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

British TV writer Alan Fennelldied of cancer on December 11th, aged 65. After teaming up with Gerry Anderson on the comic strip adaptations of the puppet series Four Feather Falls and Supercar, he began scripting many of Anderson’s TV series, including Fireball XL5, Stingray, Joe 90, Thunderbirds and U.F.O. Fennell edited the children’s magazine Look-in from 1971–74 and in 1991 he became editor of Fleetway’s Thunder-birds comics.

Archie Comics artist Dan DeCarlo, who created Sabrina the Teenage Witch, died on December 18th, aged 82.

Writer and editor Keith Allen Danielsdied of cancer the same day, aged 45. His SF and fantasy poetry appeared in Analog, Asimov’s, Weird Tales and other magazines, and he founded Anamnesis Press in 1990.

British ghost story author and former television scriptwriter and playwright Sheila Hodgsondied of a stroke on Christmas Day, just three days after her 80th birthday. During the late 1970s she wrote a series of supernatural plays, three of which were based upon ideas suggested by M. R. James in his essay ‘Stories I Have Tried to Write’. These were broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and subsequently published as stories in such periodicals as Blackwood’s Magazine and Ghosts & Scholars, as well as being reprinted in Karl Edward Wagner’s The Year’s Best Horror Stories XI and XVI, and Ramsey Campbell’s anthology Meddling With Ghosts. In 1998, Ash-Tree Press collected twelve of her tales featuring James as the central character in a volume entitled The Fellow Travellers and Other Ghost Stories.

Composer Florian Fricke, whose credits include Herzog’s Nosferatu, died of a stroke on December 29th, aged 57.

British author Victor [Joseph] Hansondied of complications from a stroke in mid-December, aged 81. Best known for his hard-boiled crime and Western novels, in the early 1960s he published The Twisters, Creatures of the Mist, Claws of the Night and The Grip of Fear under the pseudonym ‘Vern Hansen’.

ACTORS/ACTRESSES

American character actor Ray Walston, best known as TV’s My Favorite Martian (1963–66) and the Devil in Damn Yankees (on Broadway and in the 1958 film), died on January 1st, aged 86. His numerous other credits include The Happy Hooker Goes to Washington, Popeye, The Fall of the House of Usher (1980), Galaxy of Terror, O’Hara’s Wife, Blood Relations, Saturday the 14th Strikes Back, Blood Salvage, Popcorn, Addams Family Values, the 1999 My Favorite Martian movie, the Stephen King mini-series The Stand and a recurring role in Star Trek Voyager. He also narrated the title sequence of Steven Spielberg’s Amazing Stories TV series (1985–87).

Character actress Nancy Parsonsdied after a long illness on January 5th, aged 58. She appeared in Motel Hell and on TV’s Nightmare Classics: Eyes of the Panther.

Film and TV character actor Scott Marlowedied of a heart attack on January 6th, aged 68. He appeared in The Subterraneans and the TV movie Night Slaves along with episodes of The Outer Limits, Thriller, The Wild Wild West and many other shows.

65-year-old British stage and television actor Michael Williams, the husband of Dame Judi Dench, died of cancer on January 11th after a seventeen-month battle against the disease. He appeared in the RSC’s 1966 movie Marat/Sade, and between 1989 and 1998 he portrayed Dr Watson to Clive Merrison’s Sherlock Holmes for the entire canon of Sir Arthur Conan’s Doyle’s fifty-six short stories and four novels broadcast on BBC Radio 4.

Canadian character actor Al Waxmandied during heart surgery on January 17th, aged 65. His many credits include When Michael Calls, I Still Dream of Jeannie, Heavy Metal, Spasms (aka Death Bite), Millennium and Bogus.

Hollywood musical comedy star Virginia [Lee] O’Briendied on January 18th, aged 79. Related to Civil War General Robert E. Lee, she appeared in sixteen movies between 1940 and 1947 and in 1955 had a small role in Francis in the Navy. She was married to Superman star Kirk Alyn (who died in 1999) from 1942–55.

Veteran Shakespearean actor Joseph O’Conordied in London on January 21st, aged 84. His films include Gorgo, Hammer’s The Gorgon and Devil Ship Pirates, and Doomwatch, and he appeared on TV in the 1973 adaptation of M. R. James’s A Ghost Story for Christmas: Lost Hearts and the recent children’s series The Belfry Witches.

American actress Sally Mansfield, who portrayed Vena Ray on the 1950s TV series Rocky Jones, Space Ranger, died of lung cancer on January 28th, aged 77.

French leading man Jean-Pierre Aumont(Jean-Pierre Salomons) died on January 29th, aged 92. His many films include Siren of Atlantis, Cauldron of Blood (with Boris Karloff) , Castle Keep, The Happy Hooker and Don’t Look in the Attic. One of his three wives was Maria Montez, whom he married in 1946 and with whom he had a daughter, actress Tina Aumont.

BBC television announcer and co-host (with Derek Bond) of the long-running weekly show Picture Parade, Peter [Varley] Haighalso died in January, aged 75. He married Rank starlet Jill Adams in 1957.

Actor Titus Moede, who appeared in Ray Dennis Steckler’s The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies!!? Rat Pfink and Boo Boo and The Thrill Killers, died of colon cancer on February 6th. As ‘Titus Moody’ he was a pioneer in adult films.

Dale Evans(Frances Octavia Lucille Wood Smith), former band singer and the widow of Hollywood cowboy Roy Rogers, died of congestive heart failure on February 7th, aged 88. She had suffered a stroke in 1996 and was confined to a wheelchair. Known as ‘The Queen of the Cowgirls’, she appeared in twenty-eight films with her husband (who died in 1998) and they worked together on TV in The Roy Rogers Show (1951–57) and The Roy Rogers and Dale Evans Show (1962). She was named California Mother of the Year in 1967 and Texan of the Year in 1970. The couple lost three of their children, two of them in tragic accidents.

British character actor Reginald Marshdied on February 9th, aged 74. His numerous credits include It Happened Here, Berserk and the TV movies The Stone Tape and Hammer House of Mystery and Suspense: Mark of the Devil.

Former European middleweight champion boxer and actor Tiberio Mitriwas run over by a train on February 12th, aged 74. The Italian boxer, who famously survived fifteen rounds in the ring with Jake La Motta at Madison Square Garden, went on to appear in a number of films, including Ben-Hur (1959) and numerous spaghetti Westerns and peplums. Following the premature deaths of his son and daughter, he developed a drinking problem and was living among Rome’s homeless population.

British leading man Michael [Anthony] Johnsondied on February 24th, aged 62. Best known as a television actor (notably opposite Herbert Lom in The Human Jungle [1963–65]), his only starring role on screen was in Hammer’s Lust for a Vampire (1971).

American character actress Rosemary DeCamp, who played James Cagney’s mother in Yankee Doodle Dandy despite being thirteen years his junior, died of pneumonia on February 20th, aged 90. She also appeared in Jungle Book (1942), William Castle’s 13 Ghosts, Saturday the 14th and the TV movie The Time Machine (1978).