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

Former NFL football star-turned-actor Bubba Smith(Charles Aaron Smith), best known for his role in the Police Academy movies, died on 3 August, aged sixty-six. The six-foot, seven-inch Smith appeared in Black Moon Rising, Blood River , and episodes of Wonder Woman and Sabrina the Teenage Witch . He was also a regular on the 1984 TV series Blue Thunder .

Forty-eight-year-old Francesco[Daniele] Quinn, the son of actor Anthony Quinn, died of an apparent heart attack while jogging in Malibu on 5 August. He portrayed “Vlad Tepes” in the 2003 film Vlad , and his other credits include episodes of The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles and The Glades . Quinn also provided the voice of “Dino” in Transformers: Dark of the Moon .

Distinguished British stage and screen actor John WoodCBE died on 6 August, aged eighty-one. He made his film debut in the 1952 Hammer thriller Stolen Face , directed by Terence Fisher, and he went on to appear in The Mouse on the Moon, One More Time, Slaughterhouse-Five, WarGames, Agentii 009 ja kuole-man kurvit, The Purple Rose of Cairo, Ladyhawk, Shadowlands, Citizen X, Richard III (1995), Jane Eyre (1996), Rasputin (1996), The Avengers and The Little Vampire . On TV his credits include The Hooded Terror and episodes of Tales of Mystery, Saki, Out of the Unknown, The Avengers, Doomwatch, The Storyteller: Greek Myths and The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles . In 1974 Wood appeared on stage in the title role of the Royal Shakespeare Company’s revival of William Gillette’s 1899 melodrama Sherlock Holmes .

In early August it was announced that British TV actress Anne Ridlerhad died. She had been suffering from throat cancer for some years. Best remembered for her distinctive voice in the series Terrahawks (1983–86), she also appeared in episodes of One Step Beyond, Doctor Who (“The Wheel in Space”), Moonbase 3, Tom’s Midnight Garden, Bedtime Stories and The Tomorrow People .

Former British child actor turned TV producer and director John Howard Daviesdied of cancer on 22 August, aged seventy-two. At the age of eight he starred in David Lean’s classic Oliver Twist (1948), and the following year he was in The Rocking Horse Winner (based on the short story by D. H. Lawrence). In later years he produced such comedy series as Monty Python’s Flying Circus, The Goodies, Fawlty Towers and The Good Life .

Child star Sybil Jason(Sybil Jacobson) died of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease on 23 August, aged eighty-three. The South African-born actress was brought to Hollywood from Britain in the mid-1930s by Warner Bros., who starred her opposite Al Jolson in The Singing Kid and several other films. After the studio let her go in 1938, she appeared with screen rival Shirley Temple in The Little Princess and The Blue Bird (from which many of her scenes were cut, reportedly at the demand of Temple’s mother), before she retired from the screen.

The body of American actor Michael Showerswas found floating in the Mississippi River, near New Orleans’ French Quarter, on the morning of 25 August. He had been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis five months earlier and had been suffering from depression and anxiety. The forty-five-year-old Showers had a recurring role as police Captain John Guidry in the HBO series Treme . He also appeared in Kiss of the Vampire (aka Imortally Yours , 2009), The Collector and Hammer’s The Resident (with Christopher Lee), along with an episode of TV’s The Vampire Diaries .

American actress Eve Brent(Jean Ann Lewis), who portrayed “Jane” opposite Gordon Scott’s “Tarzan” in the TV fix-up movies Tarzan and the Trappers and Tarzan’s Fight for Life (both 1958), died on 27 August, aged eighty-one. Her other films include Female Jungle, The Bride and the Beast, The White Buffalo, Fade to Black, BrainWaves, Date with an Angel, The Green Mile and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (uncredited). On TV she appeared in episodes of Adventures of Superman, The Veil (hosted by Boris Karloff), Highway to Heaven, Tales from the Crypt, Twin Peaks, Weird Science and Roswell High .

Former model turned actress Cobina[Carolyn] Wright, Jr., who co-starred in Charlie Chan in Rio (1941), died on 1 September, aged ninety.

American actress Annette Charles(Annette Cardona), who played “Cha Cha DiGregorio” in Grease (1978), died of lung cancer on 4 August, aged sixty-three. She also appeared in episodes of The Flying Nun, The Bionic Woman, Man from Atlantis and The Incredible Hulk .

American character actor John Clarkdied on 9 September, aged ninety-five. He appeared in The Light at the Edge of the World, Graveyard of Horror (aka Necrophagus ), The Time Guardian and The Lords of Magick .

Oscar-winning American leading man Cliff Robertson(Clifford Parker Robertson) died on 10 September, the day after his eighty-eighth birthday. He won an Academy Award for his starring role in Charley (1968). Based on the novel by Daniel Keyes, it had previously been filmed for TV in 1965 with Robertson again in the lead role. However, the actor’s attempts to get a sequel made some years later only resulted in around fifteen minutes of promotional footage. His other film credits include Man on a Swing , Brian De Palma’s Obsession, Dominique (aka Dominique is Dead ), Brainstorm (1983), Dead Reckoning, Escape from L.A ., 13th Child, Riding the Bullet (based on the novel by Stephen King) and Spider-Man (2002) and its two sequels (as “Ben Parker”), along with episodes of Rod Brown of the Rocket Rangers (in the title role), The Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits (1963 and 1999) and Batman (as cowboy villain “Shame”). Robertson was instrumental in exposing the major fraud that brought down Columbia Pictures executive David Begelman in the 1970s, but his own career suffered as a result. His marriages to actresses Cynthia Stone and Dina Merrill both ended in divorce.

Thirty-nine-year-old Welsh-born actor Andy Whitfield, who portrayed the title character in the Starz TV series Spartacus: Blood and Sand (2010), died in his home country of Australia on 11 September. He had been battling non-Hodgkins Lymphoma since being diagnosed in March 2010. A former building inspector and model, he also starred in the horror movies Gabriel and The Clinic .

Petite Canadian-born character actress Frances Bay(Frances Goffman) died in California on 15 September, aged ninety-two. She made her belated screen debut in 1978, and went on to appear in such movies as Topper (1979), The Attic, Double Exposure, Nomads, Blue Velvet, Big Top Pee-wee, Arachnophobia, The Pit and the Pendulum (1991), Critters 3, Grave Secrets: The Legacy of Hilltop Drive, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me, Single White Female, The Neighbor, In the Mouth of Madness , Disney’s Inspector Gadget , and Ring Around the Rosie (aka Fear Itself: Dark Memories ). The actress’ prolific TV credits include episodes of Faerie Tale Theatre, Amazing Stories, Alien Nation, ALF, Tales from the Crypt, Twin Peaks (as “Mrs Tremond”), Quantum Leap, The X Files, Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction, Charmed and Cavemen .