Claydes “Charles” Smith, co-founder and lead guitarist with the 1970s jazz funk group Kool & the Gang, died after a long illness on June 20th, aged 57. Smith wrote the hits “Joanna” and “Take My Heart”.
Welsh-born character actor and anti-establishment film-maker Kenneth Griffith (Kenneth Griffiths) died on June 25th, aged 84. He made his film debut in the early 1940s, and his credits include Helter Skelter (1947), 1984 (1956), Expresso Bongo, Circus of Horrors, Jane Eyre (1970), Revenge and The House in Nightmare Park (aka Crazy House). On TV he is best remembered for appearing in two episodes of the 1960s cult classic The Prisoner, including the series finale, “Fall Out”.
71-year-old Lennie Weinrib (aka “Len Weinrib”), who supplied the voice of the title character on the 1969 TV series H. R. Pufnstuff (which he also wrote), died in Santiago, Chile, of a stroke on June 28th. As a prolific voice actor, he worked on numerous cartoons featuring the Addams Family, Flintstones, Charlie Chan, Batman and Scooby-Doo (he was the original voice of Scrappy-Doo), as well as Disney’s Bedknobs and Broomsticks. Weinrib also appeared in Roger Corman’s Tales of Terror, The Strongest Man in the World and episodes of TV’s The Twilight Zone, My Favorite Martian, The Munsters and The Man from U.N.C.L.E.
55-year-old American actor Benjamin Hendrickson, who won a Daytime Emmy Award for playing police chief Hal Munson on the soap opera As the World Turns, committed suicide on July 1st by shooting himself in the head. He had apparently been depressed since his mother’s death from cancer in 2003. Hendrickson also appeared in The Demon Murder Case and Manhunter.
80-year-old American actress Kasey Rogers (Josie Imogene Rogers, aka “Laura Elliot”), who played Louise Tate on TV’s Bewitched, died of a stroke on July 6th after a long battle with cancer. She portrayed the murder victim in Alfred Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train, and her other film credits include Two Lost Worlds, When Worlds Collide and My Favorite Spy. A regular on Peyton Place (as “Julie Anderson”), she left the show in 1968 and was cast as the wife of advertising executive Larry Tate in Bewitched. After retiring from acting, she became a motor racing promoter.
Syd Barrett (Roger Keith Barrett), founder of the rock group Pink Floyd, died of diabetes-related symptoms on July 7th, aged 60. Barrett was the lead singer and guitarist of the group until 1968, when an LSD-induced mental breakdown led to him living as a recluse for more than thirty years. He wrote such early hits for the group as “Arnold Layne” and “See Emily Play”, while the Floyd’s songs “Wish You Were Here” and “Shine On You Crazy Diamond” celebrated Barrett’s genius.
1940s Hollywood star June Allyson (Ella Geisman) died after a long illness from pulmonary respiratory failure and acute bronchitis on July 8th, aged 88. A former Broadway chorus dancer, late in her career she appeared in such TV movies as Curse of the Black Widow and The Kid with the Broken Halo, as well as episodes of The Sixth Sense, The Incredible Hulk, Misfits of Science and Airwolf The first of her three marriages was to actor-director Dick Powell, which lasted from 1945 until his death in 1963.
Tony and Emmy Award-winning stage and screen actor Barnard Hughes died after a short illness on July 11th, aged 90. His film credits include Sisters, Rage, Oh God!, Disney’s Tron, Maxie, The Lost Boys and such TV movies as Dr. Cook’s Garden, The Borrowers (1973) and The UFO Incident. He also appeared in episodes of Way Out and Tales from the Darkside.
Swiss-German actor Kurt Kreuger (aka “Knud Kreuger”) often cast as Nazi officers in movies, died of a stroke in Los Angeles on July 12th, aged 89. He appeared in such films as Secret Service in Darkest Africa and The Spider (1945), and during the 1950s he was Twentieth Century-Fox’s third most requested male pin-up. He moved to TV in the 1960s, appearing in episodes of The Man from U.N.C.L.E., The Wild Wild West, Get Smart (“House of Max”) and Wonder Woman, before later becoming a hugely successful Beverly Hills realtor.
American burlesque comedian and Oscar-winning supporting actor Red Buttons (Aaron Chwatt) died of vascular disease on July 13th, aged 87. In a career that spanned seven decades, his credits include Five Weeks in a Balloon, Gay Purr-ee, The Poseidon Adventure (1972), Disney’s Pete’s Dragon, C.H.O.M.P.S., When Time Ran Out, 18 Again!, The Ambulance, the TV movies The New Original Wonder Woman and Alice in Wonderland (1985), and episodes of Suspense and Fantasy Island. Buttons was onstage the night in 1942 New York mayor Fiorello La Guardia ordered the police to close down comedian Billy Minsky’s club, the city’s last burlesque show.
American stage and screen actress Carrie Nye (Carolyn Nye McGeoy) died of lung cancer on July 14th, aged 69. The wife of US talk show host Dick Cavett, she appeared in Creepshow, Too Scared to Scream, Hello Again and the TV movie Screaming Skull.
Veteran character actor Jack Warden (John H. Lebzelter) died on July 19th, aged 85. A former teenage boxer (under the name “Johnny Costello”), he appeared in The White Buffalo, Heaven Can Wait (1978, for which he was nominated for an Oscar), Topper (1979), The Great Muppet Caper, Alice in Wonderland (1985) and episodes of TV’s The Twilight Zone, Bewitched and The Invaders.
Veteran character actor Robert Cornthwaite died on July 20th, aged 89. Best remembered for his roles as various doctors in The Thing from Another World, Monkey Business, The War of the Worlds (1953) and What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, he also appeared in Kiss Me Deadly (uncredited), The Ghost and Mr. Chicken, Colossus: The Forbin Project, The Devil’s Daughter, The Six Million Dollar Man, Futureworld, Time Trackers, Matinee (uncredited), The Naked Monster and episodes of TV’s Men Into Space, Thriller, The Twilight Zone, The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, The Munsters, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Get Smart, Batman (as villain “Alan A. Dale”), Kolchak: The Night Stalker, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, Beauty and the Beast and The Pretender.
Oscar-nominated Japanese-American film and TV actor Mako (Makoto Iwamatsu) died of oesophageal cancer on July 21st, aged 72. He appeared in The Island at the Top of the World, Conan the Barbarian, Conan the Destroyer, RoboCop 3, Highlander III the Sorcerer, Bulletproof Monk and episodes of TV’s I Dream of Jeannie, The Green Hornet, The Time Tunnel, Wonder Woman, Supertrain, The Incredible Hulk, A Man Called Shane, Fantasy Island, Voyagers!, The Greatest American Hero, Faerie Tale Theatre, The Secret Adventures of Jules Verne and Charmed. In 1965 Mako co-founded East West Players, the United States’ first Asian-American theatre company.