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

British wrestler turned actor Ken Richmonddied on August 3rd, aged 80. From the mid-1950s he was the fourth bare-chested strongman to strike the giant gong for J. Arthur Rank film productions. He also had small roles in Blithe Spirit and Mad About Men .

Arthur Lee(Arthur Taylor Porter), lead singer with the 1960s Los Angeles band Love, died of lymphoblastic leukaemia the same day, aged 61. Such albums as Forever Changes (1967) are said to have influenced Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd and others. Lee was jailed in 1995 for five years for firing a handgun in the air outside a neighbour’s house.

British-born character actor John“Basher” Aldersondied in California on August 4th, aged 90. His numerous credits include Fritz Lang’s Moonfleet , the Disney comedy The Cat from Outer Space, Riders of the Storm and episodes of TV’s Space Patrol, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Alfred Hitchcock Hour, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Doctor Who, The Time Tunnel, The Wild Wild West, Rod Serling’s Night Gallery and Automan .

Japanese anime voice actor Hirotaka Suzuokidied of lung cancer on August 6th, aged 56.

Hollywood “B” movie actress [Laura] Lois Januarydied of Alzheimer’s disease on August 7th, aged 93. The heroine of countless Westerns, she also appeared in The Black Cat (1934) and The Man Who Reclaimed His Head (both uncredited), Life Returns, Night Life of the Gods, The Wizard ofOz (uncredited as the Emerald City’s singing salon operator) and an episode of TV’s Kolchak: The Night Stalker (“Bad Medicine”).

American TV talk show host Mike Douglas(Michael Delaney Dowd, Jr) died on August 11th, aged 81. In the late 1940s he sang with Kay Kyser’s band, and he was the singing voice of Prince Charming in Walt Disney’s 1950 animated feature Sleeping Beauty .

73-year-old British-born character actor and prolific voice performer Tony Jay,best known as the voice of the scheming Judge Frollo in Disney’s animated The Hunchback of Notre Dame , died in Los Angeles on August 13th following complications from surgery to remove a non-cancerous tumour from his lungs in April. A member of the Royal Shakespeare Company, he moved to America in 1986 and became a naturalised citizen. His many credits include Time Bandits (as the voice of the “Supreme Being”), Warriors of the Wind, Twins, My Stepmother is an Alien, Beasties, Scooby-Doo in Arabian Nights, All Dogs Go to Heaven 2, Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, Treasure Planet, The Jungle Book 2 and numerous others. The Emmy Award-nominated Jay had recurring roles as the villainous Paracelcus in the TV series Beauty and the Beast , Dougie Milford in Twin Peaks and Nigel St. John in Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman , and appeared in episodes of Eerie Indiana, Star Trek the Next Generation, The Adventures ofBrisco County Jr and The Burning Zone .

American character actor Bruno Kirby(Bruno Giovanni Quida-ciolu, aka “B. Kirby, Jr”) died of complications from leukaemia on August 14th, aged 57. His credits include Flesh + Blood, Stuart Little, Helter Skelter (2004) and an episode of HBO’s Tales from the Crypt (“The Trap”).

Singer and musician Buck Page,who founded the original Western band Riders of the Purple Sage in 1936, died on August 21st, aged 84.

Bruce Gary,drummer for The Knack (“My Sharona”) died of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma on August 22nd, aged 55 .

British character actor Bill Stewartdied of complications from motor neurone disease on August 29th, aged 63. He appeared in such films as Morons from Outer Space, 101 Dalmatians (1996) and Fairy Tale: A True Story .

Rockabilly singer and songwriter Jumpin’ Gene Simmons,who had a novelty hit in 1964 with “Haunted House”, died after a long illness the same day, aged 69.

90-year-old Canadian-born Hollywood star Glenn Ford(Gwyllyn Samuel Newton Ford) was found dead at his home on August 30th. He had suffered a series of strokes over the previous decade. Best known for his many Western roles, Ford also appeared in The Visitor (Stridulum), Virus (Fukkatsu no hi), Happy Birthday to Me, Raw Nerve , the TV movies The Brotherhood of the Bell and The Disappearance of Flight 412 , and his final film appearance was as Jonathan Kent in Superman (1978). In 1958 Ford was voted the #1 male box-office attraction. Despite being romantically linked to Rita Hayworth for four decades, the first of his four wives was actress/dancer Eleanor Powell.

1948 and 1952 American Olympic decathlon champion Bob Mathias,who later became an actor and Republican Member of Congress, died of cancer on September 2nd, aged 75. He portrayed Prince Theseus in The Minotaur (1961).

Actor, radio singer/announcer and television station owner John Contedied on September 4th, aged 90. From 1955–58 he hosted more than 600 segments of the NBC-TV daytime anthology series Matinee Theater , which included adaptations of Dracula (with John Carradine), Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (with Robert Montgomery) and Frankenstein (with Primo Camera). Conte founded the NBC affiliate KMIR-TV in California’s Palm Springs-Rancho Mirage area in 1968 and ran the station until he sold it in 1999.

Crikey! Australian “Crocodile Hunter” Steve Irwinwas killed the same day by a freak stingray strike in the heart during underwater filming for a show called Ocean’s Deadliest at the Great Barrier Reef. He was only the third person in Australian history to die from a stingray attack. The 44-year-old TV personality and conservationist appeared in Dr Dolittle 2 and starred in the 2002 movie The Crocodile Hunter: Collision Course .

Welsh-born actor Bill Meilen,who played Dr Egas Gottreich in Stephen King’s Kingdom Hospital , died of cancer in Canada on September 4th, aged 74. He also appeared in Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed and episodes of TV’s The Ray Bradbury Theater, The Outer Limits, Mysterious Ways, Dead Like Me and Battlestar Galactica .

British actress Hilary[Lavender] Mason,best known for her role as the blind psychic Heather in Nicolas Roeg’s Don’t Look Now (1973), died on September 5th, the day after her 89th birthday. She also appeared in the films I Don’t Want to be Born (aka The Devil Within Her), Dolls, Robotjox, Meridian (aka Phantoms), Afraid of the Dark and Haunted . Her TV credits include The Secret Garden (1960), The Phoenix and the Carpet ( 1976 ), the 1977 Ripping Yarns episode “The Curse of the Claw”, The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes: The Last Vampyre , and episodes of Out of the Unknown and Tales of the Unexpected .

Broadway actor Robert Earl Jones,the father of actor James, died of heart failure on September 7th, aged 95. Blacklisted for refusing to testify before the House of Un-American Activities Committee in the 1950s, his relatively few film credits include Sleepaway Camp and Maniac Cop 2 .

British character actor Frank Middlemassdied on September 8th, aged 87. His credits include Hammer’s Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed, Madame Sin, The Island, Dreamchild, Sherlock Holmes and the Leading Lady and episodes of The Avengers, Sherlock Holmes (1968), The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, The Invisible Man (1984), Highlander and the mini-series The 10th Kingdom . In the mid-1960s, needing somewhere to stay in London, Middlemass asked actor Geoffrey Toone (who died in 2005) if he could borrow a spare room for a couple of weeks. Forty years later, he was still there.