The Best New Horror 2 (74 page)

Playwright and screenwriter
Arnaud D’Usseau
died from stomach cancer on January 29th, aged 73. A big Broadway name (
Tomorrow the World
) and minor Hollywood writer (
The Man Who Wouldn’t Die
) in the ‘40s, he was driven abroad by the the blacklist and contributed under ‘front’ pseudonyms to numerous European movies, including
Horror Express
.

Julia Fitzgerald, the author of a number of historical romances with fantasy elements, such as
Beauty to the Devil, Taboo
and
Earth Queen, Sky King
, died from cancer on February 5th.

Commercial artist and fantasy author
Carl Sherrell
died on February 7th from aneurism in his esophagus, aged 60. He had been suffering from a heart condition complicated by leukemia. His first novel,
Raum
, appeared in 1977, and other books include
Skraelings, Arcane, The Space Prodigal
and
Dark Flowers
.

Popular SF cartoonist
Arthur “ATOM” Thomson
died from a blood clot on February 8th. He was 62. He discovered fandom in 1954 and contributed to a number of professional magazines during the ’50s, although he preferred to work for fanzines.

The same day singer/songwriter
Del Shannon
died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. His ’60s hit
Runaway
was used in both
Children of the Corn
and TV’s
Crime Story
.

Wendayne Ackerman,
76, German-born wife of collector/ editor/ historian Forrest J Ackerman, died on March 5th after a long illness. She translated 137 novels of the German space opera ‘Perry Rhodan’, as well as books by Stanislaw Lem, Pierre Barbet and the Strugatsky brothers, and wrote one of the most popular and often-reprinted features in
Famous Monsters of Filmland
: ‘Rocket to the Rue Morgue’.

Pulp magzine publisher and founder of Popular Library,
Ned L. Pines
died in Paris on May 14th, aged 84. After creating the ‘Thriller’ pulps in the early ’30s, he added the weird menace title
Thrilling Mystery
in 1935 and the following year bought the ailing
Wonder Stories
from Hugo Gernsback and retitled it
Thrilling Wonder Stories
. A companion magazine,
Startling Stories
, started in 1939 and by the end of the decade Pines Publications had 44 titles on the newsstands, including
Captain Future, Fantastic Story Magazine
and
Wonder Story Annual
.

Children’s author
Lucy M. Boston
died on June 1st. She was 97, and is best known for the ‘Green Knowe’ series of fantasies, beginning with
The Children of Green Knowe
in 1954 and followed by five more volumes between 1958–76.

Film journalist and novelist
Geoff Simm
died on June 11th from AIDS. He was 40, and contributed to such specialist magazines as
Shock Xpress
and
Starburst
, as well as working as a technician on
several recent UK movies.

Playwright and director
Paul Giovanni
died on June 17th of pneumonia with complications. He was 57. In 1978 Giovanni wrote and staged the Tony Award nominated Sherlock Holmes pastiche,
The Crucifer of Blood
, filmed in 1990 with Charlton Heston as Holmes.

Screenwriter
Sidney Boehm,
whose credits include
When Worlds Collide, The Atomic City
and
Shock Treatment
, died on June 25th, aged 82. He won an Edgar Award for his script for
The Big Heat
.

Argentinian magic realist author
Manuel Puig
died from a heart attack following complications after surgery on July 22nd. He was 57. His best-known novel was
Kiss of the Spider Woman
, which was filmed in 1985.

Ed Emshwiller,
one of the top science fiction artists of the 1950s and ’60s died of cancer on July 27th, aged 65. He began illustrating for
Galaxy
in 1951, signing his paintings ‘Emsh’. For the past decade he was involved in multi-media productions on film and video, and was the visual consultant on the TV movie
The Lathe of Heaven
.

Cartoonist
B. (Bernard) Kliban,
whose bestselling books of weird artwork included
Cats, Never Eat Anything Bigger Than Your Head, Whack Your Porcupine
and
Two Guys Fooling Around With the Moon
, died on August 12th, two weeks after undergoing heart surgery. He was 55.

Screenwriter Edmund
H. North
died August 28th from pneumonia, aged 79. Among his two dozen screenplays was the classic 1951 SF movie,
The Day the Earth Stood Still
. He won an Oscar for
Patton
.

Comics writer
Jerry Iger
died on September 5th. He was 87. Amongst the characters he created were Sheena, Queen of the Jungle (which became a 1950s TV series and a 1984 movie), Blue Beetle, Wonder Boy and The Ray.

Fan, author, editor and publisher
Donald A. Wollheim
died in his sleep from an apparent heart attack on November 2nd, two years after suffering a stroke. He was 76. One of the most important figures in science fiction, he became an early member of fandom in the mid-1930s and by the early ’40s was editing such pulp magazines as
Stirring Science Stories
and
Cosmic Stories
. In 1943 he edited the first mass-market SF anthology,
The Pocket Book of Science Fiction
, and between 1947 and 1952 edited 18 issues of
The Avon Fantasy Reader
, reprinting the cream of
Weird Tales
-type material. He went on to become the
entire
editorial staff at Avon Books and, in 1952, he started Ace Books with A.A. Wyn. In 1971, three years after Wynn’s death, Wollheim resigned from Ace and formed DAW Books, the first mass-market publisher solely devoted to science fiction, fantasy and horror. He discovered and developed many new writers and continued to edit anthologies until his stroke.

Gothic and historical novelist
Anya Seton
died on November 8th from heart failure. She was 86. One of her best-known novels was
Dragonwyck
, filmed in 1946 starring Vincent Price.

Bestselling author
Roald Dahl
died on November 23rd, aged 74. Several of his children’s books, such as
Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, The Witches
and
The BFG
were made into films, he scripted
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
and the James Bond adventure
You Only Live Twice
, and hosted the TV series
Way Out
and
Roald Dahl’s Tales of the Unexpected
.

Playwright and novelist
Dorothy (Dodie) Smith
died on November 24th, aged 94. Her most famous book for children was
One Hundred & One Dalmatians
, filmed by Disney in 1961.

Pulp publisher
Henry Steeger III,
who co-founded Popular Publications in 1930 with Harold Goldsmith, died on December 25th, aged 87. At its height, Popular published over 300 individual titles, including
Horror Stories, Terror Tales, The Spider, Operator 5, G-8 and His Battle Aces, Fantastic Mysteries, Fantastic Novels
, and
A. Merritt’s Fantasy
.

Screenwriter
Warren Skaaren
died of bone cancer, aged 44, on December 28th. He co-wrote the scripts for
Beetlejuice, Top Gun, Beverly Hills Cop II
and
Batman
, and completed the script for
Beetlejuice
2 just before his death.

ACTORS/ACTRESSES

Character actor
Alan Hale, Jr.
died on January 2nd from cancer of the thymus, aged 71. Best-known for his TV work in such series as
Gilligan’s Isle, Casey Jones, Wild, Wild West
and
Land of the Giants
, he also starred in such low-budget gems as
The Crawling Hand
and
The Giant Spider Invasion
.

Actress
Lydia Bilbrooke
died on January 4th, aged 101. Her film credits include
The Picture of Dorian Gray, The Spider Woman, Mr Peabody and the Mermaid
and
The Brighton Strangler
.

Arthur Kennedy
died on January 5th from a brain tumor. He was 75. Amongst his many movie credits are
Fantastic Voyage, The Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue, The Antichrist, The Sentinel
and
The Humanoid
.

Best known for his starring role in
Chariots of Fire
, British actor
Ian Charleson
died on January 6th from AIDS. He was 40, and also appeared in
Opera
and
Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes
.

Veteran comedy actor
Terry-Thomas
died on January 8th, aged 78. He had been suffering from Parkinson’s disease for many years.
His long list of credits includes
tom thumb, The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm, Munster Go Home!, Danger: Diabolik, The Abominable Dr Phibes, Dr Phibes Rises Again, The Hound of the Baskervilles
(1977) and
Vault of Horror
.

Film and TV actor
Gordon Jackson
died on January 15th, aged 66. His many film appearances include
Meet Mr Lucifer, The Quatermass Experiment, Scrooge, Madam Sin, Spectre, The Medusa Touch
and
The Masks of Death
.

Veteran actress
Barbara Stanwyck
died on January 20th from congestive heart failure. She was 82. She appeared in
Flesh and Fantasy
and William Castle’s
The Night Walker
as well as the early ’70s TV movies
The House That Would Not Die
and
A Taste of Evil
.

Madge Bellamy,
who co-starred with Bela Lugosi in
White Zombie
(1932) died on January 24th, aged 89.

Hollywood actress
Ava Gardner,
once voted the world’s most beautiful woman, died of pneumonia at her London home on January 25th. She was 67. The star of more than 60 films, her credits include
Spooks Run Wild
and
Ghosts on the Loose
(both with Bela Lugosi),
One Touch of Venus, Pandora and the Flying Dutchman, On the Beach, Seven Days in May, Earthquake, The Bluebird
(1976) and
The Sentinel
.

The same day, British character actor
Ian Dudley Hardy
was killed near London when a tree uprooted by the storms struck his car. He was aged 79 and was featured in the 1936
Things to Come
.

German-born actor
Henry Brandon
died of a heart attack in Los Angeles on February 13th, aged 77. He portrayed Captain Lasca in the 1939 serial
Buck Rogers
with Buster Crabbe and the following year played the oriental mastermind in
The Drums of Fu Manchu
. His numerous other film credits include Laurel & Hardy’s
Babes in Toyland, Doomed to Die, Tarzan and the She-Devil, War of the Worlds, The Land Unknown, Scared Stiff, Captain Sinbad, Search for the Evil One
and
Assault on Precinct 13
.

Character actor
Gary Merrill
died on March 5th from cancer. He was 74. His numerous credits include
The Mysterious Island, The Woman Who Wouldn’t Die, Destination Inner Space, Earth II
and
The Power
.

French model and actress
Capucine
(Germaine Lefebvre) killed herself on March 17th. She was 57. Among her many international films were
The Pink Panther
and
Arabian Adventure
(with Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing).

Hollywood goddess
Greta Garbo
died on April 15th from undisclosed causes. She was 84. Born Greta Gustafson in Sweden, she starred in a number of movies for MGM during the late 1920s and early ’30s until her early retirement in 1941. She appeared with
Bela Lugosi in
Ninotchka
(1939) and turned up in the 1974 gay sex film
Adam and Yves
.

Paulette Goddard,
actress and former wife of Charlie Chaplin and Burgess Meredith (amongst four husbands), died on April 23rd after a brief illness. She starred in more than forty movies, including Chaplin’s
Modern Times
and alongside Bob Hope in the two classic horror comedies,
The Cat and the Canary
(1939) and
The Ghost Breakers
(1940). Her last film was the 1972 TV movie,
The Snoop Sisters
.

Actor
Albert Salmi
and his wife were found shot dead on April 23rd in an apparent murder-suicide. He was 62, and his credits include
The Ambushers, Escape from the Planet of the Apes, Empire of the Ants, Dragonslayer, Kung Fu II, The Coming
and
Superstition
(aka
The Witch
).

David Rappaport,
the diminutive star of
Time Bandits
, TV’s
The Wizard
and the nine-hour National Theatre version of
Illuminatus
, committed suicide on May 2nd in Los Angeles. The 38-year-old, 3 ft 11 ins actor was suffering from depression and was found dead from a gunshot wound. His other movies include
The Bride
and
Sword of the Valiant
.

Actress
Susan Oliver
died on May 10th of cancer, aged 53. Amongst her many TV credits was the
Star Trek
pilot
The Cage/Menagerie
as well as such films as
The Monitors, Change of Mind
and
Murder By Decree
.

Singer and entertainer
Sammy Davis, Jr.
died on May 16th from throat cancer. He appeared in
One More Time
and
Poor Devil
(both with Christopher Lee),
Alice in Wonderland
(1985) and episodes of TV’s
Wild, Wild West, Batman, I Dream of Jeannie
and
Fantasy Island
.