Stephen Jones - The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror. Volume 13

Peggy (Margaret) Cave, the wife of pulp author Hugh B. Cave, died of cancer complications on February 12th after two weeks in hospital. She was 86.

Popular horror author Richard [Carl] Laymondied of a massive heart attack on February 14th, aged 54. The current President of the Horror Writers Association, his many novels include the ‘Beast House’ series (The Cellar, The Beast House and The Midnight Tour), along with The Woods Are Dark, Out Are the Lights, Beware! All-Hallows Eve, Resurrection Dreams, The Stake, Quake, Bite, Cuts, Once Upon a Halloween, The Travelling Vampire Show and Night in the Lonesome October. As well as writing two novels under the pseudonyms ‘Carl Laymon’ and ‘Richard Kelly’, his short fiction was collected in A Good Secret Place and Dreadful Tales, while the autobiographical study A Writer’s Life appeared from Deadline Press. He was set to be guest of honour at the 2001 World Horror Convention in May.

Italian composer Pierro Umilianidied the same day, aged 75. He composed the scores for more than 100 films, including The Amazing Doctor G., Five Dolls for an August Moon, Witchcraft ‘70, Night of the Devils and Baba Yaga.

Eccentric Irish Ufologist and author Desmond [Arthur Peter] Lesliedied in France on February 22nd, aged 79. He collaborated with George Adamski on the controversial 1953 bestseller Flying Saucers Have Landed.

Film and TV composer Richard Stonedied after a long battle with pancreatic cancer on March 9th, aged 47. Besides writing the music for such movies as Sundown The Vampire in Retreat and Pumpkinhead, he also won seven Emmys for his work on Animaniacs and such other cartoon TV series as Freakazoid, Histeria! Pinky and the Brain and Tazmania.

25-year-old Jenna A. (Anne) Felice, an editor at Tor Books, died on March 10th of complications from a severe allergic reaction and asthmatic attack after spending nearly a week in a coma. She also worked with her life partner Rob Killheffer on the small-press magazine Century.

73-year-old bestselling thriller writer Robert Ludlumdied of a massive heart attack at his Florida home on March 12th, after recently undergoing heart surgery. A former television and stage actor and theatre director, his first book The Scarlatti Inheritance was written in 1971 ‘as a lark’, since when he sold more than 220 million copies in forty countries. His many titles include The Holcroft Covenant (made into a film starring Michael Caine), The Bourne Identity (made into a TV mini-series with Richard Chamberlain and a theatrical film with Matt Damon) , The Matarese Circle, The Scorpio Illusion, The Apocalypse Watch and The Prometheus Deception, which appeared on the bestseller lists of the New York Times, Los Angeles Times and Publishers Weekly.

Veteran pulp author J. (John) Harvey Haggarddied on March 15th, aged 87. A distant relative of H. Rider Haggard, from 1930 until 1960 his stories appeared in such titles as Amazing Stories, Planet Stories, Thrilling Wonder Stories, Future Fiction, Fantastic Universe and Ray Bradbury’s 1939 fanzine Futuria Fantasia. He had two stories reprinted in the 1997 volume Ackermanthology.

Dr Donald A. (Anthony) Reed, founder and president of The Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films, died of heart failure and complications from diabetes on March 18th in Los Angeles, aged 65. Reed, who founded the Academy in 1972, was instrumental in the promotion of the Saturn Awards and also founded and served as president of the Count Dracula Society since 1962.

‘Papa’ John [Edmund] Phillips, who founded the 1960s California pop group the Mammas and the Papas, died of heart failure the same day, aged 65. After years of drug and alcohol abuse, he had had a liver transplant several years earlier. Phillips wrote such classic ‘flower power’ songs as “Monday Monday”, ‘California Dreamin’, ‘Creeque Alley’ and ‘San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Some Flowers in Your Hair)’. He also scored the movies Brewster McCloud, Myra Breckinridge and The Man Who Fell to Earth.

British supernatural fiction writer R. (Ronald) [Henry Glynn] Chetwynd-Hayes, described by one of his publishers as ‘Britain’s Prince of Chill’, died of bronchial pneumonia in a London nursing home on March 20th, aged 81. His first book was The Man from the Bomb, a science fiction novel published in 1959 by Badger Books, since when he published a further twelve novels, twenty-three collections, and edited such anthologies as Cornish Tales of Terror, Scottish Tales of Terror (as ‘Angus Campbell’), Welsh Tales of Terror, Tales of Terror from Outer Space, Gaslight Tales of Terror, Doomed to the Night, twelve volumes of The Fontana Book of Great Ghost Stories and six volumes of The Armada Monster Book for children. In 1976 he ghost-edited and wrote almost all of the one-shot magazine Ghoul, and his own short stories were adapted for the screen in the anthology movies From Beyond the Grave and The Monster Club (the author was portrayed in the latter by John Carradine). In 1989 R. Chetwynd-Hayes was presented with Life Achievement Awards by both The Horror Writers of America and The British Fantasy Society for his services to the genre.

Daniel Counihan, British journalist, radio reporter and author of the children’s fantasy Unicorn Magic (1953), died on March 25th, aged 83.

82-year-old Italian comic-strip artist Luciana Giussanidied in Milan after a long illness on March 31st. With her sister Angela (who died in 1987) she created the popular crime comic Diabolik in 1962 (filmed by Mario Bava in 1967 as Danger: Diabolik) and together they founded the Astorina publishing house.

Novelist and TV scriptwriter Gene Thompson, a teenage protégé of Groucho Marx, died of cancer on April 14th, aged 76. He wrote the occult novel Lupe and scripts for such shows as Gilligan’s Island, My Favorite Martian, Love American Style and Columbo.

Judy (Judith) Watson, the 61-year-old wife of science fiction/fantasy writer Ian Watson, died on April 14th of heart failure brought on by emphysema, from which she suffered progressively for the past few years. Her artwork appeared in New Worlds and Oz, and she bequeathed her body to the Department of Human Anatomy of the University of Oxford.

New York singer/songwriter and drummer Joey Ramone(Jeffrey Hyman) died after a long battle with lymphatic cancer on April 15th, aged 49. He formed his punk band The Ramones in March 1974. Following a fist fight in 1983, Ramone underwent emergency brain surgery. The band released twenty-one albums until they disbanded in 1996 and they appeared in the cult 1979 movie Rock V Roll High School and recorded the theme for Pet Sematary.

Film and TV scriptwriter George F. Slavin, whose credits include Mystery Submarine, The Rocket Man and the Star Trek episode ‘The Mark of Gideon’, died on April 19th, aged 85.

Noted anthropologist and former SF writer Dr Morton Klassdied on April 28th of a heart attack, aged 73. The brother of Philip Klass (aka author William Tenn), his short fiction appeared in the 1950s and 1960s in Astounding, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction and Worlds of If.