Stephen Jones: Best New Horror #26

American animator Larry Lathamdied on November 2. He worked on numerous TV shows, including The World’s Greatest SuperFriends , Godzilla , Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo , The Smurfs and Challenge of the Go-Bots , and directed the direct-to-video movies An American Tail: The Treasure of Manhattan Island and An American Tail: The Mystery of the Night Monster . Latham also created the web comic Lovecraft is Missing (2008-14).

Canadian visual effects supervisor and documentary film-maker Michael Lennickdied of a brain tumour on November 7, aged 61. He worked on the effects for such films as The Last Chase , David Cronenberg’s Videodrome , The Dead Zone and The Fly , Millennium and Earthquake in New York , along with episodes of Friday the 13th: The Series , My Secret Identity , War of the Worlds and The Adventures of Sinbad .

Hugely influential and successful American writer and producer Glen A.(Albert) Larsondied of aesophageal cancer on November 14, aged 77. Amongst the many shows he created were Battlestar Galactica , The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries , Buck Rogers in the 25th Century , Galactica 1980 , Manimal , Automan , Knight Rider , The Highwayman and NightMan . Larson also scripted The Six Million Dollar Man: Wine Women and War , Mission Galactica: The Cylon Attack , Conquest of Earth and Millennium Man , and he produced Team Knight Rider and episodes of McCloud (‘McCloud Meets Dracula’), B.J. and the Bear (‘A Coffin with a View’) and The Fall Guy (‘October the 31st’), all featuring John Carradine. Author Harlan Ellison infamously called him “Glen Larceny”, accusing him of stealing movie concepts for his TV shows, while James Garner reportedly got into a physical altercation with Larson after he copied scripts and the theme tune from The Rockford Files .

German-born Oscar-winning director Mike Nichols(Michael Igor Peschkowsky) died of a heart attack in New York on November 19, aged 83. His movie credits include Catch-22 , The Day of the Dolphin , Wolf and What Planet Are You From? . Nichols was married to Diane Sawyer.

American film producer and former President of Paramount Pictures (1971-75) Frank Yablans died on November 27, aged 79. His credits include The Fury and Congo .

Oscar-winning special effects designer Danny Lee(Daniel West Lee) died on November 28, aged 95. Starting in 1960, he worked on numerous Walt Disney movies, eventually becoming head of the studio’s special effects department from 1969-81. Lee’s other films included Murderers’ Row and The Ambushers , and he was noted for his revolutionary use of synthetic blood squibs in the climax of Bonnie and Clyde (1967).

British cinematographer Gerry(Gerald) Hilldied on December 2, aged 88. He began his career as a camera assistant and then operator on such films as Daughter of Darkness (1948), Tarzan’s Greatest Adventure , Suddenly Last Summer , The Road to Hong Kong , Night Must Fall (1964), Bunny Lake is Missing , Modesty Blaise (1966) and Casino Royale (1967). Hill went on to shoot Hamlet (1969), Malpertuis , Blind Terror (aka See No Evil ), the short The Man and the Snake (based on the story by Ambrose Bierce), The Amazing Mr. Blunden , The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes’ Smarter Brother , The Island of Dr. Moreau (1977), The Ninth Configuration , Wolfen , Highlander , Black Rainbow and The Exorcist III . He retired in 1998.

Italian screenwriter and director Giulio Questidied on December 3, aged 90. His films include Arcana , Death Laid an Egg and Vampirismus , and he also co-wrote the 1965 movie The Possessed . Questi’s TV episode L’umo della Sabbia (1981) was based on E.T.A. Hoffman’s story ‘The Sandman’.

Japanese cinematographer Takao Saitôdied of chronic lymphocytic leukemia on December 6, aged 85. His credits include The Lost World of Sinbad and The Killing Bottle .

Hollywood art director Robert Kinoshitadied of congestive heart failure on December 9, aged 100. Credited with designing the iconic “Robby the Robot” for Forbidden Planet (1956), “Tobor” for the TV pilot Here Comes Tobor and the “Robot” from TV’s Lost in Space (1965-68), Kinoshita began his career as a set designer on such movies as The Black Sleep and Pharaoh’s Curse , and the TV series Science Fiction Theatre . As an art director he worked on Roger Corman’s The Saga of the Viking Women and Their Voyage to the Waters of the Great Sea Serpent , William Castle’s Macabre , The Six Million Dollar Man: Wine Women and War , Planet Earth and The Dead Don’t Die! (based on the story by Robert Bloch), along with the TV series Men Into Space , Lost in Space and Project U.F.O. Kinoshita was credited as an associate producer on The Phantom Planet (he was also production designer) and Al Adamson’s biker film Hell’s Bloody Devils . He and his wife were sent to a Japanese internment camp in Arizona during World War II, but were freed early thanks to a sponsor.

American producer Arthur Gardner(Arthur Harold Goldberg) died on December 19, aged 104. A former bit-player in such movies as Mr. Moto’s Gamble and The Brute Man , with Jules V. Levy and Arnold Laven he co-produced The Vampire , The Monster That Challenged the World , The Return of Dracula (aka The Fantastic Disappearing Man ) and The Flame Barrier in the 1950s before moving into TV Westerns. Gardner was the last surviving cast member of All Quiet on the Western Front (1930).

87-year-old Roberta Leigh(Rita Shulman), best-selling British romance and children’s writer (under a variety of psuedonyms), died the same day. She sold more than 25 million books in twenty-three languages, but is best known for being the first British female producer with her own production company, creating such children’s TV puppet series as Torchy the Battery Boy and The Adventures of Twizzle (both with Gerry Anderson) and Space Patrol (aka Planet Patrol ), along with the SF pilots Paul Starr and The Solarnauts . Leigh also founded the comic Fun’n’Games and the teen magazine Boyfriend .

Dependable American director Joseph Sargent(Giuseppe Daniele Sorgente) died of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease on December 22, aged 89. A former actor, he directed One Spy Too Many , The Spy in the Green Hat , Colossus: The Forbin Project (based on the novel by D.F. Jones), The Man , The Night That Panicked America , Tomorrow’s Child , Nightmares , Jaws: The Revenge and Salem Witch Trials , along with episodes of TV’s The Man from U.N.C.L.E. , The Girl from U.N.C.L.E. , Star Trek , The Invaders and The Immortal .

Spanish cinematographer Raúl Artigot[Fernández] died on Christmas Day, aged 78. His many credits include Jesús Franco’s The Erotic Rites of Frankenstein and Les démons , along with The Cannibal Man , Horror of the Zombies , Perversión and El misterio de Cynthia Baird . Artigot also scripted and directed the 1972 film The Witches Mountain .