Stephen (ed.) - The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 18

91-year-old Fayard Nicholas,who performed with his younger brother Harold (who died in 2000) as the tap dancing Nicholas Brothers, died of pneumonia and complications from a stroke the same day. The team made their film debut in 1932 and later headlined at the Cotton Club in Harlem.

Benny Hill’s straight man, comedian and actor Henry McGee,died of complications from Alzheimer’s disease on January 28th, aged 77. Early in his career he appeared in the 1950 SF thriller Seven Days to Noon , and he was also in Hammer’s Fanatic (aka Die! Die! My Darling), Digby the Biggest Dog in the World, Come Play With Me, Revenge of the Pink Panther, Carry On Emmannuelle and TV’s The Avengers .

Scottish-born ballerina and actress Moira Shearer[King] (Lady Kennedy) died on January 31st, aged 80. She had been ill for some time. The flame-haired dancer first rose to prominence as the lead in Michael Powell’s The Red Shoes (1948), and continued the collaboration with Powell in The Tales of Hoffman and Peeping Tom . She was married to author and broadcaster Ludovic Kennedy and hosted the 1972 Eurovision Song Contest in Edinburgh.

Brooklyn-born Al Lewis(Albert or Alexander Meister, sources vary), best remembered as the 378-year-old Grandpa Munster (actually Count Dracula) on the CBS-TV show The Munsters (1964–66), died after a long illness on February 3rd, aged 95 (although some sources claimed 82). In recent years, the cigar-chomping actor had undergone three angioplasty procedures and, in 2003, surgeons were forced to amputate his right leg below the knee and all five toes on his left foot. Lewis appeared in such films as The Devil’s Commandment (aka I Vampiri), They Might Be Giants, Fright House, My Grandpa is a Vampire (aka Moonrise), Night Terror , the 1988 video compilation Grampa’s Monster Movies and the spin-off movies Munster Go Home, The Munster’s Revenge and Here Come the Munsters . He also played Officer Leo Schnauser on the 1961–63 series Car 54, Where Are You ?, and his other TV appearances include The Night Strangler and episodes of Lost in Space and Rod Serling’s Night Gallery . In a varied career, Lewis also worked as a circus clown, salesman, waiter, children’s book author, basketball scout, successful restaurateur, poolroom owner, store detective and the Green Party’s political candidate for the governorship of New York state in 1998 (he lost against incumbent Governor George Pataki, but still polled 52,000 votes).

American actress Jean Byron(Imogene Burkhart) died the same day, aged 80. A radio singer before being put under contract by Columbia Pictures, she starred opposite Johnny Weismuller in Voodoo Tiger and Jungle Moon Men . Her other credits include The Magnetic Monster, Invisible Invaders and episodes of Science Fiction Theater and Batman (as the Mayor’s wife). Byron was briefly married to actor Michael Ansara in the 1950s.

Film and TV actor Franklin Cover,whose credits include The Stepford Wives (1975), died of pneumonia on February 5th, aged 77.

American character actor Phil Brown,best remembered for his role as Luke Skywalker’s doomed “Uncle Owen” in Star Wars (1977), died of pneumonia on February 9th, aged 89. Blacklisted during the communist witch-hunts of the 1950s, he moved to London to work in films and on the stage. Brown’s other credits include Universal’s Weird Woman and Jungle Captive, The Luck of the Irish, Superman (1978) and Twilight’s Last Gleaming . He also played a council elder in Battlestar Galactica: The Second Coming , a 1990 short inspired by the 1970s TV series, and appeared in episodes of Colonel March of Scotland Yard (with Boris Karloff), Hammer’s Journey Into the Unknown, Roald Dahl’s Tales of the Unexpected and Tucker’s Witch .

American actor Andreas Katsulas,who played Ambassador G’Kar of Nam in the Babylon 5 TV series and films (1993–2001), died of lung cancer on February 13th, aged 59. He also portrayed the one-armed man in the 1993 big-screen version of The Fugitive and appeared in Seduction: Three Tales from the Inner Sanctum, The Death of the Incredible Hulk and episodes oiMax Headroom, Alien Nation and Star Trek: The Next Generation (in a recurring role as Romulan commander Tomalak).

72-year-old actor Paul Carrdied of lung cancer in Los Angeles on February 17th. He played Lt. Lee Kelso in the pilot for Star Trek and was Lt Devlin on TV’s Buck Rogers . Carr also appeared in episodes of One Step Beyond, Men Into Space, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Time Tunnel, The Green Hornet, Land of the Giants, Circle of Fear, The Six Million Dollar Man, Spider-Man, The Incredible Hulk and Highway to Heaven . The actor’s movie credits include Ben, The Severed Arm, The Bat People, Sisters of Death, The Killings at Outpost Zeta and Solar Crisis .

Billy Cowsill,lead singer of the 1960s family group The Cowsills, died of emphysema and osteoporosis on February 18th, aged 58. Reportedly the inspiration for TV’s The Partridge Family (with David Cassidy in the lead), the band’s hits included “We Can Fly”, “Hair” and the theme for the 1969 TV series Love, American Style . The body of Cowsill’s brother Barry was found in late December 2005, four months after he went missing from his New Orleans home in the wake of hurricane Katrina.

Emmy Award-winning American comedian and actor Don Knottsdied of pulmonary and respiratory complications on February 24th, aged 81. Best remembered for his role as Deputy Barney Fife in The Andy Griffith Show (1960–68), the bug-eyed Knotts’ other credits include The Incredible Mr. Limpet, The Ghost and Mr. Chicken, The Reluctant Astronaut, I Love a Mystery (1973), Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo, Pleasantville and Disney’s Chicken Little .

Emmy Award-winning American actor and environmental activist Dennis Weaverdied of complications from cancer the same day, also aged 81. Best remembered for his roles as limping sidekick Chester Goode in the CBS-TV Western Gunsmoke (1955–63) and later as fish-out-of-water Marshall Sam McCloud in a long-running series of 1970s NBC Mystery Movies (including McCloud Meets Dracula in 1977), his other credits include Touch of Evil, Way . . . Way Out, What’s the Matter With Helen ?, Steven Spielberg’s Duel, Don’t Go to Sleep and episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Twilight Zone and The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries (“The Mystery of the Hollywood Phantom”).

American actor Darren McGavin,who starred as investigative reporter Carl Kolchak in the TV movies The Night Stalker (1971) and The Night Strangler (1972), as well as the spin-off series Kolchak: The Night Stalker (1974–75), died on February 25th, aged 83. His many other credits include Mission Mars, The Challenge , Steven Spielberg’s Something Evil, The Six Million Dollar Man pilot, The Martian Chronicles mini-series, Hangar 18, Firebird 2015, The Natural, Dead Heat (with Vincent Price), Captain America and By Dawn’s Early Light . On TV he played private eye Mike Hammer in the 1950s TV series of the same name, and appeared in episodes of Suspense, Tales of Tomorrow, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Alfred Hitchcock Hour, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., The Evil Touch, Fantasy Island, Tales from the Darkside, Roald Dahl’s Tales of the Unexpected, Highway to Heaven and Monsters . He also made two guest appearances on The X Files , a show that acknowledged its debt to the Kolchak series.