(aka House of Death).
Dan Filie, who wrote and produced the 2009 horror comedy Frankenhood, died on 13 January, aged fifty-six. As Senior Vice President for Drama Development for Universal Television in the 1990s, he was instrumental in creating the TV series Hercules and Xena: Warrior Princess.
American music producer and publisher Don (Donald) Kirshner died of heart failure on 17 January, aged seventy-six. During the 1960s, Kirshner helped launch the careers of such songwriters as Carole King, Neil Sedaka and Neil Diamond when he became music supervisor on NBC-TV’s The Monkees, before he was fired when the manufactured group demanded more control. Kirshner went on to work as a music consultant/supervisor on such TV series as Bewitched, I Dream of Jeannie, the animated Archie series (“Sugar Sugar” stayed at #1 in the US for four weeks in 1969), The Amazing Chan and the Chan Clan and the 1976 TV movie The Savage Bees (which he also executive produced). He also produced the rarely-seen 1970 SF musical Toomorrow, directed by Val Guest and starring a young Olivia Newton- John.
Greek-born film and stage costume designer Theoni V. Aldredge (Theoni Athanasiou Vachliotis) died of a heart attack in Stamford, Connecticut, on 21 January, aged eighty-eight. Broadway dimmed its lights to mark her death. The Oscar-winning designer created costumes for such movies as No Way to Treat a Lady, The Fury, Eyes of Laura Mars, The First Deadly Sin, Ghostbusters, Addams Family Values and The Rage: Carrie 2.
Bernd Eichinger, Germany’s most successful movie producer, died of a heart attack while having dinner with family and friends at his home in Los Angeles on 24 January. He was sixty-one. Best known as the producer of Resident Evil and the sequels starring Milla Jovovich, his other film credits include The NeverEnding Story, The Name of the Rose, The Fantastic Four (both the 1994 and 2005 versions), Prince Valiant (1997), The Calling, The Mists of Avalon (based on the novel by Marion Zimmer Bradley), 666: In Bed with the Devil, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (which he also co-scripted from Patrick Suskind’s World Fantasy Award-winning novel) and 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer.
Richard Datin, who headed the team of model-makers that created the Starship USS Enterprise for the original Star Trek TV series (1966–69), died the same day.
American TV director Phil Bondelli died 31 January, aged eighty-three. He directed episodes of The Bionic Woman, The Six Million Dollar Man, Fantasy Island, Blue Thunder and Outlaws.
Producer, director and author Charles E. Sellier, Jr., founder and president of Grizzly Adams Productions, Inc., died the same day, aged sixty-seven. From the early 1970s onwards he produced a string of paranormal documentaries, including The Mysterious Monsters, In Search of Noah’s Ark, The Amazing World of Psychic Phenomena, Beyond and Back, The Bermuda Triangle and Beyond Death’s Door, along with the TV series Encounters with the Unexplained. Sellier also executive produced The Time Machine (1978), The Fall of the House of Usher (1979), Hangar 18, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (1980), Earthbound, The Boogens and Knight Rider 2000, and he directed the Christmas horror movie Silent Night Deadly Night (1984).
Walt Disney animator and director Bill (William) Justice, who joined the studio in 1937 and stayed there for forty-two years, died on 10 February, aged ninety-seven. He began his career as an “in-betweener” on Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) and went on to work as a full animator on such films as Pinocchio, Fantasia, Bambi, The Three Caballeros, The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr Toad (uncredited), Alice in Wonderland and Peter Pan, along with numerous shorts. Although a film of Roald Dahl’s first children’s story, “The Gremlins”, was developed by the studio during World War II, it was eventually abandoned. However, Justice’s concept illustrations were used in the book when it was published in 1943. He directed the opening title sequence for TV’s The Mickey Mouse Club, which premiered in October 1955, and with Disney colleagues T. Hee and Xavier Atencio he created stop-motions scenes for The Shaggy Dog, The Misadventures of Merlin Jones and Mary Poppins. Justice went on to help create the audio-animatronic figures for Disneyland’s Pirates of the Caribbean, Mission to Mars and Haunted Mansion attractions, and he also designed parades and costumes for the theme park. Justice retired in 1979, and his 1992 autobiography was entitled Justice for Disney. He was named a Disney Legend in 1996.
British TV producer and director Paul [Coryn Valentine] Lucas died of cancer on 13 February, aged fifty-five. Best known for his work on the award-winning Prime Suspect series, he also directed two episodes of the BBC’s Murder Rooms: The Dark Beginnings of Sherlock Holmes and the 2000 movie After Alice (aka Eye of the Killer).
American exploitation film producer, director and screenwriter David F. (Frank) Friedman died of heart failure on 14 February, aged eighty-seven. He had lost his hearing and eyesight almost a decade before. He began his career in the early 1960s with business partner Herschell Gordon Lewis making “nudie-cuties”, before the pair moved on to horror with the infamous Blood Feast (1963). Made for just $24,500, the “first splatter film” went on to make millions. The pioneering pair followed it up with the equally gory Two Thousand Maniacs! and Color Me Blood Red, and Friedman’s numerous other cult credits include She Freak, Space- Thing, The Erotic Adventures of Siegfried, The Adult Version of Jekyll & Hyde and Ilsa: She-Wolf of the SS. He was credited as executive producer on the more recent Blood Feast 2: All U Can Eat, 2001 Maniacs, Crustacean (featuring writer Peter Atkins) and 2001 Maniacs: Field of Screams. Friedman’s fun 1990 autobiography was titled A Youth in Babylon: Confessions of a Trash-Film King.
Thirty-nine-year-old Perry Moore (William Perry Moore IV), who was an executive producer on The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and its two sequels, Prince Caspian and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, died from an apparent drug overdose on 17 February, after being found unconscious in his New York apartment. Moore was also chosen by the C. S. Lewis estate to write the Official Illustrated Movie Companion to the first film. In 2009 he produced the TV documentary Tell Them Anything You Want: A Portrait of Maurice Sendak. As a response to how gay characters were depicted in the comic book industry, Moore wrote the award-winning YA novel Hero (2007), about a teenage superhero struggling with his sexual orientation. He was voted People Magazine’s “Sexy Man of the Week” in the 19 November 2007 issue.
Hollywood press agent turned movie producer Walter Seltzer died on 18 February, aged ninety-six. His credits include The War Lord, The Omega Man and Soylent Green, all starring his friend Charlton Heston.
American former assistant director and production manager Scott Adam was killed, along with his wife and another couple, on 22 February, several days after their yacht had been hijacked by Somali pirates in the Gulf of Aden. Adam worked in various capacities on The Savage Bees, Day of the Animals, The Evil, The Goonies and episodes of the original V TV series before he began sailing around the world performing missionary work.
American film producer and director Gary Winick died of a brain tumour on 27 February, aged forty-nine. A pioneer in digital film-making, he found commercial success with such films as 13 Going on 30 and the 2006 remake of Charlotte’s Web.
British-born film and television director Charles Jarrott died of cancer in Los Angeles on 4 March. He was eighty-three. Jarrot’s credits include the 1968 TV movie of The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll
