Larry Storch passed away in his sleep at the age of 99. May he rest in peace.

I remember that I loved F-Troop back when Nick At Nite aired it in the very early 90’s. Over in the Columbo subreddit, someone linked to the time Storch was in an episode as a driving instructor who was terrified of Columbo’s driving skills, or lack thereof.

I had forgotten the trivia that he was in 1975’s The Ghost Busters, so kudos to Ghostbusters News for that reminder. I never watched that series, but knew of the headache it caused for Ghostbusters (1984). I did watch an episode of Filmation’s cartoon of it (rented by mistake in the 80’s; movie store gave that rather than The Real Ghostbusters, since that was next to it on the shelf).

Oh, and Storch was also in an episode of Kolchak: The Night Stalker as Swede; the episode was The Vampire.

Lenny Von Dohlen passed away on July 5th, at the age of 63, following a long illness. May he rest in peace.

Evidently, he was mostly known to people thanks to Twin Peaks. I never watched that, and almost thought I had never heard of him before. However, after checking his filmography, I see that he was in Dracula’s Widow (1989) as Raymond, which I watched earlier in the year. He’s the guy bitten and controlled by Vanessa.

Looking through his other work, I may need to track down Jennifer 8 (1992). I believe that Electric Dreams (1984) is on Tubi.

(In honor of Storch appearing on the show, have a Columbo icon)

Kenneth Welsh has passed away at the age of 80. May he rest in peace. Based on what I’m reading in his obituaries, a lot of people remember him as Windom Earle from Twin Peaks. I have never seen that series, as it never really appealed to me.

I knew him as Watson from the Sherlock Holmes movies that starred Matt Frewer. The Case of the Whitechapel Vampire is currently on Tubi, and I recently rewatched it. If you want to view Hallmark’s version in order of release, it was thus: The Hound of the Baskervilles (2000) (not to be confused with the Richard Roxburgh version released elsewhere around the same time). The Sign of the Four (2001). The Royal Scandal (2001) (which I have yet to see). The Case of the Whitechapel Vampire (2002).

Reading through his filmography, I believe that I need to track down The Lizzie Borden Chronicles (2015). And, of course, the aforementioned The Royal Scandal (2001).

Just a couple of minutes after I posted the above, I heard of the following death. George Pérez has passed away, at the age of 67, due to complications from pancreatic cancer. May he rest in peace. I loved his work, and he will be deeply missed.

Via a posting to his Facebook page, which was quoted on Bleeding Cool: "George's memorial service will take place at MEGACON Orlando at 6pm on Sunday, May 22nd. It will be open to all."

June Brown has passed away at the age of 95. May she rest in peace.

I presume a lot of people will know her from EastEnders, based on everything that I have read. I have never seen that particular soap opera, so I remember her in the role of Annie Chapman in Murder By Decree (1979). For Doctor Who fans, she was also in the serial The Time Warrior, where she played Lady Eleanor of Wessex.

Looking through her filmography, I believe that I need to track down Gormenghast (2000), which also evidently has Christopher Lee, Ian Richardson, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, and Neve McIntosh (Madame Vastra from Doctor Who). Another which appears to be of particular interest to me would be The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1982), which also starred Anthony Hopkins, David Suchet, and Derek Jacobi (so two Van Helsings and a Master in one place).

ETA: A few minutes of searching on Youtube later, and I see that Gormenghast is up on Youtube, along with that particular version of Hunchback. If anyone else wants to watch the latter for free, someone evidently uploaded it 14 years ago, cut into 12 parts.

Veronica Carlson has passed away at the age of 77. May she rest in peace.

I was just looking up some of her work yesterday, and was actually planning to watch The Ghoul (1975) tomorrow, for the first time. So I believe I will also be doing a rewatch of a few other films of hers in the not too distant future: Dracula Has Risen From The Grave (1968), Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed (1969), and The Horror of Frankenstein (1970).

I’m going in the order in which these five died or were announced. I ran out of space in the post title, or I would have included all of them up there, too.

Rest in peace, Dr. Elizabeth Miller. She passed away peacefully on January 2nd, at the age of 82. She will be missed. If you haven’t heard of her, she was into the academic side of everything that involved Dracula, as well as Bram Stoker. I hunted down and devoured her published works back in the late 90’s and very early 2000s, and was thrilled by the fact she wrote the foreword for Lord of the Vampires, by Jeanne Kalogridis, back in 1996.

She won two Lord Ruthven awards for her work, and was given a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Dracula Society in 2012.

Via Vampires.com, which was quoting her obituary: “Between 1997 and 2012 she wrote or edited and published seven books on Dracula, the latter, entitled The Lost Journal of Bram Stoker, on which her co-editor was Dacre Stoker, grand-nephew of Bram Stoker. She was also the impetus behind 20-plus articles on aspects of Stoker and Dracula; she delivered lectures at universities, learned studies, conferences, ballet productions and private functions, as well as becoming involved in several television documentaries and scores of newspaper and magazine articles on the two.”

Sidney Poitier passed away on January 6th, at the age of 94. May he rest in peace. Unfortunately, I am not acquainted with any of his works, so I’ll need to rectify that shortly. Tubi has They Call Me Mr. Tibbs, as well as Lilies of the Field, so I’ll start there with his filmography.

Peter Bogdanovich passed away on January 6th, at the age of 82, due to complications from Parkinson’s disease May he rest in peace. I was previously only familiar with his work thanks to him directing Targets (1968), which was one of Boris Karloff’s final films. However, last night I watched The Cat’s Meow (2001) on Tubi.

Dwayne Hickman passed away yesterday, at the age of 87, due to complications from Parkinson’s disease. I used to watch so much of The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, when the series was rerun on Nick At Nite back in the 1980’s. Thanks to the presence of Vincent Price, I had actually already seen him in Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine (1965). Until I consulted his filmography, though, I wasn’t aware that he had directed three episodes of Designing Women, too.

Bob Saget has passed away at the age of 65. May he rest in peace. I loved America’s Funniest Home Videos back when it was first starting out, probably when I was around the age of 8 or 9. I drifted away from it, though I did also watch Full House for a very brief period of time.

Looking through his filmography, I had forgotten that he was in an episode of The Greatest American Hero, back in 1983; I watched that particular episode a few weeks back on Heroes And Icons. He was also the voice of the future Ted in How I Met Your Mother, throughout the duration of the series.

...or I can just post this today, instead of a few days from now!

( Beneath the cut, you will find commentary on the writing of The Dread of Vanished Shadows for Yuletide 2021. )

Betty White passed away today at the age of 99. May she rest in peace.

(She would have turned 100 on January 17th. I had a bad feeling they were jinxing things when I started seeing those promos for her 100th birthday celebration, but hoped I was wrong.)

Dean Stockwell passed away on Sunday, at the age of 85, from natural causes. May he rest in peace.

While I may not have been the biggest Quantum Leap fan, I did love Al. My favorite episode is probably the one that aired around Halloween one year, where Al was Satan. When I finally watched him on Battlestar Galactica within the last couple of years, I found Cavil fascinating; here’s my favorite moment with him.

Looking through his filmography, I didn’t realize that he was the older Tim Drake in Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker. I had no idea that he was an uncredited valet attendant in Once Bitten (1985). At some point, I need to track down his episode of Hammer House of Mystery And Suspense, titled The Sweet Scent of Death.