Los Angeles fan Phil Castora (b.1934) died sometime in July. Because of health issues, Castora was living on disability and unable to attend LASFS events in recent years. His death was discovered by fandom when two members of LASFS took distributions of L-APA to the facility where Castora was living and informed of his death.
Actor Edward Woodward (b.1930) died on November 16. Woodward appeared in numerous films and television shows, including the title role on The Equalizer. Some of his genre work included the 1996 television version of Gulliver’s Travels, the role of Merlin in Arthur the King, and The Wicker Man.
Kansas City fan John D. Taylor (b.1946) died on November 14 from cancer. Taylor was a founding member of the Kansas City Science Fiction and Fantasy Society in 1971. Taylor ran Kansas City’s only science fiction specialty store, founded Kansas City’s first science fiction convention, and was instrumental in running MidAmeriCon, the 1976 Worldcon in Kansas City. More recently, Taylor helped with the Heinlein Centennial. Active until the end, he co-chaired ConQuest in 2009. He is survived by his daughter and his second wife, Tina Black, to whom he was married eighteen days before his death.
Comic Con founder Shel Dorf (b.1933) died on November 3. Dorf was trained at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago before working as a freelance artist in New York. As a teenager, he had helped run Triple Fan Fest in Detroit. When he moved to San Diego in 1970, he decided to run something similar and Golden State Comic Con was born. Dorf walked away from the convention in the mid-80s after running it for 15 years.
Rocket scientist Qian Xuesen (b.1911) died on October 31. Qian, also known as H.S. Tsien, was one of the founders of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. His work wouuld be the inspiration for the Dyno-soar project. During the 1950s, he was accused of being a communist sympathizer, stripped of security clearance. Attempting to return to his native China, he was detained by the US for five years. In China, he became known as the Father of Chinese Rocketry.
Artist Dean Ellis (b.1920) died last week in Saratoga Springs, NY. Ellis was trained at the Cleveland Art Institute, but interrupted his studies in 1941, serving in the Pacific Theatre until 1945. After finishing his BFA, he was named one of the country’s most promising artists by Life in 1950. He had a successful career when he was asked to create covers for Ray Bradbury novels in the 1960s, a job that led to him working for most of the major science fiction publishers of the period.
Artist Don Ivan Punchatz (b.1936) died on October 22 after suffering cardiac arrest. Punchatz began exhibiting his work in 1962 and in 1963 he began providing cover art for science fiction and fantasy books. In 1970, he established SketchPad Studio, which became a launchpad for many other artists and taught at Texas Christian University from 1970. Perhaps his most famous work in the field graced the covers of the Avon editions of Isaac Asimov’s “Foundation” novels and Philip José Farmer’s “Riverworld” books in the 1970s.
Producer Daniel Melnick (b.1932) died on October 17. Melnick served as the chief of MGM Studios in the 70s before becoming President of Columbia and then moving to Fox. His genre work included production credit on Altered States and Universal Soldier: The Return. he also was the producer of All That Jazz, Roxanne, Footloose, and numerous other films.
Actor Joseph Wiseman (b.1918) died on October 19. Wiseman is best known for his portrayal of Dr. No in the James Bond film of the same name. He also appeared in The Twilight Zone episode “One More Pallbearer,” several episodes of Buck Rogers in the Twenty-Fifth Century, and The Greatest American Hero.
Author Louise Cooper (b.1952) died on October 20. She published The Book of Paradox,her first novel, in 1973 and became a full-time author in 1977 after the publication of her sixth novel. Cooper supplemented her writing income with copy-editing and proofreading. Over the course of her career, Cooper published more than 80 novels.