Christopher Fowler - The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror. Volume 10

Character actress Maidie Norman, who portrayed the maid in What Ever Happened to Baby Jane ? died of lung cancer on May 2nd, aged 85. Her other credits include Airport ‘77 and TV’s Kung Fu.

Child stage star and leading man of the 1930s Gene Raymond(Raymond Guion) died from pneumonia in a Hollywood hospital on May 3rd, aged 89. His films include Zoo in Budapest, 7 Keys to Baldpate and Five Bloody Graves. He was married to Jeanette MacDonald.

American leading lady and a former singer with Rudy Vallee’s band, Alice Faye(Ann Leppert) died on May 9th, aged 83. She appeared in such films as Sing Baby Sing, In Old Chicago, Hello Frisco Hello, Hollywood Cavalcade and Alexander’s Ragtime Band, before retiring from the screen in the mid-1940s. She remained active in radio with her husband, band leader Phil Harris, and returned to movies in 1976 with Won Ton Ton, the Dog Who Saved Hollywood.

“OP Blue Eyes”, “The Chairman of the Board” and the leader of the “Rat Pack”, singer and actor Frank Sinatradied of a heart attack on May 14th, aged 82. A former band singer and teenage heart-throb, he received twenty-five gold albums and appeared in such films as The Manchurian Candidate, Suddenly, Around the World in Eighty Days, Road to Hong Kong and The First Deadly Sin, winning the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role as Maggio in From Here to Eternity. His long-time friend Joey Bishop subsequently revealed that Sinatra paid for the funeral of Bela Lugosi, who died broke.

Veteran American character actor Douglas V. Fowleydied on May 21st, aged 86. His numerous film appearances include The Thin Man, Charlie Chan on Broadway, Docks of New Orleans, Night Life of the Gods, Charlie Chan at Treasure Island, Scared to Death (with Bela Lugosi) , Mighty Joe Young, Tarzan’s Peril, Singin’ in the Rain, The Naked Jungle, Cat Women of the Moon, 7 Faces of Dr. Lao, Homebodies and The White Buffalo. In 1960 he produced and directed Macumba Love and regularly guested on such TV shows as Topper, Kolchak: The Night Stalker, Kung Fu, Quark and Fantasy Island.

49-year-old American comedy actor Phil Hartmanwas shot dead at his home on May 28th, apparently by his wife in a murder-suicide. Best known for his roles (1986–94) on TV’s Saturday Night Live, The Simpsons (as the voice of Troy McClure and others) and the season-ender of 3rd Rock from the Sun, he co-scripted Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure and appeared in Amazon Women on the Moon, Coneheads, So I Married an Ax Murderer, The Pagemaster and Small Soldiers.

WWF wrestler Sylvester Ritteraka “Junkyard Dog” died on June 2nd, aged 44.

American leading lady Josephine Hutchinsondied in a New York nursing home on June 4th, aged 94. She starred as Alice in a 1932 Broadway production of Alice in Wonderland, played Elsa von Frankenstein in the 1939 movie Son of Frankenstein, and appeared in an adaptation of Ray Bradbury’s “I Sing the Body Electric” on TV’s The Twilight Zone.

Character actress Jeanette Nolandied from a stroke on June 5th, aged 86. Over a seventy-year acting career she starred in such films as Orson Welles’ Macbeth (1948), My Blood Runs Cold, Chamber of Horrors, The Reluctant Astronaut, The Manitou and Cloak & Dagger (with her husband John Maclntire), and appeared on TV in Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Thriller, The Twilight Zone, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., The Invaders, Night Gallery, The Sixth Sense, Fantasy Island, The Incredible Hulk and Goliath Awaits.

Character actress Theresa Merritt, who played Aunt Em in the 1978 musical The Wiz, died after a long battle with skin cancer on June 12th, aged 75. Her other films include Voodoo Dawn and The Serpent and the Rainbow.

Mexican actor Roberto Canedodied on June 16th. He appeared in numerous movies, including Doctor of Doom, Santo contra el Estrangulador, Santo contra el Espectro de el Estran-gulador, La Mujer Murcielago and Santo contra la Hija de Frankestein.

Actor and singer Felix Knight,who appeared as Tom-Tom the Piper’s Son in the 1934 Laurel and Hardy fantasy Babes in Toyland, died on June 18th, aged 89.

Irish-born American leading lady Maureen O’Sullivan,the mother of actress Mia Farrow, died from a heart attack on June 23rd, aged 87. Best remembered for her role as Jane opposite Johnny Weismuller’s Tarzan in six films, she also appeared in Just Imagine, A Connecticut Yankee (1931), Tod Browning’s The Devil-Doll, Too Scared to Scream, Peggy Sue Got Married and Stranded. She was married to director John Farrow.

Cowboy star Roy Rogers(Leonard Slye) died of congestive heart failure on July 6th, aged 86. A member of the singing Sons of the Pioneers in the 1930s, he appeared in more than one hundred movies and TV’s The Roy Rogers Show (1951–56) with his horse Trigger (who died in 1966). A chain of fast-food restaurants was named after him in America.

Hugh Reilly, who played Timmy Martin’s father Paul in the TV series Lassie (1958–64), died after a long battle with emphysema on July 17th. He was 82.

The same day saw the death from brain cancer of 64-year-old American character actor Joseph Maher, who played Warren Beatty’s butler in Heaven Can Wait.

Hollywood leading man Robert(George) Youngdied on July 21st, aged 91. Although best known for his Emmy Award-winning TV shows Life With Father (1954–60) and Marcus Welby, M.D. (1969–76), he also appeared in The Black Camel (with Bela Lugosi), The House of Rothschild (with Boris Karloff), Tod Browning’s Miracles for Sale, The Canterville Ghost (1943) and The Enchanted Cottage. Young battled alcoholism and depression throughout his life, and attempted suicide in 1991. In later years he advertised Sanka decaffeinated coffee on American TV.

British-born character actress Binnie Barnes(Gitelle Barnes), who went to Hollywood in the mid-1930s, died on July 27th, aged 95. Her films include Murder at Covent Garden, The Three Musketeers (1939) and The Time of Their Lives.

Buffalo Bob Smith(Robert E. Smith), the host and voice of the eponymous puppet star of the first TV programme specifically for children, The Howdy Doody Show (1947–60), died of lung cancer on July 30th, aged 80.

American TV actress Sylvia Field Truex, who portrayed Mrs. Wilson in the CBS series Dennis the Menace (1959–63), died on July 31st, aged 97.

Hungarian-born actress Eva Bartok(Eva Sjöke) died in a London hospital from heart failure after a long illness on August 1st, aged 72. Formerly married to actor Curt Jurgens, she starred in The Crimson Pirate, Hammer’s Spaceways, The Gamma People and Mario Bava’s Blood and Black Lace.

Twelve-time Emmy Award-winning children’s TV presenter and ventriloquist Shari Lewis, who created the squeaky-voiced sock puppet Lamb Chop for the Captain Kangaroo show in 1957, died of uterine cancer and pneumonia on August 2nd, aged 65. A winner of a Peabody and the John F. Kennedy Center Award for Excellence and Creativity, at the time of her death she was producer and star of the PBS series The Charlie Horse Music Pizza.