Stephen Jones - The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror. Volume 23

Rugged American character actor Ross Hagen(Leland Lando Lilly) died of prostate cancer on 7 May, aged seventy-two. His films include Wonder Women, Night Creature (with Donald Pleasence), Angel, Avenging Angel, Prison Ship (aka Star Slammer ), Warlords, B.O.R.N . (which he also co-scripted and directed), The Phantom Empire, Alienator, Time Wars (which he also wrote and directed), Dinosaur Island, Attack of the 60 Foot Centerfolds, Bikini Drive-In, Cyberzone (aka Phoenix 2 ), Night Shade, The Elf Who Didn’t Believe, Invisible Dad, Jungle Boy, The Kid with X-ray Eyes and Sideshow , along with episodes of Captain Nice, The Wild Wild West, The Invaders and Kung Fu . Hagen made around twenty films with director Fred Olen Ray, and he also directed Reel Terror (1985) featuring footage of John Carradine and Victor Buono.

Dolores Fuller(Dolores Agnes Eble), who was director Edward D. Wood, Jr.’s muse and leading lady in such cult classics as Glen or Glenda (aka I Led Two Lives ), Jail Bait and Bride of the Monster , died after a long illness on 9 May, aged eighty-eight. Her other films include Mesa of Lost Women, The Ironbound Vampire and The Corpse Grinders 2 , along with an episode of TV’s Adventures of Superman . As a lyricist, Fuller also co-wrote thirteen songs for Elvis Presley, including “Rock-a-Hula Baby” for the film Blue Hawaii . Her autobiography, A Fuller Life: Hollywood, Ed Wood and Me (co-written with Stone Wallace and her husband, Philip Chamberlin) was published in 2008. Sarah Jessica Parker portrayed Fuller in Tim Burton’s Ed Wood (1994).

British character actor Edward[Cedric] Hardwicke, the son of actor Sir Cedric Hardwicke, died of cancer on 16 May, aged seventy-eight. Following the departure of David Burke, in 1986 he took over the role of “Dr John Watson” opposite Jeremy Brett’s consulting detective in the series The Return of Sherlock Holmes (1968–88), The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes (1991–93), The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes (1994) and the TV movies The Sign of Four (1987) and The Hound of the Baskervilles (1988). He also recreated the role on the West End stage in The Secret of Sherlock Holmes in 1989. Hardwicke began his career as a child actor, and his other films include A Guy Named Joe (uncredited), Full Circle (aka The Haunting of Julia ), Venom , Disney’s Baby: Secret of the Lost Legend, Photographing Fairies (as “Sir Arthur Conan Doyle”), Shadowlands, Appetite, The Alchemists (based on the novel by Peter James) and yet another remake She (2001), plus episodes of TV’s Invisible Man (1959), Sherlock Holmes (1968), Hammer’s Journey to the Unknown, Wessex Tales, Thriller (1974) and Supernatural (“The Werewolf Reunion”).

Veteran Australian actor Bill Hunterdied of cancer on 21 May, aged seventy-one. His credits include The Return of Captain Invincible (with Christopher Lee), Moby Dick (1998) and On the Beach (2000), along with episodes of Space: Above and Beyond and Two Twisted (“Arkham’s Curios and Wonders”). Hunter also contributed voice work to Disney’s Finding Nemo and Legends of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole .

American actress Tallie Cochrane(Lillian Rose Cochrane) died of cancer the same day, aged sixty-six. Under various pseudonyms, such as “Toni Talley”, “Viola Reeves”, “Dandy Thomas”, “Chic Jones”, “Talie Wright” and “Silver Foxx”, she appeared in a number of sexploitation films, including Wam Bang Thank You Spaceman, Tarz & Jane Cheeta & Boy and Devil’s Ecstasy . She also had small roles in Slapstick (of Another Kind) and Frightmare (aka The Horror Star ). Cochrane worked as a make-up artist on Track of the Moon Beast .

Sixty-year-old American actor Jeff Conaway(Jeffrey Charles William Michael Conaway) died of pneumonia exacerbated by substance abuse on 27 May. Having battled drug and alcohol addiction since he was a teenager, Conaway was found unconscious at his home sixteen days earlier and remained in a medically induced coma until his family terminated his life-support. He appeared in Disney’s Pete’s Dragon, Bay Coven, Elvira: Mistress of the Dark, Ghost Writer, The Sleeping Car, Mirror Images, Alien Intruder and Curse of the Forty-Niner . On TV Conaway was a regular on Wizards and Warriors (1983) and Babylon 5 (1994–98), and he also guest-starred in episodes of Tales from the Darkside (“My Ghostwriter — the Vampire”), Monsters, Freddy’s Nightmares, Shades of LA and three Babylon 5 spin-off movies.

American actress Clarice Taylor, who played Bill Cosby’s mother on TV’s The Cosby Show , died of heart failure on 30 May, aged ninety-three. Her other credits include Change of Mind and Play Misty for Me . Taylor portrayed “Addaperle, the Good Witch of the North” in the 1970s Broadway musical The Wiz .

American leading man James Arness(James King Aurness), best remembered for his role as “Marshall Matt Dillon” on the long-running Western series Gunsmoke (aka Gun Law , 1955– 75) and a number of spin-off TV movies, died on 3 June. He was eighty-eight. Arness’ film credits include Two Lost Worlds, The Thing from Another World (as “The Thing”) and Them! . His younger brother was actor Peter Graves.

British character actress and comedienne Miriam KarlinOBE (Miriam Samuels) died after a long battle with cancer the same day, aged eighty-five. She appeared in The Goons’ comedy Down Among the ‘Z’ Men , Hammer’s Phantom of the Opera (1962), A Clockwork Orange, Jekyll & Hyde (1990) and Children of Men . On TV, Karlin starred in the supernatural sitcom So Haunt Me (1992–94).

Ninety-year-old Wally Boag(Wallace Vincent Boag) and ninety-one-year-old Betty Taylor, who co-starred as sweethearts Pecos Bill and Slue-Foot Sue five days a week for nearly three decades in Disneyland’s Golden Horseshoe Revue , died on 3 and 7 June, respectively. The show is officially the longest-running stage production in entertainment history (1955–86). Boag also appeared in Disney’s The Absent-Minded Professor, Son of Flubber and The Love Bug (1968).

British TV actor Donald[Marland] Hewlettdied of pneumonia on 4 June, aged ninety. He had suffered from epilepsy and Alzheimer’s disease for many years. Hewlett appeared in episodes of Sherlock Holmes (1965), The Avengers, Doctor Who (“The Claws of Axos”) and The New Avengers .

Canadian-born actor Paul Massie(Arthur Dickinson Massé), best known for playing an ugly Dr Jekyll and a handsome Mr Hyde in Hammer’s The Two Faces of Dr Jekyll (aka Jekyll’s Inferno , 1960), died of lung cancer in Nova Scotia on 8 June, aged seventy-eight. He also appeared in an episode of TV’s The Avengers . He retired from acting at the age of forty to teach drama at the University of South Florida in Tampa.

Seventy-nine-year-old voice and theatre actor Roy[William] Skelton, who not only voiced the popular British children’s TV puppet characters George and Zippy for Rainbow (1973–92), but also the Daleks and Cybermen in Doctor Who , died of pneumonia the same day. He had suffered a stroke five months earlier. Skelton was also the voice of a robot in an episode of Out of the Unknown , the “Mock Turtle” in a BBC version of Alice in Wonderland (1986), “Henry Swift” in the two Ghosts of Albion animated webseries and George and Zippy again in 2008 for the first episode of Ashes to Ashes . He started supplying voices for the various aliens on Doctor Who in 1966, and he continued until “Remembrance of the Daleks” in 1988.