Former child actress and model J. Madison Wright [Morris] died of a heart attack the same day, aged 21. She had just returned from her honeymoon. Mostly known for her TV work, her first major role was playing True Danziger in the NBC-TV series Earth 2 (1994–95). After an X-ray revealed she had an enlarged heart and she was diagnosed with restrictive cardiomyopathy, Morris had a heart transplant in 2000.
Classical music composer and teacher Dika Newlin, who later became an actress and unlikely punk rock performer, died on July 22nd, aged 82. A singer and keyboard player with the alternative rock band Apocowlypso in the 1980s, she composed the music for the horror film Mark of the Devil 666: The Moralist and appeared in the 1995 movie Creep.
British professional jockey turned film stuntman Mick Dillon died on July 23rd, aged 80. In 1961, Dillon and two other stuntmen took turns wearing the monster suit for Gorgo. He also played one of the deadly plants in The Day of the Triffids (1963) and was inside a Dalek for Dr Who and the Daleks.
52-year-old Michael Sellers, the son of British actor Peter, died of a heart attack on July 24th, twenty-six years to the day after his father died of the same condition at the age of 54. The first child of the actor’s marriage to actress Anne Howe, Michael Sellers was left virtually penniless following his father’s death and he subsequently wrote the biographies PS I Love You (1981) and Sellers On Sellers (with Gary Morecambe, 2000).
Johnny Weissmuller, Jr, the son of the Olympic swimmer famous for his movie portrayal of Tarzan in the 1930s and ’40s, died of cancer on July 27th, aged 65. A former US Navy underwater demolition expert, the six-foot, six-inch actor appeared in a number of TV shows and movies, including George Lucas’ THX 1138 and Ewoks: The Battle for Endor. He co-authored the biography Tarzan: My Father with Bill Reed.
Square-jawed leading British actor and “King of the Voice-Overs” Patrick Allen (John Keith Patrick Allen) died on July 28th, aged 79. Born in the British protectorate of Nyasaland (now Malawi), he grew up in Canada and America before arriving back in the UK in 1953, where he got a small role in Alfred Hitchcock’s Dial M for Murder. He starred as the eponymous adventurer in the 1963 TV series Crane, and his other film credits include 1984 (1956), Hammer’s Never Take Sweets from a Stranger, Captain Clegg (aka Night Creatures) and When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth, The Night of the Generals, Night of the Big Heat (aka Island of the Burning Damned), The Body Stealers (aka Thin Air) and Persecution (aka The Terror of Sheba). His also re-voiced Leon Greene’s character “Rex” in Hammer’s The Devil Rides Out. On TV Allen appeared in episodes of Out of This World, The Avengers, Journey Into Darkness, The Champions, Journey to the Unknown, U.F.O., Thriller and The Return of Sherlock Holmes (as “Colonel Sebastian Moran”). His distinctive gravel-voice was used by the Ministry of Defence on twenty “Protect and Survive” videos, to be shown on TV in the event of a nuclear attack, and these were sampled by Frankie Goes to Hollywood for their #1 single “Two Tribes”. He was married to actress Sarah Lawson since 1960.
57-year-old Kim McLagan (Patsy Kerrigan, aka “Kim Kerrigan”), a swinging ’60s London fashion model and the former wife (1966–75) of The Who drummer Keith Moon (who died of a drug overdose in 1978), was killed in Texas on August 2nd when she apparently jumped a stop sign in her car and was hit by a truck. In 1978 she married Small Faces keyboard player Ian McLagan.
British wrestler turned actor Ken Richmond died 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” Alderson died 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 Suzuoki died of lung cancer on August 6th, aged 56.
Hollywood “B” movie actress [Laura] Lois January died 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”).