Incredible Hulk.
American character actor John Clark died on 9 September, aged ninety-five. He appeared in The Light at the Edge of the World, Graveyard of Horror (aka Necrophagus), The Time Guardian and The Lords of Magick.
Oscar-winning American leading man Cliff Robertson (Clifford Parker Robertson) died on 10 September, the day after his eighty-eighth birthday. He won an Academy Award for his starring role in Charley (1968). Based on the novel by Daniel Keyes, it had previously been filmed for TV in 1965 with Robertson again in the lead role. However, the actor’s attempts to get a sequel made some years later only resulted in around fifteen minutes of promotional footage. His other film credits include Man on a Swing, Brian De Palma’s Obsession, Dominique (aka Dominique is Dead), Brainstorm (1983), Dead Reckoning, Escape from L.A., 13th Child, Riding the Bullet (based on the novel by Stephen King) and Spider-Man (2002) and its two sequels (as “Ben Parker”), along with episodes of Rod Brown of the Rocket Rangers (in the title role), The Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits (1963 and 1999) and Batman (as cowboy villain “Shame”). Robertson was instrumental in exposing the major fraud that brought down Columbia Pictures executive David Begelman in the 1970s, but his own career suffered as a result. His marriages to actresses Cynthia Stone and Dina Merrill both ended in divorce.
Thirty-nine-year-old Welsh-born actor Andy Whitfield, who portrayed the title character in the Starz TV series Spartacus: Blood and Sand (2010), died in his home country of Australia on 11 September. He had been battling non-Hodgkins Lymphoma since being diagnosed in March 2010. A former building inspector and model, he also starred in the horror movies Gabriel and The Clinic.
Petite Canadian-born character actress Frances Bay (Frances Goffman) died in California on 15 September, aged ninety-two. She made her belated screen debut in 1978, and went on to appear in such movies as Topper (1979), The Attic, Double Exposure, Nomads, Blue Velvet, Big Top Pee-wee, Arachnophobia, The Pit and the Pendulum (1991), Critters 3, Grave Secrets: The Legacy of Hilltop Drive, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me, Single White Female, The Neighbor, In the Mouth of Madness, Disney’s Inspector Gadget, and Ring Around the Rosie (aka Fear Itself: Dark Memories). The actress’ prolific TV credits include episodes of Faerie Tale Theatre, Amazing Stories, Alien Nation, ALF, Tales from the Crypt, Twin Peaks (as “Mrs Tremond”), Quantum Leap, The X Files, Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction, Charmed and Cavemen.
American photographic model-turned-actress Norma Eberhardt died of complications from a stroke on 16 September, aged eighty-two. She co-starred in the 1958 film The Return of Dracula (aka The Fantastic Disappearing Man).
Eton-educated character actor Jonathan Cecil (Jonathan Hugh Gascoyne-Cecil), who usually portrayed upper-class English characters in films and on television, died of pneumonia on 22 September, aged seventy-two. Best known for portraying “Captain Arthur Hastings” in three 1980s TV movies starring Peter Ustinov as Hercule Poirot, he also appeared in Hammer’s Lust for a Vampire and TV versions of Alice Through the Looking Glass (1973), Gulliver in Lilliput (1982) and Alice in Wonderland (1986).
Mexican comedian and singer Gaspar Henaine [Perez], better known as “Capulina” to his many fans, died from pneumonia on 30 September, aged eighty-five. In a career spanning five decades, he appeared in numerous films, including Se los chupo la bruja, Los invisibles, Santo contra Capulina, Capulina contra los vampiros, El terror de Guanajuato and Capulina contra los monstruos.
Grizzled American character actor Charles Napier died on 5 October, aged seventy-five. He made his full-frontal screen debut in Russ Meyer’s sex comedy Cherry Harry & Raquel! , and also appeared in the director’s Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, The Seven Minutes and Supervixens. Napier went on to appear in Wacko, The Night Stalker (1987), Body Count, Deep Space, The Incredible Hulk Returns, Alien from the Deep, Dragonfight, Future Zone, Maniac Cop 2, The Silence of the Lambs, Frogtown II, Eyes of the Beholder, Body Bags, Skeeter, Ripper Man, Alien Species, The Cable Guy, Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery, Steel, Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, Pirates of the Plain, Nutty Professor II: The Klumps, Dinocroc, The Machurian Candidate (2004) and One-Eyed Monster. Along with supplying voices to numerous cartoon series, on TV the actor also appeared in the original Star Trek, Starsky and Hutch (“Satan’s Witches”), The Incredible Hulk, Knight Rider, Tales of the Gold Monkey, Outlaws, The New Adventures of Superman, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Roswell High, The Legend of Tarzan and The 4400. He also reportedly supplied the growls for the final two seasons of TV’s The Incredible Hulk.
Striking Australian actress Diane Cilento died after a long illness on 7 October, aged seventy-seven. She left her second husband, James Bond actor Sean Connery, after eleven years for playwright Anthony Shaffer while starring in The Wicker Man (1973). After roles in the BBC’s A Tomb with a View (1951) and the 1952 short All Hallowe’en, Cilento appeared in Meet Mr Lucifer, The Angel Who Pawned Her Harp and Z.P.G. (aka Zero Population Growth), along with episodes of Late Night Horror (“The Kiss of Blood”), Thriller (“Spell of Evil”) and in a recurring role on the children’s series Halfway Across the Galaxy and Turn Left. She also reportedly doubled for Mia Hama in a swimming scene in the Bond film You Only Live Twice.
Bulgarian-born British character actor and writer George Baker MBE, who starred as “Chief Inspector Wexford” in ITV’s The Ruth Rendell Mysteries (1987–2000), died of pneumonia after a recent stroke the same day. He was eighty. Baker’s other credits include such films as Sword of Lancelot (aka Lancelot and Guinevere), Curse of the Fly, the James Bond adventures On Her Majesty’s Secret Service and The Spy Who Loved Me, The Canterville Ghost (1987) and Back to the Secret Garden, along with episodes of The Prisoner (as the “New Number Two”), Doomwatch, Zodiac, Survivors (1975), Doctor Who (“Full Circle”), Robin of Sherwood, Johnny and the Dead (based on the book by Terry Pratchett) and Randall and Hopkirk {Deceased} (2001). Creator Ian Fleming had apparently wanted the actor to play James Bond on the screen. Baker’s third wife, actress Louie Ramsay, died in March at the age of eighty-one.
American actor and musician David [Alexander] Hess, who starred in and additionally composed the soundtrack for Wes Craven’s infamous psycho thriller The Last House on the Left, died on 8 October, aged sixty-nine. He also appeared in The House on the Edge of the Park, Swamp Thing, Body Count, Zombie Nation, Zodiac Killer, The Absence of Light, Fallen Angels and Smash Cut, along with episodes of TV’s Knight Rider and Manimal. Hess also directed the 1980 slasher film To All a Goodnight. In the late 1950s he had a music-recording career under the name “David Hill”. He wrote a number of songs recorded by Elvis Presley, as well as “Speedy Gonzalez”, which was a #1 hit for Pat Boone.
Dependable American actor Alan Fudge died of lung and liver cancer on 10 October, aged seventy-seven. His movies include Bug, Capricorn One, Are You in the House Alone? The Golden Gate Murders, Goliath Awaits, Brainstorm (1983), Chiller, My Demon Lover, I Saw What You Did (1988), Nightmare on the 13th Floor, Edward Scissorhands, Galaxis and Shark Swarm. Fudge played “C. W. Crawford” on the 1977–78 TV series Man from Atlantis, and he also appeared in episodes of Ghost Story, Wonder Woman, The
