2005 OBITUARIES ARCHIVE

CONSTANCE CUMMINGS (95, 23 November 2005). The beautiful Constance Cummings, born in Seattle, followed a remarkable career trajectory. From being a Broadway chorus girl she was brought to Hollywood in 1931 by Sam Goldwyn, but after her marriage to the British playwright Benn Levy (1900-1973) revealed herself an actress of formidable gifts and remarkable variety, from drawing room comedy to the classics, from Juliet to Lysistrata. Perhaps her most memorable stage creations however were Martha in WHO’S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF and Mary Tyrone in LONG DAY’S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT. She continued to act on stage or television until her late 70s.
In Hollywood her three best films were all made in the same year, 1932 – Frank Capra’s AMERICAN MADNESS, Harold Lloyd’s MOVIE CRAZY and NIGHT AFTER NIGHT. With the start of the Second World War she made her home permanently in Britain. Among the comparatively infrequent roles she played there, perhaps the best was the living wife (as against the ghostly first wife played by Kay Hammond) in David Lean’s film of Noel Coward’s BLITHE SPIRIT. Her last film appearances were in THE INTIMATE STRANGER, directed by the black-listed Joseph Losey under the name Joseph Walton, Charles Crichton’s THE BATTLE OF THE SEXES (which gave her a rich comic role as an odious American efficiency expert), Alexander McKendrick’s SAMMY GOING SOUTH (1963) and Robert Stevens IN THE COOL OF THE DAY (1963). Her marriage to Benn Levy lasted for 40 years, until his death.

DAVID HOLLAND (70, 14 November 2005). The founder and from 1991 to 1999 the director of the Lone Pine Film Festival, David Holland was a dedicated historian of American Western films. His exploration of their history and original locations resulted in his books "Out of the Past: A Pictorial History of the Lone Ranger" and "On Location in Lone Pine". He was a former journalist, press agent and film production manager.

AVRIL ANGERS (87, 8 November 2005). An attractive and popular comedienne and singer on the British stage (from 1936), radio (from 1944) and television (from 1946) until 1997, when she was still appearing in the tv series COMMON AS MUCK, the Liverpool-born Avril Angers was never properly appreciated by the British cinema. The score of films in which she appeared between 1948 and 1946 were mostly negligible and her own parts unrewarding. The most prestigioous films in which she is seen in small supporting roles were Roy Boultin’s THE FAMILY WAY (1966) and Stanley Donen’s STAIRCASE.

SHEREE NORTH (72, 4 November 2005). One of the last sparkling blonde hoofers of the classic musical era, Sheree North’s early life was the stuff of show-business romance. Born Dawn Bethel, the daughter of an unmarried Los Angeles seamstress, she was dancing in public at 10 married at 15 and at 18 had a bit part in a Roy Rowland MGM musical EXCUSE MY DUST. She was spotted and given a featured jitterbug routine in the Broadway musical HAZEL FLAGG. Based on William Wellman.s NOTHING SACRED, this was turned into a Martin and Lewis vehicle, LIVING IT UP (1954), with Sheree North reprising the success of her original stage spot. In 1954 she was signed by Twentieth Century-Fox, looking for a successor to their increasingly difficult star Marilyn Monroe. She starred in a succession of musicals at Fox, starting with HOW TO BE VER, VERY POPULAR, which Monroe had turned down; though she seemed always in the legendary star’s shadow. By the end of her Fox contract in 1958 North’s first sparkle had faded, but she moved easily into dramatic roles, often playing women in one way or another down on their luck. Twice she worked with Don Siegel, in Madigan and Charlie Varrick; and she continued gamely playing in supporting roles until 1998 (John Landis’s SUSAN’S PLAN).

LLOYD BOCHNER (81, 29 October 2005). Toronto-born Lloyd Bochner enjoyed a long career, mostly playing sleek, smooth-talking villains. Among his most prominent film roles were his appearances in POINT BLANK (1967), THE DETECTIVE (1967) and TONY ROME (1968). The best-remembered of his numerous tv appearances were his stint in DYNASTY (1981-2) as Cecil Colby and the celebrated “To Serve Man” episode of THE TWILIGHT ZONE (1962). In 1998 he was a co-founder of the Committee to End Violence, to combat the escalation of violence in popular film and television.

FRANK WILSON (81, 24 October 2005). Frank Wilson was a busy actor in Australian films and television from his debut, in Leslie Norman’s SUMMER OF THE SEVENTEENTH DOLL (1950) practically until his death. His last feature film was Paul Moloney’s CRACKERJACK; and just before his death he was named Best Actor in a Short Film (for Alexander Murawski’s THE CHESS SET) at the New York Film and Video Festival. Born in Northcote, Melbourne, Wilson left school at 13, and at 19 joined the Australian army, seeing service in Papua New Guinea and Borneo. He started his acting career AT THE Tivoli Theatre, Melbourne, in 1948, and in the cinema his major breakthrough, after a number of roles, came when he reprised his original stage role in David Williamson’s THE CLUB in Bruce Beresford’s film adaptation. Earlier, he had appeared in a supporting role in Beresford’s BREAKER MORANT. Wilson featured In more than 40 television series.

WILLIAM HOOTKINS (57, 23 October 2005). For more than thirty years and in more than seventy films Hootkins’ impressive figure was anonymously familiar in supporting roles, though he achieved a certain cult reputation as Red Six in STAR WARS. Born in Dallas he went to school with Tommy Lee Perkins. At Princeton he read astrophysics and oriental studies; then transferred permanently to London, where he studied at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. On stage he achieved late recognition in 2003 in the role of Alfred Hitchcock in HITCHCOCK BLONDE at the Royal Court and Lyric Hammersmith. Hootkins’ last illness forestalled a planned Broadway production

WOLF RILLA (85, 19 October 2005). The son of Walter Rilla, a busy actor in German films from 1922, Wolf Rilla was taken to Britain by his parents in the mid-30s, when life in Berlin became perilous for artists and others of Jewish descent. After Cambridge, he joined the German section of the BBC World Service, but in 1952 turned to film-making, helped by the setting up of Group 3, an enterprise overseen by John Grierson, Michael Balcon and John Baxter to make possible the production of low-budget films by new directors. Between 1953 and 1963 he directed a score of mostly indifferent films. THE SCAMP (1957), BACHELOR OF HEARTS (1948) and above all his now cult adaptation of John Wyndham’s “The Midwich Cuckoos”, VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED (1960) are the only ones now remembered. After a decade’s gap he returned to film direction with the forgettable SECRETS OF A DOOR TO DOOR SALESMAN (1973) and BEDTIME WITH ROSIE (1974). Throughout this time he continued to work for television, and was the BBC’s first drama script editor.. He was a notable teacher and published the influential “A-Z of Movie Making. He also wrote six novels. Rilla spent his last years as a hotelier in the South of France.

MILDRED SHAY (91, 18 October 2005). Mildred Shay’s career was remarkable for the attention she attracted even though practically all her 39 appearances in films were walk-ons, mostly uncredited. Professionally, her high moments were dubbing Greta Garbo in GRAND HOTEL (1932) and playing Joan Crawford’s maid in George Cukor’s THE WOMEN (1939). But her freely-shared reminiscences included tales of seduction by many of the great names of Hollywood, including Roy Rogers, Johnny Weissmuller, Louis B.Mayer, Cecil B.DeMille, Erroll Flynn and Victor Mature. She was indefatigable, and in her 90s was only too glad to raise her skirts to display a still-well-shaped thigh. The daughter of a lawyer, whose Hollywood connexions gave her entrée to the film business, for most of her life she made her home in London. She died however – as she might well have wished - in Glendale, California, while visiting her daughter Georgiana Steele there.

GORDON LEE (71, 16 October 2005). GORDON LEE (71, 16 October 2005). As Eugene “Porky” Lee, he was a member of “Our Gang” in the sound period of the long-running (1922-1944) series of shorts, featuring a mischievous gang of boys and always a little girl for love interest. Lee played Porky, the younger sibling of Spunky McFarland in 42 shorts between 1935 and 1939,, including BORED OF EDUCATION, which took an Oscar for Best One-Reel Short in 1937. Porky’s mispronunciation of “otay” for “OK” became a catch-word; while his on-screen friendship with Buckwheat, the black member of the gang, exemplified the progressively humane outlook of the series, invented and produced by Hal Roach. Lee retired at 6, and after graduating from the University of Houston, became a history teacher. The diminutive Porky moreover grew to a handsome 190cm height and grew a beard.

SERGIO CITTI (72, 11 October 2005). The Citti brothers, Sergio and Franco, came from the Roman slums, and were befriended by Pier Paolo Pasolini in the early 1950s. When Pasolini made his first film, ACCATTONE, in 1961, the 26-year-old Franco played the title role and Sergio, two years older, contributed to the low-life Roman dialogue. This launched a career for both of them. Franco appeared in more than half a dozen more films with Pasolini and has worked in more than forty films for other directors. Sergio remained a loyal collaborator as writer and assistant, right up to Pasolini’s last notorious film SALO which was apparently based on Franco’s own idea. Meanwhile he was launched as a director in his own right with OSTIA (1970) based on Pasolini’s own part-autobiographical script, and set on the Ostia beaches, where Pasolini was to be murdered in 1976. Citti wrote for other directors, but as writer-director developed a characteristic style of sardonic Roman humour, to the evident in his best films such as STORIE SCELLERATE (BAWDY TALES, 1972) CASOTTO (1972), which had Jodie Foster in the cast, and I MAGI RANDAGGI (THE ROVING MAGI, 1997). In May 2005, despite failing health which confined him to a wheelchair, he appealed unsuccessfully for a reopend inquiry into Pasolini’s killing.

TOM SCHWALM (62, 9 October 2005). Born in Germany and a philosophy graduate from Frankfurt and Tubingen, Tom Schwalb, working in London, became a film editor of rare taste and talent. A founder-director of Films of Record, he inherited the challenges of new approaches to documentary evolved in the 1950s and 1960s thanks to television and the infinitely more mobile film cameras that were first introduced at that time. Terms of those times like “cinema-vérité” and “fly-on-the-wall” are often taken to imply loose and undisciplined deployment of material: Schwalm was notable for extracting the fundamental essence from a situation or a character captured on film. Although most of his work was in television documentary, he also edited THE SECRET POLICEMAN’S BALL and the successive Anmesty-supporting comedy compilation, revealing an equally acute appreciation of comedy.

John Brabourne (80, 23 September 2005). John Ulick Knatchbull succeeded to the title of Lord Brabourne in 1943, when his elder brother was killed in action. Having served in the war as ADC to Lord Mountbatten, in 1946 he married Mountbatten’s daughter Patricia. Fascinated by films, he entered the industry as a production manager for Herbert Wilcox, and later worked for Danny Angel. His own first production was HARRY BLACK (1958) followed by SINK THE BISMARCK (1960) and HMS DEFIANT (1962). A pioneer pay-tv enterprise resulted in a series of filmed theatre productions, OTHELLO (1965), THE MIKADO (1966), THE DANCE OF DEATH (1969). The taste for literature – popular as well as classic - persisted in ROMEO AND JULIET (1968, directed by Franco Zeffirelli), TALES OF BEATRIX POTTER (1971), MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS (1974), DEATH ON THE NILE (1978), THE MIRROR CRACK’D (1980) A PASSAGE TO INDIA (1984, directed by David Lean) and LITTLE DORRIT (1987). Brabourne was active in the creation of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, and was able to use his royal connections to persuade the Queen to contribute to the new organisation her fee for appearing in a documentary, THE ROYAL FAMILY. Brabourne was on Lord Mountbatten’s yacht when it was blown up by the IRA in 1979: he and his wife were injured and his mother and a young son died along with Mountbatten himself.

RICHARD CUNHA (84, 18 September 2005). In the brief era from 1958 to 1962, Richard Cunha was the Ed Wood of exploitation horror. His features were made on derisory budgets, with stories that were vaguely familiar from somewhere else, paste-board sets, props dredged from studio throw-outs, unknown casts, terrible prosthetics and lightly clad girls. Trained as a photographer, Cunha became a film maker with the US army air-force, and after the war set up his own company to make industrial films, progressing to make some of the first tv commercials and westerns. His run of schlock horror began in 1958 with SHE DEMONS (1958) and continued with GIANT FROM THE UNKNOWN (1958), MISSILE TO THE MOON (1958) and FRANKENSTEIN’S DAUGHTER (1958). Growing more ambitious, he used name stars, Brian Donlevy in GIRL IN ROOM 13 (1961) and Jayne Mansfield (pregnant) in DOG EAT DOT (1964). When the more costly films proved commercially disastrous, Cunha quietly returned to commercials production.

TOMMY "BUTCH" BOND (79, 16 September 2005). As a chubby, attractive child, Bond was a regular in Hal Roach’s later OUR GANG series, from 1932 to 1940. He acquired his definitive persona of “Butch”, the bully-menace of the Gang, in 1937. He was also greatly in demand for “brat” roles in the comedy shorts of Laurel and Hardy, Charley Chase, Andy Clyde and Thelma Todd; and in 1939 played in the three feature films in the FIVE LITTLE PEPPERS series. He continued to act until 1951 (his last films BEDTIME FOR BONZO and CALL ME MISTER) and was Jimmy Olsen in the 1948 SUPERMAN serial and its successor, ATOM MAN VERSUS SUPERMAN (1950). Subsequently he graduated in Theatre Arts at Los Angeles State College, and went on to be a property master and stage manager in television.
Bond’s son, Thomas R.Bond II (born 1964) was a precocious radio broadcaster, hosting his own show at 13 and eventually being nominated as a UNICEF ambassador to the UN. A tremendous film buff, influenced by Mervyn Leroy and Frank Capra, he acquired the 80-year-inactive American Mutoscope and Bioscope Company, and has embarked on two ill-fated feature films. CLINGAN’S JUNCTION, a Civil War dramw, was halted by a fire, in which his Grandmother and Aunt were injured. The second, BOB’S NIGHT OUT (2004) stars his father Tommy “Butch” Bond as “The Crazy Neighbour” and features an appearance by the 95-year-old Anita Page. A massive car crash in the course of production however resulted in severe injuries to his parents and aunt; and the film appears never to have been released..

SIDNEY (SID) LUFT (89, 15 September 2005). Sidney (Sid) Luft is best-known as the one-time husband of Judy Garland and step-father of Liza Minelli. His first encounter with films was as producer of two low-hudget oddities, KILROY WAS HERE (1947) and FRENCH LEAVE (1948), which co-starred the former child stars Jackie Coogan and Jackie Cooper and also featured other former boy stars, Robert Coogan and Dick Winslow. His marriage to Judy Garland in 1952 gave him a new career, as producer of A STAR IS BORN (1954) as well as two Judy Garland television spectaculars, for General Electric Theater (1953) and Ford Star Jubilee (1955). In 1997 he produced a television documentary, JUDY GARLAND’S HOLLYWOOD.
Luft and Garland had two children, Lorna (born 1952) and Joey (born 1955), but divorced in 1965, with Garland charging Luft with physical abuse and drunkenness. Luft married twice more, to Patti Hemingway (1970, divorced) and to Camille Keaton (1993). In later years Luft was barred by a Los Angeles district judge from selling the replacement Juvenile Oscar Judy Garland received for THE WIZARD OF OZ; and in 2002 was ordered to pay nearly $60,000 to The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in settlement for their lawsuit against him for repeatedly trying to sell the statuette. Jack L.Warner is reputed to have said of Luft, "He's one of the original guys who promised his parents he'd never work a day in his life - and made good."

GUY GREEN (91, 15 September 2005). Guy Green was an outstanding cinematographer who became a competent, busy but generally undistinguished director. He worked his way from clapper-boy to camera operator, in which capacity he made an auspicious beginning by working in succession on ONE OF OUR AIRCRAFT IS MISSING (1942), IN WHICH WE SERVE (1942), THIS HAPPY BREED (1944) and THE WAY TO THE STARS (1945). He was cinematographer on THE WAY AHEAD (1944), but did his most extraordinary and most memorable work – superb black-and-white chiaroscuro - on David Lean’s Dickens adaptations, GREAT EXPECTATIONS (1946) and OLIVER TWIST (1948). Later notable assignments were CAPTAIN HORATIO HORNBLOWER (1951), THE BEGGAR’S OPERA (1953) and I AM A CAMERA (1955). He began his career as director with RIVER BEAT (1954). While sheltering from a sandstorm during the filming of his 1958 SEA OF SAND, he, Michael Craig and Richard Attenborough conceived the idea of THE ANGRY SILENCE (1960), produced by Attenborough and Bryan Forbes’ own company, Beaver Films, and perhaps Green’s best work as director. Green, Attenborough, Forbes, Jack Hawkins, Michael Relph and Basil Dearden went on to form a new company, Allied Film Makers. Few of Green’s later films were memorable; and after his last feature production DES TEUFELS ADVOKAT (1977) he embarked on a successful career directing television films in California, where he maintained a home, as well as in Britain.

ROBERT WISE (91, 14 September 2005). Throughout his career Robert Wise was associated, in different capacities, with films that went down to history. His first job in Hollywood was as an uncredited sound effects editor at RKO: in 1934-5, just turned 20, he was responsible in this role for THE GAY DIVORCE, TOP HAT and THE INFORMER. He then became a film editor: an early assignment was THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME, but his role on CITIZEN KANE and THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS brought him greater and lasting celebrity. He launced his career as director in his own right with one of the great horror classics, THE CURSE OF THE CAT PEOPLE (1944) and in 1949 directed a no-less classic film noir, centred on boxing, THE SET-UP, based on the poem by Joseph Moncure March. He was to make another boxing picture in 1956, SOMEBODY UP THERE LIKES ME, based on the autobiography of Rocky Graziano. Altogether Wise directed forty films, climaxing with the enormous popular successes of WEST SIDE STORY (1961) and THE SOUND OF MUSIC (1965), both of which he also produced. A subsequent musical, STAR (1968) had less success, though in 1979 he enjoyed another box-office hit with STAR TREK:THE MOVIE. Ten years after this he returned to the screen with a low-budget, off-beat film ROOFTOPS (1989), which had poor critical reception and little distribution. In 2000, already 86 years of age, he directed his first production for television, Rod Serling’s A STORM IN SUMMER. Wise also produced the Academy Awards in 1971 and 1985, and made a single appearance as an actor, playing Stanley’s neighbour in THE STUPIDS (1996)

TERENCE MORGAN (83, 25 August 2005). Terence Morgan never really topped his debut, as a virile and handsome Laertes to Laurence Olivier’s HAMLET (1948). The British cinema of the 1950s offered few opportunities and after his debut as a glamorous romantic lead, he more and more tended to be typed in sinister characters.
The nephew of the small-part actor Verne Morgan, Terence Ivan Grant Morgan was born in Lewisham, England, on 8 December 1921. He began his career as a clerk in Lloyds, but left to take up a scholarship at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. HAMLET was a promising debut, and a supporting role in a runaway Hollywood production CAPTAIN HORATIO HORNBLOWER (1952) also seemed a harbinger of better things, but Morgan was more and more stuck with cad roles, including the unsympathetic fathers of Mandy Miller in MANDY (1953) and DANCE LITTLE LADY (1955). ALWAYS A BRIDE (1954) and THE MARCH HARE (1955) revealed a flair for light comedy that was sadly never pursued. Morgan, 40 and bearded, enjoyed a sudden late success as the title star of the 1961-62 tv series THE ADVENTURES OF SIR FRANCIS DRAKE, but after that, film parts were rew and unrewarding. His screen career ended with THE LIFETAKER (1975). Otherwise Morgan, a lover of the sea, seemed happier to live quietly with his family (his marriage lasted almost sixty years, to his death), in Hove, England, where he ran a small hotel and later worked as a property developer.

TONINO DELLI COLLI (82, 17 August 2005). Tonino Delli Colli's career as cinematographer spanned sixty years during which he worked with some of the greatest Italian directors of the century - Fellini, Rossellini, Leone, Pasolini - as well as major European directors like Louis Malle and Roman Polanski. In 1960, although already a highly-paid cinematographer in commercial films, he agreed to shoot Pasolini's first, low-budget feature ACCATTONE, starting a partnership that continued throughout the rest of Pasolini's career. He had an equally fruitful creative association with Leone, giving the characteristic look to the classic spaghetti westerns. In 1997 he shot Roberto Begnini's Oscar-winning LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL. Last year the American Society of Cinematographers honoured Delli Colli with a life achievement award.

FRANCES LANGFORD (91, 8 August 2005). Born in Florida and known as “The Florida Thrush”, her ambitions to be an opera singer were cut short by a teenage throat operation. Discovered by Rudy Vallee, who heard her on a local radio show at 16, she made her film debut in a music short in 1932 but had her first featured number in BROADWAY MELODY OF 1936 (1935, director Roy Del Ruth). In the next two decades she appeared in 27 more films, her last THE GLENN MILLER STORY in 1954. The peak of her popularity was during the war years when she appeared in a string of cheerful, low-budget musicals, with a memorable appearance alongside James Cagney in Michael Curtiz’s YANKEE DOODLE DANDY in 1942. She had a continuing career on radio, and was famous in the war years also for her demanding tront-line tours entertaining the troops, often in company with Bob Hope. She achieved extra fame when, against all military rules, she hitched a lift in a P38 fighter which, with Langford aboard, went into action against a Japanese ship.

ALEXANDER GOLITZEN (97, 26 July 2005). The last of the legendary Hollywood designers, Alexander Golitzen was born in Moscow and emigrated with his family to the United States after the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. In 1933 he arrived in Hollywood where his first work was as an illustrator on QUEEN CHRISTINA, designed by another Russian emigre, Alexander Toluboff. Soon Golitzen was an art director in his own right, and in 1943 earned his first Oscar nomination for Hitchcock's FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT. The following year he won an Oscar for THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA. He went on to garner a total of 14 Academy Award nominations and three Oscars - the others for SPARTACUS and TO KILL A MOCKING BIRD. In his 40-year career he designed hundreds of films, in bewildering variety, ranging from ABBOTT AND COSTELLO GO TO MARS to THOROUGHLY MODERN MILLIE and SWEET CHARITY. He was a favourite of Clint Eastwood, with whom he worked on PLAY MISTY FOR ME, COOGAN'S BLUFF and, his last assignment, BREEZY.

JAMES DOOHAN (85, 20 July 2005). The original creator of STAR TREK’s “Scotty”, who reprised his TV role in the 1979 film version and is immortalised in the phrase “Beam me up, Scotty”, was born in Vancouver in 1920. Doohan turned to acting after war service with the Canadian army, and won a scholarship to New York’s Neighbourhood Playhouse. As an actor specialising in dialects, it was his idea to give chief engineer Montgomery Scott a hibernian accent when he was engaged by NBC for the 1966 TV sci-fi series.
Space Services Inc., a Houston firm that specializes in space memorials, plans to send some of Doohan's ashes into space, as they did with the remains of STAR TREK’s creator Gene Roddenberry who died in 1991.

GAVIN LAMBERT (80, 17 July 2005). Gavin Lambert first made his mark as co-editor, with Peter Ericson and the future director Lindsay Anderson, of the magazine Sequence. Their castigation of a weary post-war British cinema, and fresh enthusiasm for popular American cinema marked a revolution in British film criticism, bogged down in veneration for the European “classics”. In 1949 Lambert was appointed editor of the venerable Sight and Sound, which, with the help of his Sequence allies, he transformed into a vital and militant force in British cinema. In 1955 he directed his first film Another Sky. Soon afterwards he moved to Hollywood to work as writer and assistant to Nicholas Ray, with whom – as he revealed in his 2000 book “Mainly About Lindsay Anderson” – he had a brief love affair. After work on Ray’s BITTER VICTORY, subsequent Hollywood scripts included THE ROMAN SPRING OF MRS STONE and INSIDE DAISY CLOVER, from his own Hollywood-based novel. In Britain he collaborated with the veteran writer T.E.B.Clarke on the Oscar-nominated script of Jack Clayton’s SONS AND LOVERS (1960). In 1964 he became a naturalised American citizen.

Lambert was a writer who combined intellectual brilliance, exquisite style and a phenomenal knowledge of film history. His books, notably “The Slide Area - Scenes of Hollywood Life” and “Inside Daisy Clover” are Hollywood classics, chronicling the glamour, absurdity and poignancy of life in the film capital, and its casualties. The same qualities are evident in his indefatigably researched biographies of Norma Shearer, Nazimova and Natalie Wood. Most recently, in 2004 he published a fasinating study of a less familiar film personality, “The Ivan Moffat File : Life Among the Beautiful and Damned in London, Paris, New York and Hollywood.” He also energetically contributed articles and stories to many magazines and journals.His last public appearance was as a member of the panel of the Garbo commemoration organised by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in early April 2005. He would have been 81 on 23 July.

GERALDINE FITZGERALD (91, 17 July 2005). The Dublin-born actress seemed never wholly to fulfil her promise in films, and found more satisfaction in her work in the theatre, both as actress and, from 1981, a successful director. The daughter of a successful lawyer, she began her career at the Abbey Theatre Dublin, where she met and infatuated another teenage aspirant, Orson Welles. After a few parts in low-budget British films, she was reunited with Welles in New York where, as director of the Mercury Theatre, he was a rising theatrical star. In Hollywood she had an Oscar nomination as best supporting actress for her role in William Wyler's WUTHERING HEIGHTS (1939), but after this continued to be mostly relegated to secondary roles - supporting Bette Davis in DARK VICTORY (1939)and WATCH ON THE RHINE (1943). In later years she worked mostly on stage and in television, though she appeared effectively in character roles in HARRY AND TONTO, ARTHUR, THE POLTERGEIST II. Her son is the director Michael Lindsay-Hogg.

GRETCHEN FRANKLIN (94, 11 July 2005). A familiar character player in British films of the fifties and sixties - including Roy Ward Baker’s FLAME IN THE STREETS (1961), Roy Boulting’s TWISTED NERVE (1968) and Laszlo Benedek’s THE NIGHT VISITOR (1970) - the ebullient Franklin’s later career was mostly in television, in which she continued to work into her late eighties.

JOCELYN RICKARDS (80, 7 July 2005). Australian-born designer who in her youth bore a striking resemblance to the beautified Michael Jackson in his prime. In 1960s London she was as celebrated for her celebrity love life (including John Osborne and the philosopher A.J.Ayer) as for the distinctive look she brought to the new British cinema of the era: she was designer on, inter al., LOOK BACK IN ANGER, THE ENTERTAINER, THE KNACK, FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE, BLOW-UP, RYAN’S DAUGHTER and SUNDAY, BLOODY SUNDAY. Working on ALFRED THE GREAT (1969) she fell in love with the director Clive Donner, whom she married.

ED MCBAIN (78, 6 July 2005). The phenomenally prolific novelist Ed McBain wrote under a bewildering variety of pseudonyms - Evan Hunter, Richard Marsten, Hunt Collins, Curt Cannon, Ezra Hannon and of course McBain - but his real name was Salvatore Lombino, the son of an Italian Harlem family. He published the first of his 87th Precinct novels of closely-observed police procedurs in 1956; the 55th and last in the series is due posthumously in September 2005. McBain's first encounter with Hollywood was Richard Brooks' THE BLACKBOARD JUNGLE, based on "Evan Hunter"'s experiences teaching in a South Bronx school. He adapted his own novel STRANGERS WHEN WE MEET (1958) and after scripting some episodes for the tv "Alfred Hitchcock Presents", wrote the script for THE BIRDS.
McBain's novels have held great attraction for foreign directors: Akira Kurosawa adapted "King's Ransom" as TENGOKU TO JIGOKU (1963), Kon Icheikawa adapted "Lady, Lady, I Did It" as KUFUKU (1981) and Claude Chabrol filmed "Blood Relations" (LES LIENS DE SANG, 1978).

JUNE HAVER (79, 4 July 2005). Doll-pretty musical star of the forties, born June Stovenour. In show business from six and with her own radio show at 11, she could sing and dance impressively, and after a couple of band shorts made her feature debut in Busby Berkeley’s THE GANG'S ALL HERE (1943). Fifteen more starring musicals followed. Fox saw her as successor to Betty Grable, ten years older - which did not make for good relations when they were teamed as THE DOLLY SISTERS (1945). Later films included F.Hugh Herbert’s SCUDDA HOO! SCUDDA HAY! (1948) which would have been Marilyn Monroe’s screen debut had her scenes not been scrapped in the cutting room. June Haver retired after THE GIRL NEXT DOOR (1953) to become a novice at the convent of the Sisters of Charity, Kansas, but re-emerged after seven months, to become an interior decorator, and in 1954 to marry Fred MacMurray, a union which lasted till his death in 1991.

ALBERTO LATTUADA (90, 3 July 2005). Son of the composer Felice Lattuada, who was to write scores for a number of his films, Alberto Lattuada was trained as an architect. While working in this capacity in Milan he was a co-founder with Mario Ferrari and Luigi Comencini of the film club which was to become the present Cineteca Italiana. He entered films as designer, writer and assistant director and directed his own first film GIACOMO L'IDEALISTA in 1942
Already in trouble with the authorities when he showed Jean Renoir's anti-war masterpiece, LA GRANDE ILLUSION, on the eve of Italy's entry into the Second World War, Lattuada was subsequently forced into hiding for his unconcealed anti-fascist views. Resuming work after the liberation he made his contribution to the Neo-Realist renaissance with IL BANDITO (THE BANDIT, 1946), starring Anna Magnani, SENZA PIETA (WITHOUT PITY, 1948), IL MULINO NEL PO (THE MILL ON THE PO, 1949). With his wife the actress Carla del Poggio he formed a harmonious working relationship with the young Federico Fellini and his wife Giulietta Masina; and their collaboration on Luci del Varieta (1950) launched Fellini's major career. After commercial success with ANNA (1951, starring Silvana Mangano). Lattuada embarked on an energetic, non-stop and eclectic commercial career, ranging from stylish literary adaptations like Il CAPOTTO (THE OVERCOAT, 1952) to international costume spectacles such as LA TEMPESTA (1958). Throughout his career he was noted for his gifts in casting and developing female stars. He made his last theatrical film UNA SPINA NEL CUORE (A THORN IN THE HEART) in 1987 though he continued to direct for television. In 1994 he briefly reappeared in a cameo role in Carlo Mazzacurati's IL TORO (THE BULL)

ERNEST LEHMAN (89, 2 July 2005). Ernest Lehman's Hollywood career in the 50s and 60s was an astonishing record of successes, most notably including Executive Suite (1954), Sabrina Fair (1954; unfortunately remade in 1995), The King and I (1956),Sweet Smell of Success (1957; from his own novella), North By North West (1959), Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956),West Side Story (1961), The Sound of Music (1965), Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf (1966) and Hello Dolly (1969). He later scripted Hitchcock's last film Family Plot (1976).
His single effort at directing one of his own scripts, an adaptation of Philip Roth's Portnoy's Complaint (1972) was one of his rare failures.
The son of a well-to-do New York family, he took his degree in science, but abandoned that to become journalist, publicist and short story writer. When his Hollywood career seemed to have ended he returned to novel-writing, with The French Atlantic Affair (1977) and Farewell Performance (1982). A project to script Noel Coward's Hay Fever for a film to be directed by Lindsay Anderson was was ended by Anderson's death in 1994

CHRISTOPHER FRY (97, 1 July 2005). Christopher Fry is a historic figure in British theatre for his contribution to the revival of verse drama in the 1940s and 1950s, with plays like "A Phoenix Too Frequent" (1946) and most memorably "The Lady's not for Burning" (1948), which made the names of two ingenues, Richard Burton and Claire Bloom. His theatrical reputation was eclipsed however by the arrival of the new drama of Pinter, Osborne and their many late-fifties contemporaries.
Fry's film career began in 1953 when his prestige made him the natural choice for the commentary for the colour record of the coronation of Elizabeth II, A QUEEN IS CROWNED. The same year he scripted Peter Brook's adaptation of THE BEGGARS' OPERA. Called in to supply some dialogue for BEN HUR (1959) he ended by writing most of the film. He was one of six writers on Richard Fleischer's BARABBAS (1962) and went on to work on John Huston's THE BIBLE (1966). He also did much work for television, including adaptations of his own plays.

DOMINO HARVEY (35, 27 June 2005). The subject of Tony Scott's biopic DOMINO, due for release in November, Domino Harvey was the daughter of British actor Laurence Harvey. She abandoned a lucrative modelling career to become a bounty hunter. She is played in the film by Keira Knightley, while her mother, also a model, is played by Jacqueline Bisset. The cause of death has not yet been disclosed. In May she was arrested on drugs charges, and had a number of federal charges for drug and other offences outstanding against her. Tony Scott stated that he had known and admired her for 12 years.

JOHN FIEDLER (80, 25 June 2005). The tenth out of the original TWELVE ANGRY MEN to die (only Jack Warden and Jack Klugman now survive), John Fiedler was a familiar character actor in films and television - a small, nervous, bespectacled, incorrigible nerd, with a child-like voice. His casting in 1957 as the juryman who generously shares his cough-drops - and makes a decisive jury-room volte-face - followed some years of Broadway stage experience. Subsequently he was seen, effectively type-cast, in films that included STAGE STRUCK, RAISIN IN THE SUN, THE WORLD OF HENRY ORIENT and KISS ME, STUPID. In 1968 he dubbed the voice of Piglet in WINNIE THE POOH, thereby embarking on a long and busy career providing cartoon voices, most recently in POOH'S HEFFALUMP FILM (2005)

ANNE BANCROFT (73, 7 June 2005). Anne Bancroft, who died after a long battle with cancer, will always be best remembered for her role as the older woman in "The Graduate" (1967). Five years earlier, however, she had won an Oscar as best supporting actress, for the role of Helen Keller's teacher, Annie Sullivan, in "The Miracle Worker". Her first screen appearance was in "Don't Bother to Knock" (1952) which also starred Marilyn Monroe.
Born Anna Maria Italiano in the Bronx, she was married to the comedian Mel Brooks, with whom she appeared in the remake of the Second World War comedy "To Be Or Not To Be": Famously in this the couple sang a Polish-language, duet-version of "Sweet Georgia Brown". Brooks explained the secret of the success of his marriage to the gracious and elegant Ms Bancroft as his ability always to make her laugh.

DISLEY JONES (79, 3 June 2005). An icon of 20th century British theatre and an inventive production designer in films, Disley Jones, by his own testimony, acquired his first experience as a window dresser, engineering draughtsman, nurseryman, florist and farm hand. From 1946 he was already designing for various provincial repertory theatres and in 1953 received his first London commission, "The Seagull" at the Arts Theatre. Many more distinguished productions followed in the 50s and 60s. His work as production designer in films began with "The Mikado" (1965); later work included "A Long Day's Dying", "The Italian Job", "The Revolutionary", "Murphy's War" and "The Grass is Singing".
He abandoned designing for several years to create a restaurant in Spain, but returned to become resident designer and occasional director at the lamented Players' Theatre. After that he turned to writing and was constantly promoting ideas for plays and films which always reflected his ranging knowledge and profound immersion in performing arts traditions. He rarely missed a new film or a West End production, had firmly defined critical views on everything, and expressed them uncompromisingly in his unmistakeable stentorian tones.

PASTOR VEGA (65, 2 June 2005). Cuban director, writer, actor, Pastor Vega began his professional education about the time of the Cuban revolution, and remained faithful to its highest principles, latterly criticising the national cinema's loss of direction in the years following the collapse of European communnism. He was an admired documentary film maker from 1964, but was to achieve an international reputation with his first feature film, "Ritrato de Teresa" (Portrait of Teresa, 1979) which like all his subsequent fiction films starred his wife Daisy Granados. From 1979 to 1991 he was director of the Havana International Film Festival and played an important part in the management of the Cuban Film Institute (ICAIC). His last films as director were "Las Profesias de Amanda" (The Prophecies of Amanda, 2001) and "Solamente una vez" (Only One Time, 2002) though he appeared as an actor in a 2004 feature "festivbercine.ron"

JEAN NEGRONI (84, 28 May 2005). A giant of the French theatre for mmore than 60 years, with a voice of legendary range, power and beauty, Negroni's best-known incursion into films was in Armand Gatti's L@ENCLOS (1961). Born in Algeria, the son of a lawyer, he was a disciple of Albert Camus, seven years his senior and a fellow student of the Faculte des Lettres d'Alger. Together they founded the Theatre de l'Euipe in Algiers. In 1944 he moved to France, where he worke for some years with Jean Vilar.

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EDDIE ALBERT (97, 26 May 2005). An immensely likeable leading man on Broadway (The Music Man, The Boys from Syracuse) and generally as second-lead in films (the man who lost the girl) Eddie Albert ironically found his best film roles in the unsympathetic characters assigned him by Robert Aldrich in Attack!, The Longest Yard and Hustle. Born Edward Albert Heimberger in Illinois, he started his career in vaudeville, but made his Broadway debut in 1936. On television he enjoyed his biggest success as a lawyer in the long-running sit-com Green Acres. For many years he dedicated much time and great energy to the battle against environmental pollution and world hunger. He is survived by his son the actor Edward Albert, who said of him, "Acting was a tenth of his life. The majority of his life was committed to helping other people." Some sources give his age at death as 99.

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ISMAIL MERCHANT (68, 25 May 2005). Producer, director, and for 44 years partner of James Ivory in Merchant-Ivory productions (the company earned a place in the Guinness Book of Records as the most enduring independent film partnership). Born in Bombay, Merchant studied business administration at New York University. On the way to the 1961 Cannes Film Festival to present his Oscar-nominated short The Creation of Women, he met James Ivory, and the two young men laid plans to make English-language features in India. In their early days they were generously helped by Satyajit Ray; and years later Merchant repaid the debt by dedicating himself to the proper restoration of Ray’s films. Their first production, The Householder, received world-wide distribution through Columbia Pictures, and was followed by the now classic Shakespeare Wallah. Later, in Europe, Merchant-Ivory were to become associated with elegant period literary adaptations like A Room with a View, Howard’s End and The Remains of the Day.
As a director Merchant’s own films included The Courtesans of Bombay, In Custody and The Proprietor. He was also an enthusiastic cook – in the early days often serving as a one-man unit caterer – and published cookery books as well as autobiographical volumes, most recently “My Passage from India: a Film-maker’s Journey from Bombay to Hollywood and Beyond”. At the time of his death – following surgery for ulcers – he was at work on post-production of The White Countess, directed by James Ivory, written by Kazuo Ishiguro and starring Ralph Fiennes, Vanessa Redgrave and Natasha Richardson.

SUNIL DUTT (75, 25 May 2005). Sunil Dutt progressed from being one of the best-loved Bollywood stars between the 50s and the 70s to become a revered public figure, known for his energetic humanitarian work. Born in Pakistan, his family became refugees in the Indian state of Haryana after Partition. Dutt was however able to secure his education at Jai Find College, Bombai (Mumbai), and while working for a British advertising agency inveigled his way into the movie industry. His good looks quickly brought him starring roles, starting with "Railway Platform" (1955). He achieved international fame however with Mehboob Khan's "Mother India" (1957). A fire broke out in the course of production of the film, and Dutt gallantly rescued the beautiful star Nargis, whom he subsequently married. He starred in some 100 films, and became his own producer (1963) and director.
After the death of Nargis from cancer in 1981, Dutt virtually withdrew from films to devote himelf to social and humanitarian work, establishing the Nargis Dutt Foundation to fight poverty and cancer. In time he turned to politics, and proved a fearless champion of any cause he espoused (even Indira Gandhi's notorious state of emergency). At the time of his death he was Minister for Sport. throughout India. (Picture: the 27-year-old Sunil Dutt in "Mother India")

LINDA MARTINEZ (29, 19 May 2005). A child prodigy - she could sing on key before she could talk and started musical studies, courtesy of Yamaha, at 4 - Linda Martinez was a gifted young composer who easily spanned musical genres and widely varied assignments. After completing her studies at University of Southern California, she performed with major jazz artists and most recently appeared with the LA Master Chorale and Latin artists Sheila E. and Alex Acuna. She toured with Destiny's Child and composed for their live shows, including the 2001 Emmy and MTV Icon Awards.
In 2003 she won the 4th National Turner Classic Movies Young Film Composers' Competition for her score for Eddie Cline's "The Rag Man" (1925), starring Jackie Coogan and Max Davidson. She also composed a new score for Sam Taylor's 1926 silent comedy "Exit Smiling", starring Beatrice Lillie. Martinez composed music for the History Channel, collaborated with Laura Karpman on a number of theatrical and television features, and provided scores for the animated "Catching Kringle" and a short subject "Boy Next Door".
Subject to acute depression, she died by suicide.

FRANK GORSHIN (72, 17 May 2005). Frank Gorshin, with his tormented little face, was a familiar character actor in films of the 1960s (The Great Imposter, Where the Boys Are, Bells Are Ringing, Batman) though in later years his work was mostly on television, most notably as "The Riddler" in the TV BATMAN series. A notable mimic, he started his career at 17 doing impersonations of James Cagney and Cary Grant; and had recently toured as George Burns in the stage show "Say Goodnight, Gracie"

MAHIPAL (80, 15 May 2005). Star of Bollywood films, best loved in the role of the Hindu god Ram in several mythological dramas of the 50s and 60s. Born in Jodhpur, he began his career as a song-writer for films, and was first seen on screen as an actor in "The World of the Blind" (1947). he went on to act in more than 100 films.

PETER WEST (64, 3 May 2005). Respected British film editor who brought innovatory influence to BBC documentary productions. Collaborations with major directors included Lindsay Anderson’s Wham in China and Bill Douglas’s My Ain Folk. Married to actress Joanna Wake

NORMAN BIRD (84, 27 April 2005). Norman Bird was a familiar face in many bread and butter British films of the fifties and sixties. Often sporting a moustache and an air of worried resignation, he seemed to specialise in downtrodden roles. His first film appearance was as the foreman in "An Inspector Calls (1954). Later parts included Mr Weaver in "The League of Gentlemen", the farmer in "Whistle Down The Wind", the Vicar in "The Wrong Box" and the Cecil Court bookshop proprietor in "Victim". He was the voice of Bilbo Baggins in the 1978 film version of "Lord of the Rings". On television he appeared in "Whack-o!", "Steptoe and Son" and "Worzel Gummidge", as Mr Braithwaite the farmer. A favourite character actor of Richard Attenborough, his last film appearance was in "Shadowlands" (1993), though he acted on television as late as 1996, as the grandfather in "Crossing the Floor". (HB)

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MARIA SCHELL (79, 26 April 2005). Austrian-born, Swiss-naturalised actress whose tear-filled eyes and brave smile made her an icon of the 50s. She made her first film appearance at 16, but won international reputation with Angel with a Trumpet (1950), Having appeared in a British film, The Magic Box. in 1951, she was taken to Hollywood following her award at the Cannes Festival for The Last Bridge (1954). Her best-remembered role is in The Brothers Karamazov (1958). After the early 1960s she made few film appearances, preferring to work on stage and television, though in 1978 she played Vond-Ah in Superman. In 2002 she was the subject of the documentary Meine Schwester Maria, directed by her brother Maximilian, and revealing her as an eccentric old lady, living in a Swiss mountain chalet and spending her days in bed watching videos of her old films.

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JOHN MILLS (97, 23 April 2005). Enduring and quintessentially British actor. First stage appearance in The Five O’Clock Girl (London Hippodrome, 1929); first film appearance The Midshipmaid (1932). After that over 100 film roles, over more than 70 years, were all characterised by an essential “Britishness”. Oscar for supporting role as village idiot in Ryan’s Daughter. Directed Sky West and Crooked (1966), written by his wife Mary Hayley Bell (who survives him, after a 64-year marriage) and starring his daughter Hayley Mills. Knighted in 1977

ALIDA VALLI (84, 22 April 2005). Alida Valli, one of the cinema’s greatest beauties – she was dubbed in her early years “the new Garbo” – was born Alida Maria Laura von Altenberger in Pula, now in Croatia, but then still part of Italy. On the death of her father, a distinguished academic and journalist, she and her mother moved to Rome where she studied at the newly formed Centro Sperimentale del Cinema. She made her film debut in a small role in IL CAPELLO A TRE PUNTI (1934) and had a featured role in I DUE SERGENTI (1936). She rapidly achieved major popularity, but unfortunately in a depressed film industry that was turning out irredeemably indifferent films. She had briefly better luck with Mario Soldati’s 1940 PICCOLO MONDO ANTICO, but declined to work in the wartime Fascist cinema, and is said to have gone into hiding for a while. In 1947 her leading role in Soldati’s EUGENIE GRANDET attracted international attention and a contract with David O.Selznick. In Hollywood she played in Hitchcock’s THE PARADINE CASE (1947), and in Europe in Carol Reed’s THE THIRD MAN (1949). After a couple more films she was happy to return to Italy, though her career there was badly shaken by her involvement in a national scandal involving her then lover Piero Piccioni.
In her career she was to make more than 120 films, but her choice of subjects was rarely discriminating. Exceptions were Visconti’s SENSO (1954) and Antonioni’s IL GRIDO (1956). In 1967 she played Merope in Pasolini’s EDIPO RE and in the 60s appeared in three films by Bernardo Bertolucci, THE SPIDER’S STRATAGEM (1970), 1900 (1976) and LA LUNA (1979). For the next twenty years she continued to appear fairly regularly in films and television, in older character roles. Her last appearance was in a less than distinguished Mexican production, SEMANA SANTA (2000).
Valli (as she was always simply billed in her Engliah-language films) also worked in the theatre: she was directed by Patrice Chereau in Wedekind’s Lulu. She was twice married, to the painter Oscar De Mejo and the stage and screen director Giancarlo Zagni. The elder of her two sons, Carlo De Mejo (born 1945), is an actor.

GEORGE P.COSMATOS (67, 19 April 2005). Italian-born director of The Cassandra Crossing(1976), Rambo First Blood Part II (1985), Tombstone (1993); played acne-faced boy in Zorba the Greek (1964).

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RUTH HUSSEY (93, 19 April 2005). Actress best remembered for role as James Stewart’s fiancée, ousted by Katharine Hepburn in The Philadelphia Story. She also co-starred with Spencer Tracy. Her last big-screen appearance was as Bob Hope’s wife in The Facts of Life.

JAIME FERNANDEZ (67, 16 April 2005). Mexican actor who played Man Friday in Luis Bu_uel’s The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe. One of the three Fernandez brothers – the others were the director and actor Emilio “El Indio” and the actor-singer Fernando – he acted in some 180 films, as well as on stage and television. A vigorous union activist for actors’ rights he was attending a union meeting when struck by a fatal heart attack.

MARGARETTA SCOTT (93, 15 April 2005). Margaretta Scott was a distinguished and graceful figure on the British stage for more than 60 years. The daughter of the music critic Hugh Scott and his Spanish wife, she made her first stage appearance at the age of 14 in 1926 as Mercutio’s page in “Romeo and Juliet” at the Strand Theatre. She studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and made her first professional appearance at the Hull Repertory Theatre. After playing Hebe in “Her Shop” at the Criterion Theatre, she appeared regularly on the London stage for the rest of her career. In 1931 she played Ophelia at the Haymarket theatre, and remained an admired Shakespearean actress, though, with her striking beauty and rich voice, her range in classical or modern roles seemed limitless. As late as 1995 she played in “Hobson’s Choice” at the Chichester Festival Theatre.

Her first film appearance was in a supporting role in the knockabout Tom Walls farce, DIRTY WORK (1934). She was uncredited in Alexander Korda’s THE PRIVATE LIFE OF DON JUAN (1934) but was Kitty Clive to Anna Neagle’s Peg Woffington in PEG OF OLD DRURY (1934) and had the leading female role in THINGS TO COME (1936). Other good roles followed in Carol Reed’s THE GIRL IN THE NEWS (1940), Anthony Asquith’t QUIET WEDDING (1941) and FANNY BY GASLIGHT (1944) and Alberto Cavalcanti’s THE FIRST GENTLEMAN 1948). Generally Margaretta Scott seemed most in demand for historical and Shakespearean films. In later years she took happily to television, and was loved as Mrs Pumphrey in ALL CREATURES GREAT AND SMALL (1978). Her last television appearance was in Catherine Cookson’s THE MOTH (1997). Her husband, the composer John Wooldridge. was killed in a car crash in 1958 at the age of 39.

YOSHITARO NOMURA (86, 8 April 2005). Prolific and versatile Japanese director; also producer, best known for thrillers, notably the 1974 Castle of Sand. Son of director Hotei Nomura (1990-1935)

ONNA WHITE (83, 8 April 2005). Broadway and Hollywood choreographer who won special Oscar for her work on Oliver!

HARALD JUHNKE (75, 1 April 2005). German actor whose career survived notorious alcoholism.

HERMANN LAUSE (66, 28 March 2005). German actor, best remembered for Fassbinder’s Berlin Alexanderplatz and the 1993 satire Schtonk!

ROBERT F.SLATZER (77, 28 March 2005). Hollywood screenwriter, director (briefly) and author, who claimed to have been briefly married to Monroe, about whom he wrote two books, in 1952.

ROBIN SPRY (65, 28 March 2005). Canadian producer and director (died in in a car accident).

LUISA ALESSANDRINI (91, 18 March 2005). Assistant director to Vittorio de Sica throughout his career; also credited with spotting new actors including Carlo Battisti, the university academic who played the lead in Umberto D.

ANTHONY GEORGE (84, 16 March 2005). Hollywood actor, mostly in television.

GORDON KAY (88, 8 March 2005). Producer, mainly of 40s and 50s Westerns at Republic and Universal.

BRIGITTE MIRA (94, 8 March 2005). Popular singer, comedian and stage actress, best remembered as the elderly lady wo embarks on a love affair with a young black guest-working in Fassbinder’s Fear Eats the Soul. This followed a small role in Ulli Lommel’s Tenderness of the solves, and her success led to two further appearances in Fassbinder’s films and a role in Werner Herzog’s Kaspar Hauser. Her only other film appearance was in the 1948 Berliner Balade, the harbinger of post-war German cinema.

JOHN BOX (85, 7 March 2005). British production designer, winner of four Oscars, and most celebrated for Lawrence of Arabia, Oliver and Dr Zhivago

DEBRA HILL (54, 7 March 2005). Hollywood producer who was involved as writer-producerwith John Carpenter in the Halloween series and whose later films included Terry Gilliam’s The Fisher King.

TERESA WRIGHT (83, 6 March 2005). Hollywood actress who won Oscar nominations for all first three roles, in The Little Foxes, The Pride of the Yankees and Mrs Miniver.Other notable appearances in Hitchcock’s Shadow of a Doubt, William Wyler’s The Best Years of Our Lives and Fred Zinneman’s The Men, Marlon Brando’s first film.

ROBERT ENGEL (96, 5 March 2005). Pioneer independent US film-maker, whose 1958 The Little Fugitive was influential on a whole generation of young film-makers attempting independent production.

GODFREDO LOMBARDO (84, 23 February 2005). Italian producer, head of Titanus production company, founded in 1904 by his father, also Godfredo, and now headed by his son Guido. Produced many classic Italian films of 50s and 60s, including Visconti’s The Leopard.

SIMONE SIMON (93, 22 February 2005). French actress, whose films included Renoir’s La Bête Humaine and Max Ophuls’ La Ronde and Le Plaisir, but who is better remembered for US horror films, Cat People and The Curse of the Cat People.

SANDRA DEE (62, 20 February 2005). Actress established by Gidget (1959) as teen idol of the early 1960s.

DANIEL O’HERLIHY (86, 17 February 2005). Irish-born actor, best remembered as Macduff in Orson Welles’ Macbeth and in the title role of Luis Bu_uel’s Adventures of Robinson Crusoe.

OTTO PLASCHKES (75, 14 February 2005). Austrian-born British producer (Georgie Girl, Hopscotch, In Celebration etc).

HUMBERT BALSAN (50, 10 February 2005). Producer, actor, Chairman of European Film Academy, vice-president of board of Cinémathèque français, vice-president Unifrance Film. Began acting career in Robert Bresson’s Lancelot du Lac (1974); produced some 6o films, many by North African directors.

ARTHUR MILLER (89, 10 February 2005). Playwright, often adapted to screen, and occasionsal screenwriter (The Misfits, Everybody Wins). Was married to Marilyn Monroe, 1956-1961.

JOHN VERNON (72, 8 February 2005). Canadian-born actor who played the bounty hunter in The Outlaw Josie Wales, the mayor in Dirty Harry, but is best remembered as Dean Wormer in Animal House. He was also the voice of Big Brother in the 1956 British 1984

OSSIE DAVIS (87, 4 February 2005). Actor, producer, director (Cotton Comes to Harlem and others) and activist for humanitarian causes and racial justice. Was married for almost 60 years to actress Ruby Dee.

LEE EUN-JU (25, 2 February 2005). Talented and beautiful star of South Korean films, most recently the high-gorssing Brotherhood and The Scarlet Letter. Reports said her suicide followed depression at playing sexually explicit roles.

PARVEEN BABI (55, 22 January 2005). Bollywood star whose meteoric career in 7os was cut short by drug addiction and mental illness.

PATSY ROWLANDS (71, 22 January 2005). British actress who appeared in nine Carry On films, as well as a favourite of 70s directors like Lindsay Anderson and Tony Richardson.

BEVERLY DENNIS (79, 20 January 2005). Actress (Wellman’s Westward the Women) whose Hollywood career was cut short in 1952 by Hollywood’s McCarthyist blacklist.

VIRGINIA MAYO (84, 17 January 2005). Blonde Hollywood leading lady of 30s and 40s (The Princess and the Pirate, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, The Best Years of Our Lives, White Heat etc)

RUTH WARRICK (88, 15 January 2005). Hollywood, TV and Broadway actress, best remembered as the wife of Citizen Kane.

OFELIA GUILMAIN (93, 14 January 2005). Spanish-born idol of Mexican stage and screen.

AMRISH PURI (71, 12 January 2005). Indian actor, seen in Gandhi and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.

BARBARA PILAVIN GELBER (81, 2 January 2005). Actress, best remembered in Italian films (Garden of the Finzi Ontini) but occasionally in Hollywood.