace Canfield died of lung cancer on February 15, aged 89. Best known for her recurring role on TV’s Green Acres (1965-71), she also appeared in the 1983 movie of Ray Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes and episodes of Thriller, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Bewitched and Tabitha.

Scottish-born character actor Christopher Malcolm, who portrayed one of the rebel pilots in Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, died of cancer the same day, aged 67. His other credits include A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1968), The Spiral Staircase (1975), Shock Treatment (1981), Superman III, Highlander, Labyrinth, Eat the Rich, and episodes of Strange Report, Thriller (1975) and Whoops Apocalypse. Malcolm played the first “Brad Majors” in the original 1973 stage production of The Rocky Horror Show, and he was artistic director for the Rocky Horror Company from 1989-2004, responsible for world-wide licensing and production rights of the cult stage musical.

British actor Malcolm Tierney died of pulmonary fibrosis on February 18, aged 75. He appeared in Star Wars, The Medusa Touch and Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister, along with episodes of TV’s Out of the Unknown and Doctor Who.

American actor, writer and director Harold [Allen] Ramis died of complications of autoimmune inflammatory vasculitis on February 24, aged 69. Best remembered as the writer of Ghostbusters (1984) and its sequel, in which he co-starred as “Dr. Egon Spengler”, Ramis also directed the comedies Groundhog Day, Multiplicity, Bedazzled (2000) and Year One.

Canadian-born ballet dancer turned actress Gail Gilmore (Gail Gerber, aka “Gale Gerber”/”Gail Gibson”) died of lung cancer on March 2, aged 76. She arrived in Hollywood in 1963 and made just ten films, including Village of the Giants, The Loved One and The Magic Christian (both co-scripted by her long-time companion, Terry Southern) and a couple with Elvis Presley.

British-born character actress Sheila MacRae (Sheila Margaret Stephens, aka “Sheila Stephenson”) died in New Jersey on March 6, aged 92. She had been suffering from dementia and had recently undergone surgery. Best known for her role as “Alice Kramden”in the revived 1960s series of The Honeymooners, MacRae also appeared in Bikini Beach, How to Stuff a Wild Bikini, and an episode of The Man from U.N.C.L.E. Her first husband was actor Gordon MacRae (1941-67).

American voice-over Hal Douglas (Harold Cone) died of pancreatic cancer on March 7, aged 89. His distinctive baritone voice can be heard on thousands trailers intoning “In a world…” and he also provided the narration for Waterworld.

82-year-old Belfast-born character actor James Ellis, best known for his role as “Sgt. Bert Lynch” in BBC-TV’s Z Cars (1962-78), died of a stroke in Lincolnshire on March 8. His other credits include Where the Bullets Fly, Leapin’ Leprechauns! and its sequel Spellbreaker: Secret of the Leprechauns, and Dragonworld: The Legend Continues, along with episodes of TV’s Hammer House of Mystery and Suspense (‘Mark of the Devil’), Doctor Who, Woof! and Eternal Law.

Irish character actress Eileen Colgan died after a brief illness on March 10, aged 80. She was in The Secret of Roan Inish and I Sell the Dead.

American actor Richard Coogan died on March 12, aged 99. A former radio announcer and stage actor, he became the first “Captain Video” in 1949-50 for the daily TV series Captain Video and His Video Rangers, and went on to appear in episodes of several TV series during the 1960s.

Japanese actor Ken Utsui died of respiratory failure on March 14, aged 82. He portrayed his country’s first superhero, “Super Giant” (aka “Starman”), in a series of short films in the late 1950s, which were edited into the 1965 US movies Invaders from Space, Evil Brain from Outer Space, Attack from Space and Atomic Rulers of the World. Utsui was also in the 2013 SF film Time Scoop Hunter.

65-year-old American actor James [Robert] Rebhorn, who had a recurring role in TV’s Homeland, died of complications from melanoma on March 21. He also appeared in He Knows You Are Alone (1980), Cat’s Eye, Shadows and Fog, Independence Day, The Adventures of Pluto Nash, Anamorph, The Box and Real Steel (both based on stories by Richard Matheson), and the 2012 mini-series Coma.

American actress and cattle rancher Patrice Wymore, the widow of actor Errol Flynn, died of pulmonary disease in Jamaica on March 22, aged 87. Her credits include small roles in Chamber of Horrors and an episode of TV’s The Monkees.

British leading lady Kate O’Mara (Frances Meredith Carroll) died of ovarian cancer on March 30, aged 74. Her credits include Corruption (with Peter Cushing), Hammer’s The Vampire Lovers and The Horror of Frankenstein, and episodes of TV’s Adam Adamant Lives!, The Champions, The Avengers, The Adventures of Don Quick and Doctor Who (as renegade Time Lord “The Rani”).

South African-born actor, scriptwriter and author Glyn Jones died in Greece on April 2, aged 82. He not only wrote a four-part Doctor Who serial ‘Doctor Who and the Space Museum’ in 1965, but ten years later he appeared as “Krans” in the two-part story ‘The Sontaran Experiment’.

50-year-old American comedian and actor John Pinette was found dead from a pulmonary embolism in a hotel room in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on April 5. He had been suffering from heart and liver disease. Pinette appeared in The Punisher (2004) and an episode of TV’s ALF.

Hollywood legend Mickey Rooney (Ninian Joseph Yule, Jr.) died on April 6, aged 93. A former child star, he made his movie debut in 1926 and his credits include the 1934 serial The Lost Jungle, A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1935, as “Puck”), The Atomic Kid (which he also produced), Francis in the Haunted House, Pinocchio (1957), How to Stuff a Wild Bikini, Pete’s Dragon, Arabian Adventure (with Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing), Silent Night Deadly Night 5: The Toy Maker, Sinbad: The Battle of the Dark Knights, Babe: Pig in the City, Phantom of the Megaplex, Night at the Museum, The Thirsting, The Muppets (2011), The Voices from Beyond, Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb and a new version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (2015). On TV Rooney appeared in episodes of Twilight Zone, Night Gallery and Conan, and in the early 1930s he supplied the voice of “Oswald, the Lucky Rabbit” in a series of cartoon shorts made by Walter Lantz. His eight wives included actresses Ava Gardner (1942-43) and Martha Vickers (1949-52) and he received two special Oscars.

American character actor Darrell Zwerling died on April 11, aged 85. He was in Miracle on 34th Street (1973), George Pal’s Doc Savage The Man of Bronze (as “Ham”), The Ultimate Warrior, Capricorn One and High Anxiety, along with an episode of Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (‘Planet of the Amazon Women’).

Exotic-looking British actress and ballet dancer April Olrich (Edith April Oelrichs) was born in Zanzibar, Tanzania, and died after a long illness in London on April 15. She was 80, and had small roles in Macbeth (1960), Amicus’ The Skull, and Supergirl, along with episodes of TV’s The Avengers and She-Wolf of London. She was married to actor Nigel Pegram.

American actor Craig Hill [Fowler] died in Spain on April 21, aged 88. After co-starring with Kenneth Tobey in TV’s Whirlybirds (1957-60), Hill eventually moved to Europe, where he appeared in such films as Assignment Terror (aka Dracula versus Frankenstein), Bloodstained Shadow, Stigma and Anguish. He was married to actress and model Teresa Gimpera.

73-year-old American TV character actor Doug (Douglas) Hale died on April 25. He appeared in episodes of The Bionic Woman, The Incredible Hulk, Galactica 1980 (aka Conquest of the Earth), The Greatest American Hero, Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1985), Highway to Heaven, Max Headroom, Misfits of Science, Weird Science and Babylon 5.

British actor Bob Hoskins (Robert William Hoskins) died of pneumonia on April 29, aged 71. His films include Pink Floyd The Wall, Brazil, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Heart Condition, Hook (as “Smee”), Super Mario Bros., Rainbow, The Lost World (2001), Son of the Mask, Hollywoodland, Doomsday, A Christmas Carol (2009), Pinocchio (2010) and Snow White and the Huntsman, before he retired from acting after being diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. On TV Hoskins starred in the series Pennies from Heaven (1978) and appeared in episodes of Thriller (1976) and Tales from the Crypt (which he also directed), along with the mini-series Neverland (as “Smee” again).

American leading lady Judi Meredith (Judith Clare Boutin) died on April 30, aged 77. Discovered by comedian George Burns, she appeared in Jack the Giant Killer (1962), William Castle’s The Night Walker, Dark Intruder and Queen of Blood, along with an episode of TV’s Shirley Temple’s Storybook. Meredith was married to director Gary Nelson.

American leading man Efrem Zimbalist, Jr., who starred in the TV series 77 Sunset Strip (1958-64) and The F.B.I. (1965-74), died on May 2, aged 95. He appeared in Wait Until Dark, Terror Out of the Sky, Disney’s Beyond Witch Mountain, The Tempest (1983), and episodes of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, Fantasy Island, Babylon 5 and The Visitor. For twelve years he was the voice of Bruce Wayne’s butler “Alfred Pennyworth” on the animated TV series of Batman and various spin-offs, and he also voiced “Doctor Octopus” for the 1995-97 Spider-Man cartoon series.

American character actress Pauline [Cynthia] Wagner died the same day, aged 103. A contract player for RKO Radio Pictures and a founding member of the Screen Actors Guild, she was Fay Wray’s stunt double on King Kong (1933) for a re-shoot of the climactic sequence on top of the Empire State Building.

American-born actor Les Carlson (Leslie M. Carlson) died of cancer in Toronto, Canada, on May 3, aged 81. As well as appearing in the David Cronenberg films Videodrome (as “Barry Convex”), The Dead Zone, The Fly (1986) and the short Camera, he was also in The Neptune Factor, Deranged, Black Christmas (1974), Deadly Harvest, The Girl from Mars, The Wishing Tree, Anonymous Rex and Bag of Bones. Carlson’s TV credits include episodes of The New Avengers, War of the Worlds, The Twilight Zone (1988), Friday the 13th: The Series, Highlander, The X Files, PSI Factor: Chronicles of the Paranormal, Odyssey 5, Haven, Lost Girl and Murdoch Mysteries (‘The Ghost of Queen’s Park’).

Former American child actress Jacqueline [Devon] Taylor died of Alzheimer’s disease on May 5, aged 88. She was in a number of “Our Gang” comedy shorts in 1934, along with an uncredited role in Laurel and Hardy’s Babes in Toyland.

American actor, producer and bookseller Magoo Gelehrter, who portrayed “Garou”, the werewolf henchman of New England horror host “Penny Dreadful” the witch (his wife Danielle S. Gelehrter) on cable TV show Penny Dreadful’s Shilling Shockers, died after a long battle with cancer on May 16. He was 51.

British leading lady Barbara [Ann] Murray died of a heart attack in Spain on May 20, aged 84. Her credits include A Christmas Carol (1950), Meet Mr. Lucifer, The Curse of King Tut’s Tomb and The Power (1984). On TV she appeared in the 1961 BBC-TV series The Escape of R.D.7, The Indian Tales of Rudyard Kipling, Strange Report, The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes, Tales from the Crypt and Doctor Who. She was married (1952-64) to actor John Justin.

Hollywood actress Jane Adams (Betty Jean Bierce), who played hunchbacked nurse “Nina” in House of Dracula (1945), died on May 21, aged 94. Her other movies include the Universal serial Lost City of the Jungle, The Brute Man (with Rondo Hatton), Tarzan’s Magic Fountain (uncredited), the Columbia serial Batman and Robin (1949) and Master Minds (with the Dead End Kids). She turned up on TV in a 1953 episode of The Adeventures of Superman before retiring from the screen.

American character actor Matthew [Chandler] Cowles died of congestive heart failure on May 22, aged 69. He appeared in the movies They Might Be Giants, Crawlspace (1972), Brenda Starr, She’s Back, Season of the Hunted, Shutter Island and the American TV series of Life on Mars (2008-09). His second wife was actress Christine Baranski.

American actor and singer Herb Jeffries (Umberto Alejandro Ballentino) died of heart failure on May 25, aged 100. During the late 1930s and early ‘40s he starred as Herbert Jeffrey, “The Sepia Singing Cowboy”, in a handful of low-budget black Westerns with titles like The Bronze Buckaroo and Harlem Rides the Range. Jeffries went on to appear in an episode of I Dream of Jeannie and he wrote and directed the 1967 sex-murder mystery Mundo depravados starring his then-wife, legendary stripper Tempest Storm (Annie Blanche Banks). He was also the last surviving member of The Great Duke Ellington Orchestra.

German-Austrian actor Karlheinz Böhm (aka “Karl Boehm”), who starred in Michael Powell’s Peeping Tom (1960) under the name “Carl Boehm”, died of Alzheimer’s disease on May 29, aged 86. He was also in Alraune (aka Mandragore, 1952), The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm and The Venetian Affair (with Boris Karloff). Since the early 1980s he was involved with charitable work in Ethiopa and was made an honorary Ethiopian citizen in 2001.

Hong Kong-born American actress Joan Lorring (Madeline Ellis) died in Sleepy Hollow, New York, on May 30, aged 88. Nominated for an Oscar for her supporting role in The Corn is Green (1945), she also appeared in Three Strangers and The Verdict (both with Sydney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre), The Lost Moment and an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents (as Lizzie Borden’s sister).

American actress Martha Hyer died on May 31, aged 89. She made her movie debut in 1946, and amongst her credits are Abbott and Costello Go to Mars, Riders to the Stars, Francis in the Navy, Mistress of the World, Pyro, First Men in the Moon, Bikini Beach, Picture Mommy Dead and House of 1,000 Dolls (with Vincent Price), along with episodes of TV’s The Alfred Hitchcock Hour and Bewitched. Her second husband was film producer Hal B. Wallis.

American stuntman Tap Canutt (Edward Clay Canutt), the son of legendary stuntman Yakima Canutt, died on June 2, aged 81. His credits include The War Lord, Planet of the Apes, Beneath the Planet of the Apes and The Omega Man, all starring Charlton Heston, and the TV movie Planet Earth.

American supporting actress Marjorie Stapp, who worked as a receptionist for mobster Bugsy Siegel before his murder in 1947, died the same day, aged 92. She had small roles in Port Sinister, Indestructible Man (with Lon Chaney, Jr.), The Werewolf (1956), Kronos, The Monster That Challenged the World, Daughter of Dr. Jekyll and an episode of TV’s Quantum Leap. Stapp retired from acting in 1991.

Romanian-born actress Veronica Lazar died in Rome on June 8, aged 75. She was in Dario Argento’s Inferno and The Stendhal Syndrome, and Lucio Fulci’s The Beyond. She was married to actor Adolfo Celi from 1966 until his death twenty years later.

British actor and comedian Rick Mayall (Richard Michael Mayall), best remembered for his anarchic TV series The Young Ones (1982-84), The Comic Strip Presents…(1983-2012), The New Statesman (1987-94) and Bottom (1991-95), died on June 9, aged 56. The cause may have been an acute cardiac event after Mayall had been for a morning run earlier. He was also in such TV shows as Whoops Apocalypse (and the spin-off movie), Murder Rooms: The Dark Beginnings of Sherlock Holmes and Jonathan Creek. Mayall also appeared in the films An American Werewolf in London, Shock Treatment (1981), Drop Dead Fred, The Canterville Ghost (1997), Merlin: The Return, The Legend of Harrow Woods, Evil Calls, Eldorado (aka Highway to Hell) and Errors of the Human Body. His role as “Peeves the Poltergeist” in Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone was cut out before release.

American actress and activist Ruby Dee (Ruby Ann Wallace) died on June 11, aged 91. She was in the remake of Cat People (1982), A Simple Wish and the 1994 TV mini-series of Stephen King’s The Stand (alongside her husband Ossie Davis).

Former ballet dancer Ken Tyllssen died the same day, aged 75. During the 1960s he appeared as various aliens, including a Sensorite, a Mechanoid and a Dalek, in episodes of Doctor Who opposite William Hartnell and Patrick Troughton’s Time Lords.

Carla Laemmle (Rebekah Isabelle Laemmle), the niece of Universal Studios founder Carl Laemmle, died on June 12, aged 104. She appeared in small roles in The Phantom of the Opera (1925), Dracula (1931) and Mystery of Edwin Drood (1935). Decades later, Laemmle had cameos in such direct-to-video titles as The Vampire Hunters Club and Mansion of Blood, tying with Mickey Rooney for the longest career in movie history (eighty-nine years).

Likeable British leading man Francis [Joseph] Matthews died on June 14, aged 86. Best known for playing the title character in Paul Temple (1969-71), the first colour series on BBC TV, he also appeared in episodes of The New Adventures of Charlie Chan, The Avengers, Out of the Unknown and Jonathan Creek. Matthews’ film credits include Hammer’s The Revenge of Frankenstein (with Peter Cushing), Dracula Prince of Darkness and Rasputin: The Mad Monk (both with Christopher Lee), Corridors of Blood (with Boris Karloff and Lee), The Hellfire Club (again with Cushing) and Five Women for the Killer. He was also the voice of “Captain Scarlet” (which he based on Cary Grant) in Gerry Anderson’s puppet TV series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons (1967-68). Matthews was married to actress Angela Browne from 1963 until her death in 2001.

French-born Underground celebrity and artist Ultra Violet (Isabelle Collin Dufresne) died of cancer in New York City the same day, aged 78. Having spent the 1960s hanging out with the likes of Andy Warhol and Salvador Dali, she appeared in a few movies, including Simon King of the Witches, Curse of the Headless Horseman and James Ivory’s Savages. Reportedly exorcised in her early teens by a Catholic priest when she rebelled against her religious upbringing, in the 1980s she rejected her experiences as part of Warhol’s “Factory” and became a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

British character actor Sam Kelly (Roger Michael Kelly) died of cancer on June 14, aged 70. He appeared in episodes of TV’s Rentaghost, Virtual Murder (‘A Dream of Dracula’) and The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles (‘Transylvania, January 1918’), along with the films Tiffany Jones and Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang (aka Nanny McPhee Returns). He portrayed “The Wizard” in the London stage production of the musical Wicked from 2009-10, and briefly returned to the role in 2013.

British stuntman and actor Terry Richards (David Terrence Richards), best known for playing the Arab swordsman shot by Indiana Jones in Raiders of the Lost Ark, died the same day, aged 81. He did stunts in seven James Bond films, starting with From Russia with Love, along with The Empire Strikes Back, Superman II, Krull, Brazil, Red Sonja, Superman IV: The Quest for Peace, The Princess Bride, Willow, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Clive Barker’s Nightbreed, Total Recall (1990) and Shadowchaser. Richards also appeared in Flash Gordon (1980), Haunted Summer and episodes of TV’s Adam Adamant Lives!, The Avengers, Blakes 7, The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles and Space Precinct.

82-year-old American actor, presenter and radio disc jockey Casey Kasem (Kemal Amen Kasem), the voice of Scooby-Doo’s sidekick “Norville ‘Shaggy’ Rogers” for forty years and Batman’s partner “Robin” for seventeen years, died of complications from Lewy body dementia on June 15. He had been suffering from Parkinson’s disease. Kasem was in the movies The Incredible 2-Headed Transplant, Doomsday Machine, The Night That Panicked America and The Dark, and episodes of TV’s The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries (‘Mystery of the Hollywood Phantom’) and Fantasy Island. A prolific voice actor, he contributed to such animated TV shows as The Batman/Superman Hour, Scooby-Doo Where Are You!, Super-Friends, Yogi’s Space Race, The Flintstones Meet Rockula and Frankenstone, Battle of the Planets, Captain Caveman and the Teen Angels, The Transformers and Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated. In the late 1960s, Kasem executive produced and appeared in two exploitation biker movies, The Glory Stompers and The Cycle Savages.

French actor Jacques Bergerac died the same day, aged 87. He starred in the 1960 movie The Hypnotic Eye, and also appeared in episodes of TV’s Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Get Smart and Batman. Bergerac was married (1953-57) to American actresses Ginger Rogers and (1959-64) Dorothy Malone.

82-year-old American comedian Steve Rossi (Joseph Charles Michael Tafarella), one half of a comedy team with Marty Allen, died of cancer of the aesophogus in Las Vegas on June 22. The duo appeared in the sci-spy spoof The Last of the Secret Agents? while Allen and Rossi Meet Dracula and Frankenstein was announced in 1974 but apparently never made. Rossi was also in the low budget comedy The Man from O.R.G.Y.

American character actor Eli [Herschel] Wallach died on June 24, aged 98. Best remembered for his role as “Tuco” the bandit in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, he was also in the movies The Angel Levine, A Cold Night’s Death, The Sentinel (with John Carradine) and Circle of Iron (with Christopher Lee). On TV, Wallach appeared in episodes of Lights Out (‘Rappaccini’s Daughter’), Shirley Temple’s Storybook, Batman (as “Mr. Freeze”), Orson Welles’ Great Mysteries, Tales of the Unexpected, Worlds Beyond, Highway to Heaven, Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1988) and Veritas: The Quest. He was also the reader of the audio book of Stephen King’s Insomnia. Wallach was married to actress Anne Jackson and received an honorary Academy Award in 2010.

Norma McCarty, who was briefly married to film-maker Edward D. Wood, Jr. from 1955-56, died on June 27, aged 93. She appeared as “Edith” the stewardess in Wood’s infamous Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959) and was featured in such documentaries about the cross-dressing director as The Incredibly Strange Film Show, The Haunted World of Edward D. Wood, Jr. and E! Mysteries & Scandals.

American actor Meshach Taylor, a regular on the CBS-TV sitcom Designing Women (1986-93), died of cancer on June 28, aged 67. He appeared in the movies Damien: Omen II, The Howling, The Beast Within, Explorers, Warning Sign, Mannequin, Ultra Warrior, Mannequin On the Move, Double Double Toil and Trouble, Virtual Seduction and Hyenas. Taylor was also in episodes of TV’s The Incredible Hulk and ALF, while on Broadway he played “Lumiere” in the stage production of Disney’s Beauty and the Beast.

American actor Don Matheson, who starred as “Mark Wilson” in Irwin Allen’s TV series Land of the Giants (1968-70), died of lung cancer on June 29, aged 84. A former Detroit policeman and Korean war veteran, he also appeared in The Alfred Hitchcock Hour and Allen’s Lost in Space, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea and Alice in Wonderland (1985), along with the 1990 movie Dragonfight. His second wife was his Land of the Giants co-star Deanna Lund.

American character actor Bob Hastings (Robert Francis Hastings), a regular on TV’s McHale’s Navy (1962-66), died of prostate cancer on June 30, aged 89. He appeared in the 1950s science fiction TV shows Captain Video and His Video Rangers, Atom Squad and Tom Corbett Space Cadet, along with episodes of Twilight Zone (‘I Dream of Genie’), Batman, I Dream of Jeanie, The Flying Nun, Kolchak: The Night Stalker (‘The Werewolf’), The Amazing Spider-Man, Wonder Woman, The Incredible Hulk and The Greatest American Hero. Hastings began his career as the voice of “Archie Andrews” on the radio show based on the Archie comic books. He was also the voice of “The Raven” in The Munsters (1964-66) and, for ten years, the voice of “Commissioner James Gordon” in various animated Batman TV shows and video games. The actor was also in the movies The Bamboo Saucer, Disney’s The Strange Monster of Strawberry Cove and Charlie and the Angel, The Billion Dollar Threat and The Munsters’ Revenge (as the “Phantom of the Opera”). Hastings made a point of never charging fans for his autograph at nostalgia conventions, saying: “I am pleased that people remember the shows I did”.

The body of 50-year-old British actor, wrestler and cage fighter Dave Legeno was discovered at Zabriskie Point, in California’s remote Death Valley, on July 6. He had apparently died of heat exhaustion while hiking. Best known for playing werewolf “Fenrir Greyback” in the films and video games Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 and Part 2, he was also in Batman Begins, Stormbreaker, The Cottage, Dead Cert, Asylum Blackout, The Raven (2012) and Snow White and the Huntsman.

Former child actor Dickie Jones (Richard Percy Jones), who was the uncredited voice of the wooden puppet in Walt Disney’s Pinnocchio (1940), died on July 7, aged 87. He appeared in Babes in Toyland (1934), Life Returns, Queen of the Jungle, On Borrowed Time and Beware Spooks! before retiring from acting in the mid-1960s.

Italian-born actress, writer, poet and inventor Vanna [Marie] Bonta died in Los Angeles on July 8, aged 56. She had a small role as Zed’s mother in The Beastmaster (1982), and her other credits include Time Walker and voice work for Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, An American Tail: Fievel Goes West, Demolition Man and the TV series Revelations. Bonta also made two uncredited appearances in the 2002 series of The Twilight Zone, and she wrote the controversial 1995 book Flight: A Quantum Fiction Novel.

American actor James Mathers died of cancer on July 11, aged 77. He starred as “Dr. Henry Jekyll” in Dr. Jekyll’s Dungeon of Death (1979), which he also scripted, and he was in an episode of TV’s SeaQuest 2032.

British TV actor Ray Lonnen (Raymond Stanley Lonnen) died of cancer the same day, aged 74. He was in episodes of TV’s Menace, The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes, Doctor Who, Hammer House of Horror (‘The Guardian of the Abyss’), Tales of the Unexpected, Johnny and the Dead (based on the book by Terry Pratchett), Crime Traveller and Starhunter.

American stage and screen actress Elaine Stritch died of stomach cancer on July 17, aged 89. She began her acting career in the late 1940s, and her credits include the movies The Spiral Staircase (1975), Christmas Spirits, Cocoon: The Return and ParaNorman, along with episodes of Tales of the Unexpected and 3rd Rock from the Sun.

American leading man James Garner (James Scott Bumgarner), who starred in the TV series Maverick (1957-62) and The Rockford Files (1974-80), died of acute myocardial infarction on July 19, aged 86. Garner also appeared in the movies The Fan, Fire in the Sky and Space Cowboys, and he was a voice performer in Disney’s Atlantis: The Lost Empire, The Land Before Time X: The Great Longneck Migration and Battle for Terra, as well as such TV shows as God the Devil and Bob (as “God”) and DC Showcase (as “Shazam”).

21-year-old American actress Skye McCole Bartusiak died the same day of an accidental drug overdose. She had recently been suffering from epileptic seizures. Bartusiak made her acting debut in the 1999 mini-series of Stephen King’s Storm of the Century, and her other credits include the movies The Darkling, Firestarter 2: Rekindled, Boogeyman and Sick Boy, plus episodes of TV’s Touched by an Angel and Lost.

Spanish comedian Álex Angulo (Alejandro Angulo León) was killed in a car accident on July 20, aged 61. He had roles in Acción mutante and Pan’s Labyrinth.

British character actress Dora Bryan OBE (Dora May Broadbent) died on July 23, aged 91. She made her film debut in 1947, and her credits include The Perfect Woman, Old Mother Riley Meets the Vampire (with Bela Lugosi), Mad About Men, Hammer’s Hands of the Ripper, Screamtime and Dave McKean’s MirrorMask. In 1963 she recorded the hit novelty song, ‘All I Want for Christmas is a Beatle’.

American character actor Jack Walsh (Raymond J. Walsh) died of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease on July 25, aged 80. He was in John Walters’ Multiple Maniacs, George Lucas’ debut THX 1138, David Lynch’s Eraserhead, and Insidious: Chapter 2, along with episodes of TV’s Early Edition (‘Halloween’) and Medium.

American character actor Lew Brown died on July 27, aged 89. His movie credits include Colossus: The Forbin Project, The Resurrection of Zachary Wheeler, The Man, Planet Earth and The Clone Master. On TV Brown was a familiar face in episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Twilight Zone, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, The Invaders, The Wild Wild West, I Dream of Jeannie, Night Gallery, Shazam!, Kolchak: The Night Stalker, The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries (‘The Mystery of the Haunted House’ with Richard Kiel) and Project U.F.O.

Hawaiian-born American actor and singer James [Saburo] Shigeta died on July 28, aged 85. His movies include the musical remake of Lost Horizon (1973), The Questor Tapes, Tomorrow’s Child and Space Marines. On TV Shigeta appeared in episodes of The Outer Limits, Matt Helm, Fantasy Island, The Greatest American Hero, The Hitchhiker, SeaQuest 2032 and Babylon 5, and he contributed voice performances to Disney’s Mulan, The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest and Avatar: The Last Airbender.

Maverick American character actor Dennis Lipscomb died on July 30, aged 72. He appeared in WarGames, Eyes of Fire, The Day After, Crossroads, Retribution, Perry Mason: The Case of the Sinister Spirit, The First Power, The Force, Without Warning and Automatic. On TV he was in episodes of The Greatest American Hero, The Powers of Matthew Star, Amazing Stories, Highway to Heaven, SeaQuest 2032, The X Files, Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, The Invisible Man (2000) and Roswell.

59-year-old British TV and radio presenter Mike Smith (Michael George Smith) died on August 1 of complications following major heart surgery. Smith was one of the co-presenters of Stephen Volk’s infamous Hallowe’en spoof Ghostwatch, along with his wife Sarah Greene and Michael Parkinson, which the BBC broadcast live in 1992.

Canadian character actor Walter [Edward Hart] Massey, the cousin of veteran actor Raymond Massey, died on August 4, aged 85. A prolific voice actor, his films include Jacob Two-Two Meets the Hooded Fang, Happy Birthday to Me, Zombie Nightmare, Whispers and Secrets of the Summer House, and he was also in episodes of the TV anthology series The Twilight Zone (1989), The Hidden Room and Are You Afraid of the Dark?.

American actress Marilyn Burns, who survived Tobe Hooper’s Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974), died on August 5, aged 65. She was also in Hooper’s Eaten Alive plus Helter Skelter (1976), Kiss Daddy Goodbye (with Fabian), Future-Kill, Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation, Butcher Boys, Texas Chainsaw 3D, Sacrament and In a Madman’s World.

Northern Irish character actor J.J. Murphy died on August 8, aged 86. Days earlier he had started work on HBO’s Game of Thrones as “Denys Mallister”, the oldest member of the Night’s Watch. He also had an uncredited role as a village elder in Dracula Untold.

American actor Ed Nelson (Edwin Stafford Nelson), who starred in the TV soap opera Peyton Place (1964-69), died of congestive heart failure on August 9, aged 85. He began his career as a member of Roger Corman’s unofficial stock company in such movies as Swamp Women, Attack of the Crab Monsters (as the crab!), Rock All Night, Teenage Doll, Carnival Rock, Teenage Cave Man, She Gods of Shark Reef, I Mobster and A Bucket of Blood. His other credits include Invasion of the Saucer Men, Night of the Blood Beast, The Brain Eaters, Devil’s Partner, The Screaming Woman (based on a story by Ray Bradbury), The Girl the Gold Watch & Everything, Brenda Starr, Deadly Weapon and The Boneyard, plus episodes of TV’s Thriller (‘The Cheaters’), Twilight Zone, The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, The Outer Limits, Rod Serling’s Night Gallery, The Sixth Sense, The Bionic Woman, Gemini Man, Logan’s Run and Salvage 1.

Veteran British-born soap opera actor Charles [Patrick] Keating died of lung cancer in Connecticut the same day, aged 72. He appeared in episodes of The Mind Beyond (‘Meriel, the Ghost Girl’), Supernatural (‘The Werewolf Reunion’ and ‘Countess Ilona’) and Tales of the Unexpected before moving to America in the mid-1980s, where he was featured in such popular soaps as All My Children, Port Charles and Another World. He also portrayed the god “Zeus” in cross-over episodes of Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and Xena: Warrior Princess.

63-year-old comedic film and TV star Robin [McLaurin] Williams committed suicide by hanging on August 11. He had been suffering from severe depression. Williams was an immediate hit as the offbeat alien “Mork” in the TV sitcom Mork & Mindy (1978-82), a spin-off from Happy Days, and he went on to appear in such films as Popeye, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, Dead Again, The Fisher King, Hook, In Search of Dr. Seuss, Jumanji, Hamlet (1996), Flubber (1997), What Dreams May Come (based on the novel by Richard Matheson), Bicentennial Man (based on the novel by Issac Asimov), One Hour Photo, Insomnia, The Final Cut and The Night Listener, and he portrayed “Teddy Roosevelt” in the fantasy trilogy Night at the Museum, Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian and Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb. He was presented with an Oscar for Best Actor in a Supporting Role in 1998. Williams’ other TV credits include an episode of Faerie Tale Theatre, he was the voice of the “Genie” in Walt Disney’s animated movies Aladdin and Aladdin and the King of Thieves, and he also gave voice performances in A.I. Artificial Intelligence (based on the story by Brian Aldiss), FernGully: The Last Rainforest, Robots, Happy Feet, Happy Feet Two and Absolutely Anything.

Hollywood actress Lauren Bacall (Betty Joan Perske) died of a stroke on August 12, aged 89. Best known for her co-starring roles with future husband Humphrey Bogart in such classic 1940s movies as To Have and Have Not, The Big Sleep, Dark Passage and Key Largo, she also appeared in Blithe Spirit (1956), Shock Treatment (1964), The Fan, Misery (based on the novel by Stephen King), Presence of Mind (based on Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw) and Birth. Bacall also voiced witches in both Howl’s Moving Castle (based on the novel by Diana Wynne Jones) and Scooby-Doo and the Goblin King. She was awarded an Honorary Oscar in 2010, and her second husband was actor Jason Robards.

American actress Arlene Martel (Arlene Greta Sax, aka “Tasha Martel”), who played Spock’s Vulcan bride “T’Pring” in the classic Star Trek episode ‘Amok Time’ (1967), died of complications from heart bypass surgery and breast cancer the same day, aged 78. Her other credits include Angels from Hell, Conspiracy of Terror, the softcore Chatterbox!, Dracula’s Dog and Star Trek: Of Gods and Men, plus episodes of TV’s Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits (Harlan Ellison’s ‘Demon with a Glass Hand’), The Man from U.N.C.L.E., My Favorite Martian, I Dream of Jeannie, The Wild Wild West, The Flying Nun, The Monkees (‘Monstrous Monkee Mash’), Bewitched, The Six Million Dollar Man and the original series of Battlestar Galactica.

Actress Columba Domínguez [Alarid], who starred in the influential Mexican horror film Ladrón de cadáveres (1957), died on August 13, aged 85. She also appeared in La loba, Adventura al centro de la tierra and the 1962 TV series Las momias de Guanajuato.

Maltese-born Madeleine Collinson, who co-starred with her identical twin sister Mary and Peter Cushing in Hammer’s Twins of Evil (1971), died on August 14, aged 62. The former October 1970 Playboy Playmate of the Month also appeared in a few sexploitation films before her short-lived acting career was over.

American character actor Stephen Lee died of a heart attack the same day, aged 58. He appeared in WarGames, Dolls, RoboCop 2, The Pit and the Pendulum (1991), Ghoulies Go to College, Prehysteria!, Black Scorpion (1995), Victim of the Haunt (aka The Uninvited), Carnosaur 3: Primal Species and Black Scorpion II: Aftershock, plus episodes of TV’s Amazing Stories, Hard Time on Planet Earth, Quantum Leap, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Babylon 5, Dark Angel, Invasion, Threshold, Fear Itself (Peter Crowther’s ‘Eater’) and Ghost Whisperer.

American radio and TV announcer Don Pardo (Dominick George Pardo), best known for his work on such shows as Jeopardy! and Saturday Night Live, died on August 18, aged 96. In the 1940s he was the announcer for the radio series Dimension X and X Minus One.

British character actor, producer and Oscar-winning director Sir Richard [Samuel] Attenborough died on August 24, aged 90. He appeared in A Matter of Life and Death (aka Stairway to Heaven), Brighton Rock (as the psychopathic “Pinkie”), Seance on a Wet Afternoon, Doctor Dolittle, The Magic Christian, 10 Rillington Place (as real-life murderer John Christie), Ten Little Indians (1974), Miracle on 34th Street (1994), Hamlet (1996), Jack and the Beanstalk: The Real Story, and Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park and The Lost World: Jurassic Park. As a director Attenborough’s credits include Magic (based on the novel by William Goldman) and Shadowlands (the biography of C.S. Lewis). He was married to actress Sheila Sim since 1945.

American character actor John [Edward] Brandon died on August 25, aged 85. In 1966, he played the first victim of the Cybermen in the initial episode of the Doctor Who serial ‘The Tenth Planet’. His other credits include Battle Beneath the Earth, Billion Dollar Brain, Star Hunter, The Lake and The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle, along with episodes of TV’s Wonder Woman, The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries, The Bionic Woman, Fantasy Island, The Greatest American Hero, Goliath Awaits, Knight Rider, Voyagers!, Tales from the Darkside and Charmed.

South African-born character actor and comedian Bill Kerr (William Henry Kerr) died in Australia on August 28, aged 92. For many years he worked in Britain, where he became one of Tony Hancock’s regular radio sidekicks. He also appeared in episodes of TV’s Adam Adamant Lives! and Doctor Who, plus the movies The Night My Number Came Up, Tiffany Jones, House of Mortal Sin (aka The Confessional), Razorback and Peter Pan (2003).

German actor Gottfried John, who played Russian general Arkady Grigorovich Ourumov in the James Bond film GoldenEye (1995), died of cancer on September 1, aged 72. He was also in the short-lived SF series Space Rangers (1993-94), an episode of Millennium, and the TV movies Flood and Rumplestilzchen.

Acerbic American comedian Joan Rivers (Joan Alexandra Molinsky) died of anoxic encephalopathy on September 4, following throat surgery a week earlier. She was 81. Rivers’ movie credits include The Muppets Take Manhattan, Spaceballs (and the subsequent animated TV series), Shrek 2, The Smurfs, Iron Man 3 and R.L. Stine’s Mostly Ghostly: Have You Met My Ghoulfriend?

Lithuanian actor Donatas [Juozas] Banionis, who co-starred in Andrei Tarkovsky’s Solaris (1972), died of heart problems the same day, aged 90. He was also in The Vampire, a 1991 version of Aleksei Tolstoy’s often-filmed novel, and portrayed Rex Stout’s detective “Nero Wolfe” in Poka ya ne umer (2001).

Memorable American character actor Stefan Gierasch died on September 6, aged 88. He appeared in High Plains Drifter, Carrie (1976), Blue Sunshine, Blood Beach, Spellbinder, Megaville and Legend of the Phantom Rider, along with episodes of TV’s Play of the Week (‘The Dybbuk’), The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, Holmes and Yo-Yo, Lucan, Fantasy Island, The Incredible Hulk, The Greatest American Hero, Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1985), The Twilight Zone (1986), Werewolf, Tales from the Crypt, Dark Shadows (1991, as “Joshua Collins”), Star Trek: The Next Generation, Touched by an Angel and Brimstone. Gierasch portrayed Hollywood director Michael Curtiz in the 1985 TV biopic My Wicked Wicked Ways: The Legend of Errol Flynn.

American character acator Don(ald) [Hood] Keefer died on September 7, aged 98. He appeared in Woody Allen’s Sleeper, The Car, Mirrors, Creepshow and Liar Liar. On TV, Keefer was in episodes of One Step Beyond, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, ‘Way Out, Twilight Zone (‘It’s a Good Life’), My Favorite Martian, The Munsters, Bewitched, Star Trek (‘Assignment: Earth’), Night Gallery, The Incredible Hulk, Time Express (with Vincent Price), Highway to Heaven and Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman.

American actor Denny Miller (Dennis Linn Miller), who portrayed the first blond Tarzan in the 1959 Tarzan, the Ape Man, died of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis on September 9, aged 80. As “Scott Miller” he was a regular on Wagon Train (1961-64), and he also appeared in episodes of The Girl from U.N.C.L.E. (Richard Matheson’s ‘The Atlantis Affair’), I Dream of Jeannie, The Wide World of Mystery, The Six Million Dollar Man, Wonder Woman, Quark, Battlestar Galactica (1978), Fantasy Island, Beyond Westworld, The Incredible Hulk, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, Voyagers!, V, Knight Rider, Outlaws and Werewolf, along with the movies Doomsday Machine, Disney’s The Island at the Top of the World and Dr. Scorpion.

Big Richard [Dawson] Kiel, who portrayed steel-toothed James Bond villain “Jaws” in The Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker, died of possible acute myocardial infarction on September 10, aged 74. The distinctive seven-feet, two-inch tall actor also appeared in the movies The Phantom Planet, Eegah, House of the Damned, The Nutty Professor (1963), Two on a Guillotine, The Human Duplicators, Brainstorm (1965), The Humanoid, Hysterical, Phoenix, Pale Rider, The Princess and the Dwarf, Inspector Gadget and BloodHounds Inc. #5: Fangs for the Memories. His many TV credits include episodes of Thriller (‘Well of Doom’), The Phantom, Twilight Zone (‘To Serve Man’), The Man from U.N.C.L.E., I Dream of Jeannie, My Mother the Car, Gilligan’s Island (‘Ghost-a-Go-Go’), The Monkees (‘I Was a Teenage Monkee’), The Wild Wild West, Kolchak: The Night Stalker, Land of the Lost, The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries (‘The Mystery of the Haunted House’), Out of This World and Superboy.

German leading man Joachim Fuchsberger died on September 11, aged 87. He starred (often as various Scotland Yard inspectors) in such Edgar Wallace krimi films as Face of the Frog, The Terrible People, Dead Eyes of London (1961), The Devil’s Daffodil, The Inn on the River, The Black Abbot (1963), Room 13, The Mysterious Magician and The Zombie Walks, along with The Carpet of Horror, The Face of Fu Manchu (with Christopher Lee), The College Girl Murders, Schreie in der Nacht, What Have You Done to Solange? (aka Terror in the Woods) and Trance. Fuchsberger was reportedly offered the role of “James Bond” in 1960, but advised the German producer to turn the project down because it was too expensive.

Plummy-voiced British actor Sir Donald [Alfred] Sinden died of prostate cancer on September 12, aged 90. He was in Mad About Men, Disney’s The Island at the Top of the World, The Canterville Ghost (1996 and 1997 versions) and Alice in Wonderland (1999), along with the TV series The Mystery of Edwin Drood (1960) and episodes of The Prisoner, Late Night Horror and The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes.

American Broadway actor and singer Steve Curry (Steven Michael Curry), whose curly-haired head was immortalised on the original poster and album cover art for the hit musical Hair in 1968, died of sepsis on September 13. He was 68. Curry also starred as “Glen” in the 1971 post-apocalyptic movie Glen and Randa. From 1980-81 he was married to actress Patti D’Arbanville, and he also fathered a daughter with actress Susan Anspach.

Scottish character actor Angus [Wilson] Lennie died in London on September 14, aged 84. He appeared on TV in episodes of Target Luna, The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe (1967) and Doctor Who (‘The Ice Warriors’), along with a small role in Disney’s One of Our Dinosaurs is Missing.

American actress Audrey Long, who co-starred in A Game of Death (1945, a remake of Richard Connell’s story ‘The Most Dangerous Game’), died in England on September 19, aged 92. She retired from the screen in 1952 when she married her second husband, author Leslie Charteris, creator of “The Saint”.

Austrian-born actress and dancer Peggy Drake (Liesl Lotte Mayer), who appeared in a few films and the 1942 Republic serial King of the Mounties, died the same day, aged 91.

American actress and singer Polly Bergen (Nellie Paulina Bergin) died after a long battle with emphysema on September 20, aged 84. She co-starred in the original Cape Fear (1962) with Gregory Peck and Robert Mitchum, and her other movie credits include Death Cruise, Making Mr. Right, The Haunting of Sarah Hardy and Dr. Jekyll and Ms. Hyde. On TV she appeared in episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Thriller (1973), Fantasy Island and Touched by an Angel.

Canadian actress and playwright Linda [Pauline] Griffiths died of breast cancer on September 21, aged 57. She appeared in episodes of TV’s Friday the 13th: The Series and Beyond Reality.

American actress Sarah Danielle Madison (Sarah Goldberg), who had recurring roles in the TV series Judging Amy, 7th Heaven and the revived 90210, died in her sleep of a suspected heart ailment on September 27, aged 40. She also appeared in the movies Jurassic Park III, Savage Planet and Pig.

74-year-old British-born actor David [William] Watson, who replaced Roddy McDowall for one movie as “Cornelius” in Beneath the Planet of the Apes, died of a heart attack in New York City on October 5. He had been attending the opening night of the Broadway play The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. Watson was also in episodes of TV’s The Girl from U.N.C.L.E., The Time Tunnel (as Rudyard Kipling), The Bionic Woman and Project U.F.O. As a boy chorister, he was one of three treble soloists who sung at the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II.

Trinidad-born dancer, choreographer and actor Geoffrey (Lamont) Holder died in New York City of complications from pneumonia the same day, aged 84. Best remembered for his colourful role as James Bond villain “Baron Samedi” in Live and Let Die (1973), his other credits include Doctor Dolittle, Everything You Wanted to Know About Sex** But Were Afraid to Ask, The Gold Bug (1980), Alice in Wonderland (1983), Jon Grin’s Christmas, Ghost of a Chance, and two episodes of the 1960s Tarzan TV series. The baritone-voiced Holder also narrated Tim Burton’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005), and in 1975 he won Tony Awards for Best Direction of a Musical and Best Costume Design for the Broadway stage production of The Wiz.

32-year-old Native American actress Misty [Anne] Upham was found dead in a ravine in the woods in Auburn, Washington, on October 16 after being reported missing earlier in the month. The King County medical examiner ruled that she died on October 5 of accidental blunt-force trauma to her head and torso, despite reports that she feared harassment by local police. Upham appeared in the movies Skinwalkers and DreamKeeper.

Tony Award-winning stage and screen actress Marian [Hall] Seldes died on October 6, aged 86. In a busy career, she appeared in episodes of TV’s Shirley Temple’s Storybook, Alfred Hitchcock Presents and Murder She Wrote (‘The Witch’s Curse’), along with the movie The Haunting (1999), based on the novel The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson. Seldes, who was married to writer and director Garson Kanin, is in the Guinness Book of World Records for appearing on Broadway in 1,809 performances of Deathtrap from 1978 until late 1982 without ever missing a show.

Italian character actor Fedrico Boido (aka “Rico Boido”) died on October 7, aged 74. His credits include the peplums Hercules and the Treasure of the Incas and Maciste il vendicatore dei Maya, Mario Bava’s Planet of the Vampires and Danger: Diabolik, Spirits of the Dead and numerous spaghetti Westerns. Boido also regularly appeared in many of the Killing/Satanik/Sadistik photo-novels.

American actor Paul Lukather died on October 9, aged 88. In the early 1960s he starred in Dinosaurus! and Hands of a Stranger, and later appeard in Shock Treatment (1964) and Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter. Lukather was also on TV in episodes of Science Fiction Theatre, The Outer Limits, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Get Smart, The Invaders and Gemini Man, and he was a voice actor in numerous videogames (including “Vorador”, the vampire elder of the Blood Omen series).

American actress and comedian Jan Hooks (Janet Vivian Hooks), who appeared on TV’s Saturday Night Live from 1986-91, died of throat cancer the same day, aged 57. She appeared in the movies Pee-wee’s Big Adventure, Batman Returns and Coneheads, and played recurring characters on TV’s 3rd Rock from the Sun and The Simpsons.

Veteran American stuntman Gary McLarty, who was stunt co-ordinator and Vic Morrow’s stunt double on the ill-fated Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983) when the actor was killed, died in a traffic accident along with fellow stuntman Bob Orrison on October 11. McLarty, who was 73, testified at the Robert Blake murder trial in 2005 that the actor had offered him $10,000 to murder his wife, who Blake was accused of shooting to death four years earlier. Orrison, who was 86, was the stunt double for Leonard Nimoy and DeForrest Kelley on the original Star Trek TV series.

55-year-old Cuban-American actress Elizabeth [Maria] Peñ a died of liver cirrhosis due to alcohol abuse on October 14. Her movie credits include *batteries not included, Vibes, Blue Steel, Jacob’s Ladder, The Invaders (1995), It Came from Outer Space II, Strangeland and Dragon Wars: D-War. She was also in episodes of TV’s The Outer Limits (1995) and Ghost Whisperer.

Irish-born Canadian actor Gerard Parkes (aka “Gerry Parks”), who played inventor “Doc” on Jim Henson’s Fraggle Rock (1983-87), died October 19, aged 90. He was in the movies The Pyx, Spasms (aka Death Bite), A Muppet Family Christmas and Short Circuit 2. On TV, Parkes appeared in episodes of The Twilight Zone (1988), War of the Worlds, Friday the 13th: The Series (aka Friday’s Curse), The Ray Bradbury Theatre and Storm of the Century.

Canadian-born British actress Lynda Bellingham OBE (Meredith Lee Hughes) died in London the same day, after a very public battle with colon cancer. She was 66. Best known for appearing on a series of gravy commercials during the 1980s and ‘90s, Bellingham also appeared in episodes of TV’s Blakes 7, Doctor Who and Robin Hood (2007).

American tough-guy character actor William Bonner (Pierre Maurice Prenatt) died on October 23. His many movies, often for director Al Adamson, include the Edward D. Wood-scripted Orgy of the Dead, Psych-Out, Satan’s Sadists, The Mighty Gorga, Hell’s Bloody Devils, Bigfoot (1970), The Incredible 2-Headed Transplant, The Female Bunch, Dracula vs. Frankenstein and Psychic Killer. Following an on-set accident, he was in a wheelchair for nearly forty years.

American actress Marcia Strassman died of breast cancer on October 24, aged 66. Her movie credits include Brenda Starr (1976), Brave New World, Haunted by Her Past, Honey I Shrunk the Kids, Honey I Blew Up the Kid, Earth Minus Zero and Reeker. On TV she was a regular on Tremors (2003) and appeared in episodes of Fantasy Island, Time Express (with Vincent Price), Shadow Chasers, Amazing Stories, Touched by an Angel and Highlander.

British actress Renée Asherson (Dorothy Renée Ascherson) died on October 30, aged 99. She was in the films The Day the Earth Caught Fire, Hammer’s Rasputin: The Mad Monk (with Christopher Lee), Theatre of Blood (with Vincent Price) and The Others, along with episodes of TV’s The Strange Report and Tom’s Midnight Garden. She was married to actor Robert Donat from 1953 until his death in 1958.

American comedy actor Richard Schaal died on November 4, aged 86. A member of Chicago’s Second City troupe, he appeared in the movies Slaughterhouse-Five, A Knife for the Ladies, Song of the Succubus, Americathon and Once Bitten, along with episodes of TV’s I Dream of Jeannie, The Wide World of Mystery and Shadow Chasers. Schaal also co-starred with his second wife, Valerie Harper, in the CBS series Rhoda (1974-76).

American character actress Carol Ann Susi, best known as the voice of the unseen “Mrs. Wolowitz” in TV’s The Big Bang Theory, died of cancer on November 11, aged 62. She was working as a waitress in a restaurant when she met Darren McGavin and his wife, and the actor offered her the role of his secretary, Monique Marmelstein, in three episodes of ABC-TV’s Kolchak: Night Stalker. She also appeared in Donor, Death Becomes Her, Cats & Dogs and Red Velvet (with Forrest J Ackerman), along with episodes of TV’s Sabrina the Teenage Witch and Journeyman.

British leading man Richard [Edward] Pasco CBE, who was in Hammer’s The Gorgon and Rasputin: The Mad Monk (both with Christopher Lee), died on November 12, aged 88. His other credits include Disney’s The Watcher in the Woods and an episode of TV’s Out of This World (hosted by Boris Karloff).

British actor Warren Clarke (Alan James Clarke) died in his sleep the same day, aged 67. He began acting in his late teens, and his credits include Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange (as “Dim”), O Lucky Man!, The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1976, as “Quasimodo”), The Tempest (1980, as “Caliban”), Hawk the Slayer, Firefox, The Case of the Frightened Lady (1983), The Cold Room, Top Secret!, Hands of a Murderer and Angels (1992). On TV Clarke appeared in episodes of The Avengers (‘Invasion of the Earth Men’), Hammer House of Horror (‘The Thirteenth Reunion’), Tales of the Unexpected and Worlds Beyond.

British actress and painter Joanna [Elizabeth] Dunham, the wife of actor, playwright and author Reggie Oliver, died after a long illness on November 25, aged 78. Marilyn Monroe recommended her to director George Stevens for the role of “Mary Magdalene” in The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965), and her other film credits include Amicus’ The House That Dripped Blood (with Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing). On TV she appeared in episodes of H.G. Wells’ Invisible Man (1959), A Choice of Coward (‘Blithe Spirit’, as the ghostly “Elvira”), Thriller (1973), Space: 1999, ITV Playhouse (M.R. James’ ‘Casting the Runes’, 1979) and the Gerry Anderson pilot The Day After Tomorrow (aka Into Infinity).

Japanese actor Bunta Sugawara died on November 28, aged 81. He appeared in the movies Girl Diver of Spook Mansion, The Bloody Sword of the 99th Virgin and The Cursed Pond. As a voice actor, Sugawara contributed to the animated productions Spirited Away and Tales from Earthsea.

American actor Loren Ewing (William Russell Ewing) died on December 2, aged 77. He had roles in The Last of the Secret Agents? and Frankenstein’s Castle of Freaks (as “Goliath”), and played The Archer’s henchman “Big John” in a two-part episode of TV’s Batman. His acting career ended after he suffered a serious head injury while filming a Western in the late 1970s.

Former American child actor Ken Weatherwax (Kenneth Patrick Weatherwax), who played “Pugsley” in the original ABC-TV series The Addams Family (1964-66) and the 1973 animated show, died of a heart attack on December 7, aged 59. Weatherwax also appeared in the 1977 TV movie Halloween with the New Addams Family, and he later became a camera grip at Universal Studios.

30-year-old Canadian-born actress and dancer Stephanie [Elyse] Moseley was shot to death in a murder-suicide in Los Angeles on December 8. Her rapper husband Earl Hayes believed she had cheated on him before turning the gun on himself. Moseley appeared in Catwoman, The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1, Mirror Mirror and Girl vs. Monster.

American actress and former Miss America Mary Ann Mobley died after a long battle with breast cancer on December 9, aged 77. She played “April Dancer”, the original “Girl from U.N.C.L.E.”, in a 1966 episode of The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (‘The Moonglow Affair’) but was later replaced by Stefanie Powers, and she was originally cast as “Batgirl” in Batman, but the role eventually went to Yvonne Craig. Mobley also appeared in episodes of TV’s The Smothers Brothers Show (‘The Ghost is Clear’), Search, The Sixth Sense, The Fantastic Journey and Fantasy Island, and she co-starred with Elvis Presley in the movies Girl Happy and Harum Scarum. She was married to actor Gary Collins from 1967 until his death in 2012.

British leading man Tom Adams (Anthony Frederick Charles Adams) died of prostate cancer on December 11, aged 76. He starred as “Charles Vine” in the 1960s James Bond spoofs Licensed to Kill (aka The 2nd Best Secret Agent in the Whole Wide World), Where the Bullets Fly and Somebody’s Stolen Our Russian Spy, and his other movie credits include The House That Dripped Blood (alongside Joanna Dunham, who died sixteen days earlier). On TV, Adams appeared in episodes of The Avengers, Hammer’s Journey to the Unknown (Robert Bloch’s ‘The Indian Spirit Guide’), Strange Report, UFO, Doctor Who (‘Warriors of the Deep’) and Hammer House of Mystery and Suspense (‘Mark of the Devil’).

British character actor Gerald [Grant] Sim, the brother-in-law of Richard Attenborough, died the same day, aged 89. Best known for his role in Hammer’s Dr Jekyll & Sister Hyde (1971), he also appeared in Seance on a Wet Afternoon, The Man Who Haunted Himself, Alfred Hitchcock’s Frenzy, Dr. Phibes Rises Again (with Vincent Price), The Slipper and the Rose: The Story of Cinderella, Jack the Ripper (1988) and Shadowlands, along with episodes of TV’s The Avengers, It’s Dark Outside (‘Wake the Dead’), Adam Adamant Lives!, Out of the Unknown, Hammer’s Journey to the Unknown, Doomwatch, Thriller (1974), The Wide World of Mystery, The New Avengers and Hammer House of Mystery and Suspense.

82-year-old Italian leading man Giorgio Ardisson (aka “George Ardisson”) also died on December 11. He appeared in Mario Bava’s Hercules in the Haunted World (with Christopher Lee) and Erik the Conqueror, along with the obscure Katarsis (with Lee again), Antonio Margheriti’s The Long Hair of Death (with Barbara Steele), Agent 3S3: Passport to Hell, Hercules and the Princess of Troy, Federico Fellini’s Juliet of the Spirits, Operation Counterspy, Agent 3S3: Massacre in the Sun, Eyes Behind the Stars, Don’t Look in the Attic and Cross of the Seven Jewels.

American character actress Mary [Dawne] Arden died on December 13, aged 81. While a fashion model living in Italy during the 1960s, she appeared in Mario Bava’s seminal giallo Blood and Black Lace, Fellini’s Juliet of the Spirits and Umberto Lenzi’s Kriminal. She also turned up in the 2012 movie Bloody Christmas.

American character actor Booth Colman, who played “Dr. Zaius” on the short-lived TV series Planet of the Apes (1974), died on December 15, aged 91. He was in Them!, The Silver Chalice, Fritz Lang’s Moonfleet, World Without End, Time Travelers, The Return of the World’s Greatest Detective and Return to the Secret Garden, along with episodes of The Veil and Thriller (both hosted by Boris Karloff), The Outer Limits, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, The Wild Wild West, The Monkees, I Dream of Jeannie, The Invaders, Tarzan (1968), The Flying Nun, Project U.F.O., Galactica 1980 and Star Trek: Voyager.

Italian actress Virna Lisi (Virnia Lisa Pieralisi) died of lung cancer on December 18, aged 78. Her films include Dual of the Titans, The Possessed and Bluebeard (1972). The actress was reportedly offered the title role of Barbarella (1968), but turned it down.

British character actress Billie [Honor] Whitelaw CBE died on December 21, aged 82. She made her acting debut in the 1952 BBC-TV series The Secret Garden, and her many other credits include the films The Flesh and the Fiends (aka Mania, with Peter Cushing), The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1968, with Jack Palance), Twisted Nerve, Alfred Hitchcock’s Frenzy, Night Watch, The Omen (1976), The Water Babies, The Dark Crystal, The Secret Garden (1987), The Cloning of Joanna May, Jane Eyre (1996), Merlin (1998), Quills and Hot Fuzz, along with episodes of BBC Sunday-Night Theatre (‘Gaslight’), Wessex Tales, Space: 1999, Supernatural (‘The Werewolf Reunion’/ ‘Countess Ilona’) and Imaginary Friends. She was married (1952-66) to actor Peter Vaughn and later to playwright Robert Muller.

British stuntman and stunt arranger Richard Graydon died on December 22, aged 92. Staring with From Russia with Love, he worked on ten James Bond films, along with Don’t Look Now, The Man Who Fell to Earth, Star Wars, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Ladyhawke, Dream Lover, Willow and Batman (1989). Additionally, Graydon had small roles in Déjà Vu (1985) and an episode of TV’s The Avengers.

American voice actor Christine Cavanaugh (Christine Josephine Sandberg) died the same day, aged 51. Her credits include Darkwing Duck, A Flintstone Family Christmas, Babe (as the titular porcine), The Spooktacular New Adventures of Casper, Dexter’s Laboratory (as “Dexter”) and Rugrats (as “Chuckie”), amongst many other titles. Cavanaugh also appeared in an episode of TV’s The X Files.

British actor and comedy scriptwriter [John] Jeremy Lloyd OBE died of pneumonia on December 23, aged 84. A regular on Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In (1969-70), he had small, often uncredited, roles in the Beatles films A Hard Day’s Night and Help!, A Study in Terror, The Magic Christian and TV’s The Avengers. Lloyd came up with the original idea for the Adam Faith Loch Ness Monster comedy What a Whopper (1961), and he also scripted Vampira (aka Old Dracula), starring David Niven as the Count. His second of four wives was actress Joanna Lumley.

British character actor Bernard [Frederic Bemrose] Kay died on Christmas Day. He was 86. Kay’s film credits include They Came from Beyond Space, The Shuttered Room (based on a story by H.P. Lovecraft and August Derleth), Torture Garden (based on stories by Robert Bloch), Witchfinder General (aka Conqueror Worm, with Vincent Price), Trog (with Joan Crawford and Michael Gough), Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger, Puritan and Psychosis. On TV he appeared in episodes of TV’s Hamlet (1961), Doctor Who (opposite William Hartnell, Patrick Troughton and Jon Pertwee), Out of the Unknown, Object Z, Adam Adamant Lives!, The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe (1967, as ‘Aslan’), The Champions, Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) (aka My Partner the Ghost), Space: 1999, Survivors (1977), Tales of the Unexpected, Hammer House of Mystery and Suspense, World’s Beyond, A Very British Coup (1988) and PSI Factor: Chronicles of the Paranormal. Kay was married to actress Patricia Haines from 1963 until her death in 1977.

Fellow British character actor David [John] Ryall died the same day, aged 79. His films include The Elephant Man, Jack the Ripper (1988), The Woman in Black (1989), Truly Madly Deeply, Witchcraft (1992), Around the World in 80 Days (2004), The League of Gentleman’s Apocalypse, City of Ember, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 (as “Elphias Doge”), The Tractate Middoth (2013, based on the story by M.R. James) and Autómata. On TV he was in episodes of Once Upon a Time (‘Frankenstein’, 1973), Blakes 7, The Singing Detective (1986), The Borrowers (1992), Goodnight Sweetheart, Bonekickers and Mark Gatiss’ Crooked House.

84-year-old American actor Rhodes Reason, the younger brother of actor Rex Reason, died of lymphoma cancer on December 26. His movie credits include Voodoo Island (with Boris Karloff) and King Kong Escapes. On TV Reason appeared in episodes of Science Fiction Theatre, The Time Tunnel and Star Trek.

British actress Bridget [Joanna] Turner died on December 27, aged 75. She appeared in two Terry Pratchett TV adaptations—Hogfather and The Colour of Magic—and was also in an episode of Doctor Who. Her film credits include The Gathering (2003).

American character actor Terry Becker (Solomon Becker), who played “Chief Sharkey” on TV’s Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1965-68), died on December 30, aged 93. He was also in an episode of Twilight Zone and the 2010 movie Infection: The Invasion Begins. In 1974 Becker produced and directed the low budget horror film The Thirsty Dead, based on his own story.

American-born actress Yolande Donlan (aka “Yolande Mollot”), who appeared with Bela Lugosi in Monogram’s The Devil Bat (1940), died in London the same day. She was 94. Donlan’s other movies included Turnabout (based on the novel by Thorne Smith), Mister Drake’s Duck, Tarzan and the Lost Safari and Expresso Bongo. Her second husband was Val Guest, who directed many of her films.

German-born Luise Rainer, the first actress to win back-to-back Oscars in 1937 and 1938, also died in London on December 30, aged 104. In 1954 she appeared in an episode of TV’s Suspense with fellow German émigré Martin Kosleck.

American actor Edward [Kirk] Herrmann, who played “Herman Munster” in the 1995 TV movie Here Come the Munsters, died of brain cancer on December 31, aged 71. He was also in The Day of the Dolphin, Ray Bradbury’s The Electric Grandmother, Death Valley, Woody Allen’s The Purple Rose of Cairo, The Lost Boys, My Boyfriend’s Back, The Shaft, The Skeptic and the 2014 remake of The Town That Dreaded Sundown, along with a 1987 episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents and the 2011 pilot for Wonder Woman.

American movie producer Bernard Glasser died on January 2, aged 89. A former high school teacher, during the 1950s and ‘60s he produced Space Master X-7, Return of the Fly (starring Vincent Price), The Day of the Triffids (1963, uncredited) and Crack in the World.

Mike Vraney, a former comic bookstore-owner, convention organiser and founder of video distributor Something Weird Video (SWV), died of lung cancer the same day, aged 56. He was also an associate producer on Herschell Gordon Lewis’ belated sequel Blood Feat 2: All U Can Eat (2002).

Chinese movie producer and philanthropist Sir Run Run Shaw (Ren-leng Shao) died on January 7, aged 106. During a prolific career that began in the mid-1950s, he produced or executive produced numerous films with his elder brother Runme Shaw (who died in 1985), including Hammer’s The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires (with Peter Cushing as “Van Helsing”), Cleopatra Jones and the Casino of Gold, The Oily Maniac, The Web of Death, Lady Exterminator, Meteor (1979), Blood Beach, Hex vs. Witchcraft and Blade Runner. The Shaw Brothers are credited for bringing kung fu movies into popular culture.

American animation director Hal Sutherland died on January 16, aged 85. After working at Walt Disney on such films as Peter Pan, Lady and the Tramp and Sleeping Beauty, Sutherland founded Filmation Studios with Lou Scheimer and Norm Prescott, which produced countless hours of TV cartoons from 1960s to the 1980s, including such shows as The New Adventures of Superman, The Superman/Aquaman Hour of Adventure, Journey to the Center of the Earth, The Batman/Superman Hour, Fantastic Voyage, Sabrina and the Groovie Goolies, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, My Favorite Martians, Star Trek: The Animated Series, The Fat Albert Halloween Special, Space Sentinels, Flash Gordon, Gilligan’s Planet and He-Man and the Masters of the Universe. Sutherland also directed the animated movies Journey Back to Oz (1974) and Pinocchio and the Emperor of the Night (1987).

German-born film director Gordon Hessler, best known for his inventive horror films for AIP in the late 1960s and early ‘70s, died on January 19 in London, aged 88. His movies include three collaborations with actor Vincent Price: The Oblong Box (also featuring Christopher Lee), Scream and Scream Again (with Lee again, and Peter Cushing) and Cry of the Banshee, along with Catacombs (aka The Woman Who Wouldn’t Die), De Sade (uncredited), Murders in the Rue Morgue (1971), Medusa, Scream Pretty Peggy, The Golden Voyage of Sinbad, The Strange Possession of Mrs. Oliver, KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park, Evil Stalks This House (aka Tales of the Haunted) and The Girl in a Swing (based on the novel by Richard Adams). Between 1964-65, Hessler was an associate producer on TV’s The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, and he directed episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Kolchak: The Night Stalker, Wonder Woman (‘Gault’s Brain’, featuring John Carradine) and Tales of the Unexpected.

American animator, director and producer Michael Sporn died the same day, aged 67. His many cartoons for children include The Trolls and the Christmas Express, The Red Shoes (1990), The Emperor’s New Clothes, ‘Twas the Night and Poe (2013).

Adult film-maker Tony Lovett (aka “Johnny Jump-Up” and “Antonio Passolini”) died on January 26, aged 55. Beginning his career as a publicist and production manager at VCA, he scripted The Devil in Miss Jones 3 and 4, Dr. Penetration, Latex, Shock and the mondo Inhumanities 2: Modern Atrocities. As a director, Lovett’s credits include Cafe Flesh 2 and 3, The Devil in Miss Jones 6 and New Wave Hookers 6. With Matt Maranian he co-authored the books L.A. Bizarro! The Insider’s Guide to the Obscure, the Absurd and the Perverse in Los Angeles and L.A. Bizarre: The All-New Insider’s Guide to the Obscure, the Absurd and the Perverse in Los Angeles.

American animation producer and director Arthur [Gardner] Rankin, Jr. died in Bermuda on January 30, aged 89. His numerous credits include such perennial holiday specials as Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964) and Frosty the Snowman (1969), along with Return to Oz (1964), Willie McBean and His Magic Machine, The Daydreamer and Mad Monster Party? (both featuring the voice of Boris Karloff), The Wacky World of Mother Goose, Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town, ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas, J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit (1977) and The Return of the King (1980), The Flight of the Dragons, Peter S. Beagle’s The Last Unicorn (with the voice of Christopher Lee) and the cartoon TV series The New Adventures of Pinnochio, Tales of the Wizard of Oz, King Kong (1966) and Thundercats, amongst many others. Rankin, Jr. was also a producer on the live-action movies King Kong Escapes, The Last Dinosaur, The Bermuda Depths and The Sins of Dorian Gray.

British TV director Christopher [Chisholm] Barry, who began his career at Ealing Studios as a producer’s assistant on The Man in the White Suit (1951), died on February 7, aged 88. His credits include Out of the Unknown (John Wyndham’s ‘Random Quest’), Moonbase 3, The Tripods and numerous episodes of Doctor Who (1963-79). In 1974 he became the first director to shoot Doctor Who on videotape for location sequences.

American animator and movie director Jimmy T. Murakami died in Dublin, Ireland, on February 16, aged 80. His films include Humanoids from the Deep (uncredited) and Battle Beyond the Stars for Roger Corman, along with the animated productions The Snowman and When the Wind Blows, both based on books by Raymond Briggs, Heavy Metal (Dan O’Bannon’s ‘Soft Landing’), The Lion the Witch & the Wardrobe (1988) and Christmas Carol: The Movie (2001).

American producer and scriptwriter Don Safran (Donald Bernard Safran) died of congestive heart failure on February 17, aged 84. In 1984 he produced the short-lived TV series of Blue Thunder.

27-year-old camera assistand Sarah [Elizabeth] Jones was killed on February 20 in an on-set accident involving a train, while working on a low-budget movie in Georgia. The February 26 episode of the CW’s The Vampire Diaries was dedicated to Jones, who worked on that production, along with the movie Dante’s Daemon.

American music and movie producer Saul Zaentz, who won three Academy Awards for his films, died of Alzheimer’s disease on February 28, aged 92. In 1978 he produced the animated version of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings and kept the rights to the books tied up for decades.

Acclaimed French film director and editor Alain [Pierre Marie Jean Georges] Resnais died on March 1, aged 91. His many acclaimed films include the avant-garde masterpiece Last Year in Marienbad (1961) and the time travel romance Je t’aime je t’aime (1968).

Swedish producer, director and composer Calvin [James] Floyd died in early March, aged 82. He is best remembered for the 1975 documentary In Search of Dracula (narrated by Christopher Lee), the 1977 movie Victor Frankenstein (aka Terror of Frankenstein) and the 1980 film The Sleep of Death (based on Sheridan Le Fanu’s story ‘The Room in the “Dragon Volant”’).

Acclaimed Oscar-winning British cinematographer Oswald “Ossie” Morris OBE died on March 17, aged 98. He began his career at Wembley Studios as a clapper boy in the early 1930s, before moving up to camera operator on such filems as Green for Danger. His many credits include Moby Dick (scripted by Ray Bradbury), Scrooge (1970), Sleuth, Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1974), The Man with the Golden Gun, The Man Who Would Be King, The Seven-Per-Cent Solution, The Wiz, The Great Muppet Caper and The Dark Crystal, after which he retired.

Legendary American exploitation and sexploitation producer Harry H. Novak (aka “H. Hershey”), founder of Boxoffice International Pictures (1964-78), died on March 26, aged 86. His many credits include Kiss Me Quick! (as “Seymour Tuchus”), The Toy Box, Please Don’t Eat My Mother!, Wham! Bam! Thank You Spaceman!, Rattlers, The Child and Rituals (aka The Creeper).

British TV and theatre director Derek Martinus (Derek Buitenhuis) died of Alzheimer’s disease on March 27, aged 82. His credits include episodes of Doctor Who (1965-70) and Blakes 7. With the debut of Jon Pertwee’s Doctor in 1970, he shot the first Doctor Who serial entirely on film and in colour.

70-year-old Richard Broke, who executive produced Stephen Volk’s memorable 1992 Hallowe’en spoof Ghostwatch, died on April 14. His other credits include the science fiction drama The Plant (1995).

American assistant director Paul Wurtzel died on April 18, aged 92. He began his career in 1942 with the Laurel and Hardy film A-Haunting We Will Go, and his other credits include The Black Sleep, Voodoo Island and Pharaoh’s Curse. He later worked as a unit production manager on the TV series Buck Rogers in the 25th Century and The Twilight Zone (1985-87), along with the 1982 Disney TV movie Beyond Witch Mountain.

American TV director Gordon [Wyatt] Wiles died on April 27, aged 84. Along with a number of episodes of Land of the Lost, he also directed episodes of Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In and Bigfoot and Wildboy, as well as the 1971 musical film of Li’l Abner.

American cinematographer Gordon Willis died of cancer on May 18, aged 82. Known as “The Prince of Darkness” for his use of shadowy lighting, he worked on the movie version of Pennies from Heaven (1981) and Woody Allen’s Zelig and The Purple Rose of Cairo. He received an honorary Academy Award in 2009, alongside Roger Corman.

69-year-old American screenwriter, director and video game producer Michael [Bernard] Gottlieb was killed in a motorcycle accident on May 23. His movie credits include Mannequin and Disney’s A Kid in King Arthur’s Court.

Former Hasbro executive Donald Levine, credited with creating the “G.I. Joe” action figure, died of cancer the same day, aged 86.

American pin-up model turned glamour photographer Bunny Yeager (Linnea Eleanor Yeager), best known for her iconic photographs of model Bettie Page in the early 1950s, died of congestive heart failure on May 25. She was 85. Yeager was also a still photographer on several movies, including Nude on the Moon and Dr. No (she took the photographs in Jamaica of a bikini-clad Ursula Andress coming out of the sea).

American sound editor James M. Falkinburg (aka “James Nelson”) died on June 18, aged 81. He worked—often uncredited—on such movies and TV series as Rock Around the Clock (1956), Shirley Temple’s Storybook, The Three Stooges Meet Hercules, The Three Stooges in Orbit, Beach Party, The Comedy of Terrors, Muscle Beach Party, Bikini Beach, Pajama Party, Beach Blanket Bingo, How to Stuff a Wild Bikini, Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet, Planet of the Vampires, Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine, Queen of Blood, Tarzan and the Valley of Gold, Dr. Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs, The Bubble, Tarzan and the Great River, Get Smart, Captain Nice, The Trip, Psych-Out, The Monkees, Tarzan (1966-68), Tarzan and the Jungle Boy, Head, The Monitors, H.R. Pufnstuf, Sole Survivor, Simon King of the Witches, Johnny Got His Gun, Werewolves on Wheels, The Fearmaker, The Exorcist, Coonskin and The Judas Project. Falkinburg was also involved, in various capacities, with the special effects on Ghostbusters, 2010, Fright Night (1985), Poltergeist II: The Other Side, Big Trouble in Little China, The Boy Who Could Fly, Solarbabies, Masters of the Universe and The Monster Squad.

Martin Varno, the son of veteran actor Roland Varno, died of cancer on June 24, aged 77. In 1958 he scripted Night of the Blood Beast for producer Roger Corman, he was make-up supervisor on Nightmare in Wax (1969), and he was a sound effects editor on various TV cartoon series in the 1980s.

American writer, producer, director and actor Paul Mazursky (Irwin Lawrence Mazursky), co-creator of The Monkees, died of pulmonary cardiac arrest on June 30, aged 84. He also wrote and directed Alex in Wonderland (1970), acted in three episodes of TV’s Twilight Zone, and voiced characters in the animated movies Antz and Kung Fu Panda 2.

American-Irish producer and director Noel Black died of bacterial pneumonia on July 5, aged 77. He directed Pretty Poison (1968), Mirrors (1978) and Ray Bradbury’s The Electric Grandmother. His TV credits include episodes of The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries, The Twilight Zone (1986-87) and Nightmare Classics (Ambrose Bierce’s ‘The Eyes of the Panther’), along with an unsold pilot for The World Beyond (1978) featuring a golem.

American writer, producer and director John [Michael] Fasano died of heart failure in his sleep on July 19, aged 52. After acting in Blood Sisters and Zombie Nightmare (both 1987), he scripted Universal Soldier: The Return and Megiddo: The Omega Code 2, directed Rock ‘n’ Roll Nightmare, Black Roses, The Jitters and the TV series Kamen Rider: Dragon Knight, and produced The Hunchback (1997), Darkness Falls (which he also scripted), The Lost Episode and the digital zombie show Woke Up Dead for Sony’s Crackle. Fasano was also involved in the development of Alien³, Alien vs. Predator, Hostel: Part III and Marvel Comics’ unfilmed Werewolf by Night.

American film director Phillip Marshak died of complications from diabetes, heart disease and leukemia on July 24, aged 80. His credits include the 1978 adult films Dracula Sucks (starring Jamie Gillis as the Count and a pseudonymous Reggie Nalder as “Dr. Van Helsing”) and Space Virgins, and the 1980 horror film Cataclysm (aka The Nightmare Never Ends/Satan’s Supper), which five years later was edited into Night Train to Terror (‘The Case of Claire Hansen’ segment).

Legendary Oscar-winning Hollywood make-up artist Dick Smith (Richard Emerson Smith) died of complications from a broken hip on July 30, aged 92. Although he began his career in movies in the early 1940s, Smith began to develop his own revolutionary make-up techniques for television a decade later. His many credits include Alice in Wonderland (1951), The Flame Barrier, The Alligator People (with Lon Chaney, Jr.), Miracle on 34th Street (1959), The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1968), Arsenic and Old Lace (1969), House of Dark Shadows, The Exorcist, The Stepford Wives (1975), Exorcist II: The Heretic, Altered States, Scanners, Ghost Story, The Hunger, Spasms, Starman, Poltergeist III, Tales from the Darkside: The Movie, Death Becomes Her and House on Haunted Hill (1999), along with episodes of TV’s Fireside Theatre (‘A Christmas Carol’, 1951), Way Out, Golden Showcase (‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’, 1961), Dark Shadows, Monsters and Stephen King’s Golden Years. In 2012 he was presented with an Honorary Academy Award by his protégé, Rick Baker.

Hungarian-born producer Robert Halmi, Sr. died in New York of a brain aneurysm the same day, aged 90. With his son, Robert Halmi, Jr., he produced or executive produced such movies and mini-series as The Phantom of the Opera (1983), Svengali (1983), The Night They Saved Christmas, White Dwarf, Harvey (1996), Gulliver’s Travels (1996), 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1997), Tidal Wave: No Escape, The Odyssey, Merlin (1998), Alice in Wonderland (1999), Animal Farm (1999), The Magical Legend of the Leprechauns, A Christmas Carol (1999), The 10th Kingdom, Arabian Nights (2000), Jason and the Argonauts (2000), The Land of Oz, Voyage of the Unicorn, The Lost Empire, The Infinite Worlds of H.G. Wells, Prince Charming, Snow White: The Fairest of Them All, Dinotopia, Mr. St. Nick, Snow Queen (2002), A Christmas Carol: The Musical (2004), The Five People You Meet in Heaven, Ursula K. Le Guin’s Earthsea, Hercules (2005), Merlin’s Apprentice, The Final Days of Planet Earth, Terry Pratchett’s Hogfather and The Color of Magic, Son of the Dragon, Hybrid, Eye of the Beast, Something Beneath, Grizzly Rage, Croc, Tin Man, Black Swarm, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (2008), Journey to the Center of the Earth (2008), The Hive, Swamp Devil, Vipers, Infected, Knights of Bloodsteel, Rise of the Gargoyles, Hellhounds, High Plains Invaders, Alice, The Phantom (2009), Phillip Jose Farmer’s Riverworld, Killer Wave, Neverland, The Haunting of Radcliffe House (aka Altar) and Olympus, along with the 2007-08 TV series Flash Gordon.

Polish-born production designer and director Voytek (Wojciech Roman Pawel Szendzikowski) died in London on August 7, aged 89. During the 1960s he designed episodes of TV’s The Avengers, Out of This World and Mystery and Imagination (‘The Body Snatcher’), along with Roman Polanski’s Cul-De-Sac and a 1975 TV movie of The Canterville Ghost starring David Niven. Voytek also directed the 1968 Mystery and Imagination adaptation of ‘Frankenstein’ featuring Ian Holm as both creator and monster.

Palestine-born movie producer Menahem Golan (Menahem Globus, aka “Joseph Goldman”) died in Israel on August 8, aged 85. After working as a production assistant to Roger Corman, he teamed up with his younger cousin, Yoram Globus, making and distributing films as The Cannon Group, Inc. during the 1980s. Amongst the numerous titles they produced were The Godsend, Schizoid, Dr. Heckyl and Mr. Hype, New Year’s Evil, Hospital Massacre, House of Long Shadows (the only teaming of Vincent Price, Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing and John Carradine), Treasure of the Four Crowns, Hercules (1983), Sword of the Valiant, Ninja III: The Domination, Lifeforce, Invasion U.S.A. (1985), King Solomon’s Mines (1985), America 3000, Invaders from Mars (1986), The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, Allan Quatermain and the Lost City of Gold, Aladdin (1986), Superman IV: The Quest for Peace, Masters of the Universe, Alien from L.A., Journey to the Center of the Earth (1988), Haunted Summer and Sinbad of the Seven Seas. After having purchased the UK’s Thorn-EMI Screen Entertainment in 1986, which led to their ownership of the ABC cinema circuit and Elstree Studios, Cannon was virtually bankrupt when it was bought out from the cousins three years later. As 21st Century Film Corporation, Golan went on to produce The Phantom of the Opera (1989), Night of the Living Dead (1990), Captain America (1990), Dance Macabre (1992), Prison Planet, Invader and American Cyborg: Steel Warrior, before that company also folded. Golan also wrote and directed more than forty movies, and he continued working until 2009.

61-year-old Oscar-winning American special effects and pyrotechnics designer Joe (Joseph) Viskocil died of complications from liver and kidney failure on August 11. He worked on Flesh Gordon, Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back, The Day Time Ended, The Terminator and Terminator II: Judgment Day, The Return of the Living Dead, Critters, Vamp, House, The Blob (1988), Cast a Deadly Spell, Batman Returns, Interview with the Vampire, Independence Day, Godzilla (1998), Armageddon, Scream 3, Battlefield Earth, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Journey to the Center of the Earth (2008) and The Prey, amongst many other titles.

British-born screenwriter, producer, editor and director Michael A. Hoey, the son of veteran character actor Dennis Hoey (“Inspector Lestrade” in the Basil Rathbone Sherlock Holmes films), died in California of cancer on August 17, aged 79. He is best known for his 1966 movie The Navy vs. the Night Monsters starring Mamie Van Doren.

British sculptor and puppet designer John Blundall, who created several distinctive characters for Gerry Anderson’s “Supermarionation” TV series Fireball XL5, Stingray and Thunderbirds, died on August 18, aged 77.

79-year-old American actor turned director Brian G. (Geoffrey) Hutton died on August 19, following a heart attack some days earlier. He directed Night Watch (1973) starring Elizabeth Taylor and The First Deadly Sin (1980) starring Frank Sinatra, while as an actor, Hutton appeared in two episodes of TV’s Alfred Hitchcock Presents. He left the movie business in the mid-1980s.

British-born director Andrew V. (Victor) McLaglen, the son of veteran Hollywood actor Victor McLaglen, died in Washington State on August 30, aged 94. Along with numerous TV and movie Westerns (including several with John Wayne and James Stewart), he also directed Stowaway to the Moon (with John Carradine) and the pilot episode of The Fantastic Journey. The second of McLaglen’s four wives was actress Veda Ann Borg.

British TV director Graham Theakston died of cancer on September 2, aged 62. His credits include the 1984-85 BBC series The Tripods (based on the SF books by John Christopher) and the 2002 TV movie Sherlock starring James D’Arcy as Holmes.

American director, writer and actor Theodore “Ted” J. (Jonas) Flicker died on September 12, aged 84. His credits include episodes of TV’s The Man from U.N.C.L.E., I Dream of Jeannie, Night Gallery (in which he also appeared as “The Devil”), The Twilight Zone (1985) and the movies The President’s Analyst and Jacob Two-Two Meets the Hooded Fang.

British film production designer and art director Assheton [St. George] Gorton died of heart failure on September 14, aged 84. He worked on such movies as Blow-Up, The Bed Sitting Room, The Magic Christian, Zachariah, The Pied Piper (1972), The Martian Chronicles, Legend, 101 Dalmations (1996), Shadow of the Vampire and 102 Dalmations, along with two episodes of TV’s Mystery and Imagination (‘The Flying Dragon’ and ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’). Gorton also wrote and illustrated children’s books.

85-year-old British TV producer and director [Terence] Michael Hayes died on September 16. A former Shakespearean actor, he directed the 1961 BBC series A for Andromeda, Tales from the Thousand and One Nights, and episodes of Sherlock Holmes (1965) and Doctor Who.

84-year-old French-born director George Sluizer died in Amsterdam, Holland, after a long illness on September 20. He is best known for his 1988 Dutch thriller The Vanishing (aka Spoorloos) and the inferior 1993 American remake, which he also directed. His other films include Crimetime and The Stone Raft. Sluizer also directed River Phoenix’s long-delayed final film, Dark Blood.

American stage and screen producer Stanley Chase died on October 7, aged 87. His movie credits include Colossus: The Forbin Project, Welcome to Blood City and An American Christmas Carol. In 1965 he executive produced the NBC-TV pilot Dream Wife, in which Shirley Jones’ character could read minds and see into the future.

American-born movie producer Alain Siritzky died in Paris, France, on October 11. He was 72. As producer of the popular “Emmanuelle” erotic film sequels, his films include Emmanuelle Queen of the Galaxy, Emmanuelle vs. Dracula, Emmanuelle in Wonderland and the Emmanuelle Through Time series. Amongst his other credits are The Sex Files series (a softcore spoof of The X Files), Sex Wars, Aliens Gone Wild, She Alien, Alien Ecstasy, The Final Alien Files, and the TV series Click, based on Milo Manara’s adult comics.

American animator Larry Latham died on November 2. He worked on numerous TV shows, including The World’s Greatest SuperFriends, Godzilla, Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo, The Smurfs and Challenge of the Go-Bots, and directed the direct-to-video movies An American Tail: The Treasure of Manhattan Island and An American Tail: The Mystery of the Night Monster. Latham also created the web comic Lovecraft is Missing (2008-14).

Canadian visual effects supervisor and documentary film-maker Michael Lennick died of a brain tumour on November 7, aged 61. He worked on the effects for such films as The Last Chase, David Cronenberg’s Videodrome, The Dead Zone and The Fly, Millennium and Earthquake in New York, along with episodes of Friday the 13th: The Series, My Secret Identity, War of the Worlds and The Adventures of Sinbad.

Hugely influential and successful American writer and producer Glen A. (Albert) Larson died of aesophageal cancer on November 14, aged 77. Amongst the many shows he created were Battlestar Galactica, The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, Galactica 1980, Manimal, Automan, Knight Rider, The Highwayman and NightMan. Larson also scripted The Six Million Dollar Man: Wine Women and War, Mission Galactica: The Cylon Attack, Conquest of Earth and Millennium Man, and he produced Team Knight Rider and episodes of McCloud (‘McCloud Meets Dracula’), B.J. and the Bear (‘A Coffin with a View’) and The Fall Guy (‘October the 31st’), all featuring John Carradine. Author Harlan Ellison infamously called him “Glen Larceny”, accusing him of stealing movie concepts for his TV shows, while James Garner reportedly got into a physical altercation with Larson after he copied scripts and the theme tune from The Rockford Files.

German-born Oscar-winning director Mike Nichols (Michael Igor Peschkowsky) died of a heart attack in New York on November 19, aged 83. His movie credits include Catch-22, The Day of the Dolphin, Wolf and What Planet Are You From?. Nichols was married to Diane Sawyer.

American film producer and former President of Paramount Pictures (1971-75) Frank Yablans died on November 27, aged 79. His credits include The Fury and Congo.

Oscar-winning special effects designer Danny Lee (Daniel West Lee) died on November 28, aged 95. Starting in 1960, he worked on numerous Walt Disney movies, eventually becoming head of the studio’s special effects department from 1969-81. Lee’s other films included Murderers’ Row and The Ambushers, and he was noted for his revolutionary use of synthetic blood squibs in the climax of Bonnie and Clyde (1967).

British cinematographer Gerry (Gerald) Hill died on December 2, aged 88. He began his career as a camera assistant and then operator on such films as Daughter of Darkness (1948), Tarzan’s Greatest Adventure, Suddenly Last Summer, The Road to Hong Kong, Night Must Fall (1964), Bunny Lake is Missing, Modesty Blaise (1966) and Casino Royale (1967). Hill went on to shoot Hamlet (1969), Malpertuis, Blind Terror (aka See No Evil), the short The Man and the Snake (based on the story by Ambrose Bierce), The Amazing Mr. Blunden, The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes’ Smarter Brother, The Island of Dr. Moreau (1977), The Ninth Configuration, Wolfen, Highlander, Black Rainbow and The Exorcist III. He retired in 1998.

Italian screenwriter and director Giulio Questi died on December 3, aged 90. His films include Arcana, Death Laid an Egg and Vampirismus, and he also co-wrote the 1965 movie The Possessed. Questi’s TV episode L’umo della Sabbia (1981) was based on E.T.A. Hoffman’s story ‘The Sandman’.

Japanese cinematographer Takao Saitô died of chronic lymphocytic leukemia on December 6, aged 85. His credits include The Lost World of Sinbad and The Killing Bottle.

Hollywood art director Robert Kinoshita died of congestive heart failure on December 9, aged 100. Credited with designing the iconic “Robby the Robot” for Forbidden Planet (1956), “Tobor” for the TV pilot Here Comes Tobor and the “Robot” from TV’s Lost in Space (1965-68), Kinoshita began his career as a set designer on such movies as The Black Sleep and Pharaoh’s Curse, and the TV series Science Fiction Theatre. As an art director he worked on Roger Corman’s The Saga of the Viking Women and Their Voyage to the Waters of the Great Sea Serpent, William Castle’s Macabre, The Six Million Dollar Man: Wine Women and War, Planet Earth and The Dead Don’t Die! (based on the story by Robert Bloch), along with the TV series Men Into Space, Lost in Space and Project U.F.O. Kinoshita was credited as an associate producer on The Phantom Planet (he was also production designer) and Al Adamson’s biker film Hell’s Bloody Devils. He and his wife were sent to a Japanese internment camp in Arizona during World War II, but were freed early thanks to a sponsor.

American producer Arthur Gardner (Arthur Harold Goldberg) died on December 19, aged 104. A former bit-player in such movies as Mr. Moto’s Gamble and The Brute Man, with Jules V. Levy and Arnold Laven he co-produced The Vampire, The Monster That Challenged the World, The Return of Dracula (aka The Fantastic Disappearing Man) and The Flame Barrier in the 1950s before moving into TV Westerns. Gardner was the last surviving cast member of All Quiet on the Western Front (1930).

87-year-old Roberta Leigh (Rita Shulman), best-selling British romance and children’s writer (under a variety of psuedonyms), died the same day. She sold more than 25 million books in twenty-three languages, but is best known for being the first British female producer with her own production company, creating such children’s TV puppet series as Torchy the Battery Boy and The Adventures of Twizzle (both with Gerry Anderson) and Space Patrol (aka Planet Patrol), along with the SF pilots Paul Starr and The Solarnauts. Leigh also founded the comic Fun’n’Games and the teen magazine Boyfriend.

Dependable American director Joseph Sargent (Giuseppe Daniele Sorgente) died of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease on December 22, aged 89. A former actor, he directed One Spy Too Many, The Spy in the Green Hat, Colossus: The Forbin Project (based on the novel by D.F. Jones), The Man, The Night That Panicked America, Tomorrow’s Child, Nightmares, Jaws: The Revenge and Salem Witch Trials, along with episodes of TV’s The Man from U.N.C.L.E., The Girl from U.N.C.L.E., Star Trek, The Invaders and The Immortal.

Spanish cinematographer Raúl Artigot [Fernández] died on Christmas Day, aged 78. His many credits include Jesús Franco’s The Erotic Rites of Frankenstein and Les démons, along with The Cannibal Man, Horror of the Zombies, Perversión and El misterio de Cynthia Baird. Artigot also scripted and directed the 1972 film The Witches Mountain.

The death was announced in 2014 of veteran Spanish film editor Antonio Ramírez [de Loaysa]. His many credits include Face of Terror, Devil of the Desert Against the Son of Hercules, Vengeance of the Zombies, The Dracula Saga, The Vampires’ Night Orgy, The Night of the Sorcerers, Devil’s Possessed, Exorcismo and Island of the Damned (aka Would You Kill a Child?).