Stephen Jones - Best New Horror #26

British actor and comedy scriptwriter [John] Jeremy LloydOBE died of pneumonia on December 23, aged 84. A regular on Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In (1969-70), he had small, often uncredited, roles in the Beatles films A Hard Day’s Night and Help! , A Study in Terror , The Magic Christian and TV’s The Avengers . Lloyd came up with the original idea for the Adam Faith Loch Ness Monster comedy What a Whopper (1961), and he also scripted Vampira (aka Old Dracula ), starring David Niven as the Count. His second of four wives was actress Joanna Lumley.

British character actor Bernard[Frederic Bemrose] Kaydied on Christmas Day. He was 86. Kay’s film credits include They Came from Beyond Space , The Shuttered Room (based on a story by H.P. Lovecraft and August Derleth), Torture Garden (based on stories by Robert Bloch), Witchfinder General (aka Conqueror Worm , with Vincent Price), Trog (with Joan Crawford and Michael Gough), Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger , Puritan and Psychosis . On TV he appeared in episodes of TV’s Hamlet (1961), Doctor Who (opposite William Hartnell, Patrick Troughton and Jon Pertwee), Out of the Unknown , Object Z , Adam Adamant Lives! , The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe (1967, as ‘Aslan’), The Champions , Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) (aka My Partner the Ghost ), Space: 1999 , Survivors (1977), Tales of the Unexpected , Hammer House of Mystery and Suspense , World’s Beyond , A Very British Coup (1988) and PSI Factor: Chronicles of the Paranormal . Kay was married to actress Patricia Haines from 1963 until her death in 1977.

Fellow British character actor David[John] Ryalldied the same day, aged 79. His films include The Elephant Man , Jack the Ripper (1988), The Woman in Black (1989), Truly Madly Deeply , Witchcraft (1992), Around the World in 80 Days (2004), The League of Gentleman’s Apocalypse , City of Ember , Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 (as “Elphias Doge”), The Tractate Middoth (2013, based on the story by M.R. James) and Autómata . On TV he was in episodes of Once Upon a Time (‘Frankenstein’, 1973), Blakes 7 , The Singing Detective (1986), The Borrowers (1992), Goodnight Sweetheart , Bonekickers and Mark Gatiss’ Crooked House .

84-year-old American actor Rhodes Reason, the younger brother of actor Rex Reason, died of lymphoma cancer on December 26. His movie credits include Voodoo Island (with Boris Karloff) and King Kong Escapes . On TV Reason appeared in episodes of Science Fiction Theatre , The Time Tunnel and Star Trek .

British actress Bridget[Joanna] Turnerdied on December 27, aged 75. She appeared in two Terry Pratchett TV adaptations— Hogfather and The Colour of Magic —and was also in an episode of Doctor Who . Her film credits include The Gathering (2003).

American character actor Terry Becker(Solomon Becker), who played “Chief Sharkey” on TV’s Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1965-68), died on December 30, aged 93. He was also in an episode of Twilight Zone and the 2010 movie Infection: The Invasion Begins . In 1974 Becker produced and directed the low budget horror film The Thirsty Dead , based on his own story.

American-born actress Yolande Donlan(aka “Yolande Mollot”), who appeared with Bela Lugosi in Monogram’s The Devil Bat (1940), died in London the same day. She was 94. Donlan’s other movies included Turnabout (based on the novel by Thorne Smith), Mister Drake’s Duck , Tarzan and the Lost Safari and Expresso Bongo . Her second husband was Val Guest, who directed many of her films.

German-born Luise Rainer, the first actress to win back-to-back Oscars in 1937 and 1938, also died in London on December 30, aged 104. In 1954 she appeared in an episode of TV’s Suspense with fellow German émigré Martin Kosleck.

American actor Edward[Kirk] Herrmann, who played “Herman Munster” in the 1995 TV movie Here Come the Munsters , died of brain cancer on December 31, aged 71. He was also in The Day of the Dolphin , Ray Bradbury’s The Electric Grandmother , Death Valley , Woody Allen’s The Purple Rose of Cairo , The Lost Boys , My Boyfriend’s Back , The Shaft , The Skeptic and the 2014 remake of The Town That Dreaded Sundown , along with a 1987 episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents and the 2011 pilot for Wonder Woman .

American movie producer Bernard Glasserdied on January 2, aged 89. A former high school teacher, during the 1950s and ‘60s he produced Space Master X-7 , Return of the Fly (starring Vincent Price), The Day of the Triffids (1963, uncredited) and Crack in the World .

Mike Vraney, a former comic bookstore-owner, convention organiser and founder of video distributor Something Weird Video (SWV), died of lung cancer the same day, aged 56. He was also an associate producer on Herschell Gordon Lewis’ belated sequel Blood Feat 2: All U Can Eat (2002).

Chinese movie producer and philanthropist Sir Run Run Shaw(Ren-leng Shao) died on January 7, aged 106. During a prolific career that began in the mid-1950s, he produced or executive produced numerous films with his elder brother Runme Shaw (who died in 1985), including Hammer’s The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires (with Peter Cushing as “Van Helsing”), Cleopatra Jones and the Casino of Gold , The Oily Maniac , The Web of Death , Lady Exterminator , Meteor (1979), Blood Beach , Hex vs. Witchcraft and Blade Runner . The Shaw Brothers are credited for bringing kung fu movies into popular culture.

American animation director Hal Sutherlanddied on January 16, aged 85. After working at Walt Disney on such films as Peter Pan , Lady and the Tramp and Sleeping Beauty , Sutherland founded Filmation Studios with Lou Scheimer and Norm Prescott, which produced countless hours of TV cartoons from 1960s to the 1980s, including such shows as The New Adventures of Superman , The Superman/Aquaman Hour of Adventure , Journey to the Center of the Earth , The Batman/Superman Hour , Fantastic Voyage , Sabrina and the Groovie Goolies , Sabrina the Teenage Witch , My Favorite Martians , Star Trek: The Animated Series , The Fat Albert Halloween Special , Space Sentinels , Flash Gordon , Gilligan’s Planet and He-Man and the Masters of the Universe . Sutherland also directed the animated movies Journey Back to Oz (1974) and Pinocchio and the Emperor of the Night (1987).

German-born film director Gordon Hessler, best known for his inventive horror films for AIP in the late 1960s and early ‘70s, died on January 19 in London, aged 88. His movies include three collaborations with actor Vincent Price: The Oblong Box (also featuring Christopher Lee), Scream and Scream Again (with Lee again, and Peter Cushing) and Cry of the Banshee , along with Catacombs (aka The Woman Who Wouldn’t Die ), De Sade (uncredited), Murders in the Rue Morgue (1971), Medusa , Scream Pretty Peggy , The Golden Voyage of Sinbad , The Strange Possession of Mrs. Oliver , KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park , Evil Stalks This House (aka Tales of the Haunted ) and The Girl in a Swing (based on the novel by Richard Adams). Between 1964-65, Hessler was an associate producer on TV’s The Alfred Hitchcock Hour , and he directed episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents , Kolchak: The Night Stalker , Wonder Woman (‘Gault’s Brain’, featuring John Carradine) and Tales of the Unexpected .