British character actor Reginald Marsh died on February 9th, aged 74. His numerous credits include It Happened Here, Berserk and the TV movies The Stone Tape andHammer House of Mystery and Suspense: Mark of the Devil.
Former European middleweight champion boxer and actor Tiberio Mitri was run over by a train on February 12th, aged 74. The Italian boxer, who famously survived fifteen rounds in the ring with Jake La Motta at Madison Square Garden, went on to appear in a number of films, including Ben-Hur (1959) and numerous spaghetti Westerns and peplums. Following the premature deaths of his son and daughter, he developed a drinking problem and was living among Rome’s homeless population.
British leading man Michael [Anthony] Johnson died on February 24th, aged 62. Best known as a television actor (notably opposite Herbert Lom in The Human Jungle [1963–65]), his only starring role on screen was in Hammer’s Lust for a Vampire (1971).
American character actress Rosemary DeCamp, who played James Cagney’s mother in Yankee Doodle Dandy despite being thirteen years his junior, died of pneumonia on February 20th, aged 90. She also appeared in Jungle Book (1942), William Castle’s 13 Ghosts, Saturday the 14th and the TV movie The Time Machine (1978).
American actress Peggy Converse, who starred in The Thing That Couldn’t Die, died on March 2nd, aged 95.
TV actor Louis Edmonds, who portrayed various members of the Collins family in the daytime soap operaDark Shadows (1966–71) and the movie House of Dark Shadows, died of respiratory failure on March 3rd, aged 77.
Edward Winter, who starred as Captain Ben Ryan in the TV series col1_0 (1978–79), died of Parkinson’s disease on March 8th, aged 63.
Obnoxious talkshow host and chain-smoker [Sean] Morton Downey, Jr. died of lung cancer and other respiratory problems on March 12th, aged 68. After composing such hit surf-rock numbers as ‘Pipeline’ and ‘Wipeout’ in the early 1960s, his syndicated TV series The Morton Downey Jr. Show debuted in the New York City area in 1987. He also appeared in more than twenty movies and TV shows, includingPredator 2 and episodes of Monsters and Tales from the Crypt.
Calypso singer Sir Lancelot (Lancelot Victor Pinard), whose credits include Val Lewton’s I Walked With a Zombie, The Ghost Ship and Curse of the Cat People, plus Zombies on Broadway and The Unknown Terror, died the same day, aged 97.
Hollywood actress and light comedienne Ann Sothern (Harriette Lake) died of heart failure on March 15th, aged 92. Her many films include Super-Sleuth, Lady in a Cage, Golden Needles and The Manitou, and she was the voice of the car in the TV fantasy sitcom My Mother the Car (1965–66). Sothern was nominated for an Academy Award for her role in The Whales of August (with Vincent Price). Her daughter, designer Tisha Sterling, was also an actress.
Voice actress Norma MacMillan, who was the voice of Casper, The Friendly Ghost in the 1950s Paramount cartoon series, died in Canada on March 16th, aged 79. She also voiced Gumby in the Claymation series Pokey and Gumby and Sweet Polly Purebread inUnderdog.
British leading man of the 1950s Anthony [Maitland] Steel died on March 21st, his 81st birthday. His credits includeHelter Skelter (1948) and West of Zanzibar (1954). Later in his career he appeared in The Story of O (1975) and portrayed film producer Lintom Busotsky (a role originally intended for Peter Cushing) in the 1980 R. Chetwynd-Hayes adaptation, The Monster Club. He was briefly married to Anita Ekberg.
American stage and screen actor Anthony Dexter (Walter Fleischmann) died on March 27th, aged 82. After being cast as Rudolph Valentino in the 1951 biopic, his career never recovered and he found himself in such films as Fire Maidens from Outer Space, The Story of Mankind, 12 to the Moon and Phantom Planet.
Alleged serial killer Henry Lee Lucas, who confessed to more than 300 homicides and was the inspiration for Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, also died in March. He was apparently the only man whose death sentence was commuted by Governor George W. Bush of Texas.
British stage, screen and television actress Jean Anderson died on April 1st, aged 93. Her occasional film credits include Disney’s The Three Lives of Thomasina, The Night Digger and Scream-time.
German-born stage and screen actor Brother Theodore (Theodore Gottlieb) died of pneumonia in New York City on April 5th, aged 94. A survivor of Dachau concentration camp, his film credits include Orson Welles’s The Stranger, Nocturna, the 1976 porno spoof Gums, The Invisible Kid and Joe Dante’s The ‘burbs. He also narrated A1 Adamson’s Horror of the Blood Monsters and voiced Gollum in the animated TV movies The Hobbit and The Return of the King. Brother Theodore’s Chamber of Horrors was a 1975 paperback anthology co-edited with Marvin Kaye.
Oscar-winning American actress Beatrice Straight, who played the paranormal investigator in Poltergeist, died of pneumonia on April 7th, aged 86. She also won a Tony Award as Best Supporting Actress in the 1953 Broadway production of Arthur Miller’s The Crucible and was nominated for an Emmy for her role in the 1978 mini-seriesThe Dain Curse. She had a recurring role as the Queen of the Amazons in the 1977 TV series Wonder Woman.
American TV and film actor David Graf, best known for his recurring role in the Police Academy movies, died of a heart attack on the same day, aged 50. His other credits include Burnin’ Love and Skeleton.
Jerome Barr, estranged from his daughter Roseanne after she publicly accused him in 1991 of molesting her as a child, died of a heart attack on April 9th, aged 71. Barr, who had always denied the allegations, won a casino jackpot just days before his death.
New Zealand-born actress Nyree (Ngaire) Dawn Porter died suddenly in London on April 10th, aged 61. In Britain since 1960, she made her name as Irene in the 1967 BBC serial The Forsyte Saga and as the co-star of The Protectors (1972–74), and appeared in such films as AIP’s Jane Eyre (1970), the Amicus productionsThe House That Dripped Blood and From Beyond the Grave, and in the 1980 TV mini-series of Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles.
Welsh-born comedian and singer Sir Harry [Donald] Secombe died of prostate cancer on April 11th, aged 79. From 1951–60 Secombe co-starred in the surreal BBC radio programme The Goon Show (as Neddie Seagoon) along with Michael Bentine, Spike Milligan and Peter Sellers. His film appearances include Helter Skelter (1948), Down Among the Z Men, Svengali (1954) and The Bed Sitting Room.