Hollywood make-up artist John Chambers, best known for creating Mr Spock’s Vulcan ears on TV’s Star Trek (1966–68) and the make-up for the original Planet of the Apes (1967) and its sequels, died of diabetes complications on August 25th, aged 78. His many other credits include The Three Stooges in Orbit, The Human Duplicators, Slaughterhouse-Five, The Mephisto Waltz, Superbeast, Ssssssss, Phantom of the Paradise, Embryo, The Island of Dr Moreau (1977), Halloween II and TV’s Beauty and the Beast (1976). Chambers won an honorary Oscar for his work on Planet of the Apes, and he was also rumoured to have created the famous Bigfoot creature filmed by Californian ‘researchers’ in 1967.
Film editor and producer Thomas Ralph Fries, the son of producer Charles Fries, died of a protracted cardiopulmonary illness on September 10th, aged 47. His credits include The Martian Chronicles, Starcrossed, Bridge Across Time and Flowers in the Attic. In 1989 he produced Phantom of the Malclass="underline" Eric’s Revenge.
54-year-old American television producer David Angell and his wife Lynn were among the sixty-five passengers and crew aboard United Airlines Flight 175, travelling from Boston to Los Angeles, that terrorists crashed into the South Tower of New York’s World Trade Center on September 11th. The co-creator and executive producer of NBC-TV’s Frasier, he also scripted episodes of the comedy shows Wings and Cheers, sharing six Emmy Awards for his television work.
Fred (Frederick) De Cordova, who directed Bedtime for Bonzo and Bonzo Goes to College starring Ronald Reagan and a chimpanzee, died on September 15th, aged 90. His fifty-year career included directing numerous TV shows (including episodes of Bewitched) a TV version of Blithe Spirit starring Noel Coward, Lauren Bacall and Claudette Colbert, and he was executive producer of Johnny Carson’s The Tonight Show (1971–92).
Samuel Z. Arkoff, the cigar-chewing executive producer and co-founder (with James H. Nicholson, who died in 1972) of American International Pictures, died on September 16th, aged 83. His many films date from The Beast With a Million Eyes (1955) to Hellhole (1985), and include I Was a Teenage Werewolf, I Was a Teenage Frankenstein, Blood of Dracula, Roger Corman’s Edgar Allan Poe series, The Amityville Horror (which grossed $65 million in America) and Dressed to Kill. His autobiography (with Richard Trubo), Flying Through Hollywood by the Seat of My Pants, was published in 1992. Arkoff’s wife Hilda, who provided home-cooked meals for AIP wrap parties, died on July 26th.
Canadian-born film and TV director Gerald Mayer, the nephew of legendary MGM mogul Louis B. Mayer, died of complications from pneumonia on September 21st, aged 82. His credits include episodes of Thriller, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, The Invaders, Tarzan, Six Million Dollar Man and Logan’s Run.
Computer special effects wizard Robert Abel, who created the slit-scan effect for the ‘Star Gate’ sequence in2001: A Space Odyssey and also worked on Disney’s Tron, died on September 23rd, five weeks after suffering a heart attack. He was 64.
William [‘Herbert’] Coleman, Alfred Hitchcock’s associate producer and right-hand man for a decade, died on October 3rd, aged 93. He worked on such titles as Rear Window, The Trouble With Harry andVertigo, and produced the TV series Alfred Hitchcock Presents andThe Alfred Hitchcock Hour.
British TV special effects director Jim Francis died on October 5th, aged 47. His numerous credits include Doctor Who, Red Dwarf, Blakes 7, The Hitch-hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, The Tenth Kingdom and such films as Hardware, Nostradamus and Grim.
American director, dancer and choreographer Herbert Ross, who often collaborated with Neil Simon, died of heart failure on October 9th, aged 76. After staging the musical sequences for the Cliff Richard films The Young Ones and Summer Holiday, he worked on Doctor Dolittle before becoming a director with such films asPlay It Again Sam, The Last of Sheila, The Seven-Per-Cent Solution andPennies from Heaven. From 1988–2001 he was married to Jackie Kennedy’s sister, Lee Bouvier Radzi-well.
Italian opera designer, film director, writer and illustrator of children’s books, Beni Montresor died on October 11th, aged 75. During the 1950s he worked at Rome’s Cine Citta studios, where Ricardo Freda asked him to design I Vampiri (aka The Devil’s Commandment!Lust of the Vampire) in 1956.
Music director and supervisor Raoul Kraushaar, who supplied music cues for such cartoons as Huckleberry Hound and Yogi Bear, died on October 13th, aged 93. He was also involved in the music for SOS Coast Guard, Prehistoric “Women, Bride of the Gorilla, Untamed Women, Invaders from Mars (1953), Curucu Beast of the Amazon, The 30 Foot Bride of Candy Rock, Island of Lost Women, Jesse James Meets Frankenstein’s Daughter, Billy the Kid vs. Dracula and the Abbott and Costello TV show.
Known as the ‘father of television syndication’, Frederic W. Ziv died the same day, aged 96. Among the many shows his company created were Science Fiction Theatre, Sea Hunt and The Cisco Kid.
Sound supervisor Robert Reed Rutledge, who won an Oscar for his work on Back to the Future, died of a heart attack on October 15th, aged 53. His other credits include Star Wars, The Beastmaster and The Witches of Eastwick.
British film editor Ray Lovejoy, whose credits include Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey and The Shining, died on October 19th. His other films include The Ruling Class, Aliens, Krull, Batman and Lost in Space.
65-year-old Czechoslovakian director Jaromil Jires, whose best-known film is Valerie and Her Week of Wonders, died on October 24th after a long illness caused by head injuries sustained in a serious car accident.
John Roberts, who borrowed $1.8 million against his trust fund to co-produce Woodstock (1969), died of cancer on October 27th, aged 56.
American director Adrian Weiss, whose credits include Edward D. Wood, Jr.’s The Bride and the Beast, died on October 28th, aged 88.
British film director and producer Roy Boulting, best remembered for his affair with young star Hayley Mills, whom he later married, died after a long illness on November 5th, aged 88. With his twin brother John (who died in 1985) he became director of British Lion Films in the 1960s, and their films together include Thunder Rock, Brighton Rock, Seven Days to Noon, Twisted Nerve and Endless Night. Roy also directed Run for the Sun, another variation on ‘The Most Dangerous Game’. His son with Hayley Mills, Crispian, became the lead singer of the pop group Kula Shaker.