Fritz William Weaver (January 19, 1926 − November 26, 2016) was an American actor in television, stage, and motion pictures. In cinema, he is best recognized from his debut film Fail Safe (1964), as well as Marathon Man (1976), Creepshow (1982) and The Thomas Crown Affair (1999). Among many television roles, he performed in two seminal projects: the movie The Legend of Lizzie Borden (1975) and the mini-series Holocaust (1978), for which he was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award. He was further known for his work in science fiction and fantasy, especially in television series and movies like The Twilight Zone, Night Gallery, The X-Files, The Martian Chronicles and Demon Seed, and also narrated educational TV programs.
Ronald W. Hughes (March 16, 1935 – c. November 1970) was an American attorney who represented Manson family member Leslie Van Houten.
Hughes disappeared while on a camping trip during a ten-day recess from the Tate-LaBianca murder trial in November 1970. His body was found in March 1971, but his cause of death could not be determined. At least one Manson family member has claimed that Hughes was murdered by the family in an act of retaliation. No one has been charged in connection with his death.
Tate–LaBianca murder trial Hughes was among the first lawyers to meet with Charles Manson in December 1969. Initially, he signed on as the attorney for Manson, but was replaced by Irving Kanarek two weeks before the start of the trial.[1]
He eventually represented Leslie Van Houten in the Tate–LaBianca murder trial. Hughes failed the bar exam three times before passing and had never tried a case. Hughes, a onetime conservative, was called "the hippie lawyer" due to his intimate knowledge of the hippie subculture. That knowledge occasionally served his client well. He was able to raise questions about Linda Kasabian's credibility by asking her about hallucinogenic drugs, her belief in ESP, her thoughts that she might be a witch, and her experiencing "vibrations" from Manson.[1]
As attorney for defendant Van Houten, Hughes tried to separate the interests of his client from those of Charles Manson, a move that angered Manson and may have cost Hughes his life. He hoped to show that Van Houten was not acting independently, but was completely controlled in her actions by Manson. This strategy contradicted Manson's plan to allow fellow family members to implicate themselves in the crimes, clearing him of all involvement.[1]
Twenty-two weeks into the trial, which included outbursts and bizarre behavior from Manson and his co-defendants, the prosecution rested. Lawyers for the defendants stunned the courtroom by announcing that the defense also rested.[2] Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkel and Leslie Van Houten immediately shouted that they wanted to testify. Per Manson's instructions, the women said that they wanted to testify to committing the murders on their own and that Manson had nothing to do with the crimes. Hughes objected and stood up against Manson's ploy and stated, "I refuse to take part in any proceeding where I am forced to push a client out the window."[3] After Manson made a statement to the court, however, he then advised the women against testifying. Judge Charles Older then ordered a ten-day recess to allow the attorneys to prepare for their final arguments. Hughes later told a reporter that he was confident that he could secure an acquittal for Van Houten.[4]
Disappearance
On November 27, 1970, Hughes decided to take a camping trip in a remote area near Sespe Hot Springs in Ventura County, California. According to James Forsher and Lauren Elder, two friends who accompanied Hughes on the trip, heavy rains which had caused flash floods in the area had mired their Volkswagen in mud. Forsher and Elder hitchhiked their way out, while Hughes decided to stay in the area until November 29. As the rains continued, the wilderness area was evacuated.[5] Hughes was last seen by three campers on the morning of November 28. They later told investigators that Hughes was alone at the time and had briefly stopped to talk with them. Hughes also appeared to be unharmed and was in an area that was away from flood waters. When court reconvened on November 30, Hughes failed to appear. Due to continued rainstorms, the Ventura County sheriff had to wait two days before a search was launched.[6]
On December 2, Judge Older ordered the trial to proceed and appointed a new attorney, Maxwell Keith, for Van Houten. The women angrily demanded the firing of all their lawyers, and asked to reopen the defense. Judge Older denied the request. By week's end, Hughes had been missing for two weeks. When the court reconvened, Manson and the women created a disturbance suggesting that Judge Older "did away with Ronald Hughes," which resulted in their being removed again from the courtroom.[3]
Death
Over the following months, police conducted more than a dozen searches of the area where Hughes was last seen. After receiving an anonymous tip in March 1971, police also searched in the area surrounding the Barker Ranch in Inyo County where Manson and his associates had previously lived.[7]
On March 29, 1971, the same day the jury returned death penalty verdicts against all the defendants on all counts, Hughes' severely decomposed body was discovered by two fishermen in Ventura County. His body was found wedged between two boulders in a gorge,[8] Hughes was later positively identified by dental X-rays. Due to the severe decomposition of his body, the cause and nature of his death was ruled as 'Undetermined'[9]
His funeral was held on April 7, 1971 in West Los Angeles.[10] Hughes was buried in Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles.
Aftermath
In his book Helter Skelter, Vincent Bugliosi wrote that Sandra Good, an associate of Manson and a close friend of devoted Manson family member Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme, claimed that Manson family members had killed "35 to 40 people" and that, "Hughes was the first of the retaliation murders."[11] Attorney Stephen Kay, who helped Bugliosi prosecute the Manson family members, stated that while he is "on the fence" about the Manson family's involvement in Hughes' death, Manson had open contempt for Hughes during the trial. Kay added, "The last thing Manson said to him [Hughes] was, 'I don't want to see you in the courtroom again,' and he was never seen again alive."[12]
Retired Ventura County sheriff Charlie Rudd, who was assigned to investigate Hughes' disappearance, stated that he felt Hughes' death was accidental because there were no signs of foul play. Rudd believes that Hughes was stranded by the rainstorm which caused the creek to swell. He believes that Hughes drowned or was knocked unconscious and killed by rocks and debris as he was swept away by the water.[12] Musician and author Ed Sanders, who was a friend of Hughes, wrote about his death in his 1971 book The Family. Sanders also believes that his death was an accidental drowning.[13]
In 1976, Leslie Van Houten was granted a new trial on the grounds that she was denied proper legal representation after Hughes disappeared before the closing arguments.[14] Van Houten's retrial in 1977 ended in a hung jury.[15] She was released from jail after posting $200,000 bond and retried in 1978.[16] In her third trial, Van Houten was convicted of the first degree murders of Leno and Rosemary LaBianca and conspiracy in connection with the Tate murders.[17] She was sentenced to life in prison.
Footnotes
1. The Charles Manson (Tate–LaBianca Murder) Trial: Other Key Figures 2. (Bugliosi 1994, pp. 503-504) 3. "Charles Manson and the Manson Family" 4. (Bugliosi 1994, pp. 508, 514) 5. (Sanders 2002, p. 437) 6. (Bugliosi 1994, pp. 514-515) 7. "New Search Slated For Attorney" The Press-Courier. March 21, 1971. 8. "Body Believed To Be That Of Attorney" Merced Sun-Star. March 30, 1971. p. 2. 9. (Bugliosi 1994, p. 624) 10. "Ronald Hughes, Tate Trial Attorney, Receives Eulogy" The Press-Courier. April 8, 1971. p. 22. 11. (Bugliosi 1994, p. 625) 12. Becerra, Hector; Winton, Richard (June 1, 2012). "Manson follower's tapes may yield new clues, LAPD says" latimes.com. p. 2. 13. (Sanders 2002, p. 438) 14. "Manson Follower Has Right To New Trial" Merced Sun-Star. December 10, 1976. p. 2. 15. "A third murder trial for Van Houten is scheduled" Lodi News-Sentinel. September 2, 1977. p. 20. 16. "Manson Follower In Court" Herald-Journal. August 10, 1978. p. B7. 17. "Manson's follower convicted of murder" The Spokesman-Review. July 6, 1978. p. 1.
Sources
Bugliosi, Vincent; Gentry, Curt (1974, 1994). Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders. W. W. Norton and Company. ISBN 0-393-32223-8 Sanders, Ed (2002). The Family. Da Capo Press. ISBN 1-560-25396-7
Florence Agnes Henderson (February 14, 1934 – November 24, 2016) was an American actress and singer with a career spanning six decades. She is best remembered for her starring role as matriarch Carol Brady on the ABC sitcom The Brady Bunch from 1969 to 1974. Henderson also appeared in film as well as on stage and hosted several long-running cooking and variety shows over the years. She appeared as a guest on many scripted and nonscripted (talk and reality show) television programs and as a panelist on numerous game shows. She was a contestant on Dancing with the Stars in 2010. Henderson hosted her own talk show, The Florence Henderson Show, and cooking show, Who's Cooking with Florence Henderson, on Retirement Living TV (RLTV) during the years leading up to her sudden death on Thanksgiving Day 2016 from heart failure.
Ann Morgan Guilbert (October 16, 1928 – June 14, 2016), sometimes credited as Ann Guilbert, was an American television and film actress who portrayed a number of roles from the 1950s on, most notably as Millie Helper in 61 episodes of the early 1960s sitcom The Dick Van Dyke Show, and later Yetta Rosenberg, Fran Fine's doddering grandmother, in 56 episodes of the 1990s sitcom The Nanny. Guilbert was married to writer and producer George Eckstein from 1953 until their divorce in 1966. They had two children together, actress Hallie Todd and acting coach Nora Eckstein. Her second marriage, to Guy Raymond, lasted from 1967 until his death in 1997. Guilbert died of cancer in Los Angeles on Tuesday, June 14, 2016. An episode of Life in Pieces was dedicated in her memory.
Jay Moloney (November 14, 1964 - November 16, 1999) was a talent agent at CAA who represented a number of A-list celebrities. He suffered from drug addiction and spent time in rehab centers. Finally, he committed suicide by hanging himself in his home. He is buried at Hollywood Forever Cemetery.
Guadalupe Natalia "Lupita" Tovar (July 27, 1910 – November 12, 2016) was a Mexican-American actress, best known for her starring role in the 1931 Spanish language version of Dracula, filmed in Los Angeles by Universal Pictures at night using the same sets as the Bela Lugosi version, but with a different cast and director. She also starred in the 1932 film Santa, the first Mexican sound film.
During filming of Santa, which was done in Mexico, producer Paul Kohner had to return to Europe because his father was sick. It was this separation, and another the next year when Kohner was producing a film for Universal Pictures in Europe, that made Tovar realize she loved Kohner. Kohner proposed on the phone — he had previously tried to give her a ring — and Tovar went to Czechoslovakia to meet him. They were married, by a rabbi, in Czechoslovakia on October 30, 1932, at Kohner's parent's home. In 1936, the couple had a daughter, Susan Kohner, a retired film and television actress, and, in 1939, a son, Paul Julius "Pancho" Kohner, Jr., a director and producer. Their grandsons, Chris and Paul Weitz, are successful film directors. Tovar owned a bassinet that would be used by several well known New Yorkers, including Julie Baumgold, a writer and her husband Edward Kosner, publisher of New York; Elizabeth Sobieski, a novelist and mother of actress Leelee Sobieski, Judy Licht, a TV newswoman, and her husband Jerry Della Femina, an advertising executive. She died at the age of 106 on November 12, 2016 in Los Angeles of heart disease.
Robert Francis Vaughn (November 22, 1932 – November 11, 2016) was an American actor noted for his stage, film and television work. His best-known TV roles include suave spy Napoleon Solo in the 1960s series The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and wealthy detective Harry Rule in the 1970s series The Protectors. As grifter and card sharp Albert Stroller, Vaughn appeared in all but one of the 48 episodes of the British television drama series Hustle (2004–2012). In film, he portrayed quiet, skittish gunman Lee in The Magnificent Seven, an ambitious California politician Chalmers in the film Bullitt starring Steve McQueen, Major Paul Krueger in The Bridge at Remagen, and war veteran Chester A. Gwynn in The Young Philadelphians which earned him a 1960 Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. Vaughn died on November 11, 2016, eleven days before his 84th birthday. The cause was acute leukemia.
Pierre Lind de Lappe, known as Peter Brown (October 5, 1935 – March 21, 2016), was an American actor best known for his four-year role as young Deputy Johnny McKay opposite John Russell as Marshal Dan Troop in the 1958 to 1962 ABC/Warner Brothers western television series, Lawman.
Brown died on March 21, 2016 in Phoenix, Arizona, from complications of Parkinson's disease, aged 80.
Theresa Saldana (August 20, 1954 – June 6, 2016) was an American actress and author. She is known for her role as Rachel Scali, the wife of Police Commissioner Tony Scali, in the 1990s television series The Commish, for which she received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role, in 1994. Major film roles include the part of 'Lenore La Motta,' the wife of Joe Pesci's character, in the 1980 feature film Raging Bull and Robert Zemeckis's Beatlemania ensemble I Wanna Hold Your Hand. She was also known for raising public awareness of the crime of stalking, after surviving a murder attempt by an obsessed fan in 1982. Saldana was born in Brooklyn, New York, and was adopted at five days old by Divina and Tony Saldana, a family of Puerto Rican and Italian-American heritage.
Saldana took dance lessons as a child. However, after suffering a serious shoulder injury while part of a tumbling team she enrolled in acting classes at age 12. After being spotted by a talent scout while performing in an Off Broadway musical called The New York City Street Show in 1977 she was cast in the 1978 film Nunzio. On March 15, 1982, Saldana was the stalking victim of Arthur Richard Jackson, a 46-year-old drifter from Aberdeen. Jackson became attracted to Saldana after seeing her in the 1980 films Defiance and Raging Bull. He obtained Saldana's address by hiring a private investigator to obtain the unlisted phone number of Saldana's mother. Jackson then called Saldana's mother and posed as Martin Scorsese's assistant, saying he needed Saldana's residential address in order to contact her for replacing an actress in a film role in Europe.
Jackson approached Saldana in front of her West Hollywood residence in broad daylight and stabbed her in the torso 10 times with a 5½-inch knife, nearly killing her. His attack was so fierce that the blade bent. Although there were many nearby onlookers, the attack was only interrupted when delivery man Jeff Fenn intervened after hearing her cries, rushed from the second floor of an apartment building, and subdued Jackson. Saldana recovered after four hours of surgery and a four-month hospital stay at the Motion Picture Hospital. She relived the incident in the made-for-TV movie Victims for Victims: The Theresa Saldana Story and again in an episode of Hunter.
Jackson served almost 14 years in prison for the assault and making subsequent threats against Saldana and her rescuer while in prison. He was then extradited to the United Kingdom in 1996 to be tried for a 1966 robbery and murder. Jackson (who once saw himself as "the benevolent angel of death") was found not guilty by diminished responsibility in 1997 and committed to a British psychiatric hospital, where he died of heart failure in 2004 at age 68.
Jackson's method to find and approach Saldana inspired stalker Robert John Bardo to hire a private investigator to contact Rebecca Schaeffer, a young actress whom he subsequently murdered, also in West Hollywood, in 1989.
Following her long recovery, Saldana founded the Victims for Victims organization and participated in lobbying for the 1990 anti-stalking law and the 1994 Driver's Privacy Protection Act, both of which came into being partly as a consequence of the attack. The experience also inspired Saldana to play herself in the television movie Victims for Victims: The Theresa Saldana Story, and she authored the book Beyond Survival, a memoir of her experiences after being attacked. Saldana supported awareness for The Jazz Tap Ensemble, of which her daughter is a member. The group raises money for training gifted teenage dancers. Saldana died at age 61 on June 6, 2016, following her hospitalization for pneumonia [9] at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. Michael Chiklis, who played Saldana's husband on The Commish, wrote that it was "painful to hear the news."
Katie Beth May (March 16, 1981 – February 4, 2016) was an American model and businesswoman. Dubbed “The Queen of Snapchat," May was known as a social media star and brand ambassador prior to her death at age 34 of a stroke. May was a single mother. She cited her daughter as her source of motivation: “I had the most important person in my world, my daughter, to make proud each day and to remind me what I was working towards. Failure was not an option, not putting her in the best school was not an option, not living the lifestyle that I had dreamed of for us was not an option." May tweeted on January 29, 2016, that she had “pinched a nerve in [her] neck on a photoshoot” and “got adjusted” at a chiropractor. She tweeted on January 31, 2016 that she was “going back to the chiropractor tomorrow.” On the evening of February 1, 2016, May “had begun feeling numbness in a hand and dizzy” and “called her parents to tell them she thought she was going to pass out.” At her family's urging, May went to Cedars Sinai Hospital. S he was found to be suffering a “massive stroke.” According to her father, May “was not conscious when we got to finally see her the next day. We never got to talk to her again.” Life support was withdrawn on February 4, 2016. A coroner's report confirmed that her stroke was the result of the chiropractor's neck adjustment, which tore her left vertebral artery.
Curtis Lee Hanson (March 24, 1945 – September 20, 2016) was an American film director, producer, and screenwriter. His directing work included the psychological thriller The Hand That Rocks the Cradle (1992), the neo-noir crime film L.A. Confidential (1997), the comedy Wonder Boys (2000), the hip hop drama 8 Mile (2002), and the romantic comedy-drama In Her Shoes (2005). Hanson won the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay in 1998, for co-writing L.A. Confidential with Brian Helgeland. Hanson was born in Reno, Nevada, and grew up in Los Angeles. He was the son of Beverly June (Curtis), a real estate agent, and Wilbur Hale "Bill" Hanson, a teacher. Hanson dropped out of high school, finding work as a freelance photographer and editor for Cinema magazine. Hanson began screenwriting in 1970, when he co-wrote The Dunwich Horror, a film adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft's short story. Hanson wrote and directed his next feature Sweet Kill in 1973, then in 1978 wrote and produced The Silent Partner, starring Elliott Gould and Christopher Plummer. From the early 1980s into 1990s, Hanson directed a string of comedies and dramas. He did thrillers, too: many of them deal with people who lose their sense of control or security when facing danger or under threat of death. Some, like the financial executive in Bad Influence and the police officers in L.A. Confidential, unexpectedly walk into violence and disaster. In the 1990s, Hanson found box-office success with The Hand That Rocks the Cradle and The River Wild, and received significant critical acclaim with his 1997 film L.A. Confidential, an adaptation of the James Ellroy novel. The film was nominated for 9 Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Director, and won two — Best Adapted Screenplay (a credit Hanson shared with Brian Helgeland), and Best Supporting Actress (for Kim Basinger). Hanson's later works included In Her Shoes, Wonder Boys, 8 Mile, and Lucky You. Hanson said that he was heavily influenced by the directors Alfred Hitchcock and Nicholas Ray. In an interview with the New York Times in 2000, Hanson stated that Ray's film In a Lonely Place was among many that he watched in preparation for the filming of L.A. Confidential. In 8 Mile, Kim Basinger's character watches Elia Kazan's Pinky on television. The film is about a mixed-race girl who passes as white; the reference to it in Hanson’s film functions as an homage to the themes of racial mixing and boundary-crossing that are features of much of his work. In 2011, Hanson made Too Big to Fail, based on the 2009 Andrew Ross Sorkin book of the same name about the beginnings of the financial crisis of 2007–2010. The film, produced for HBO, featured among its all-star cast William Hurt as Treasury Secretary and former Goldman Sachs CEO Henry Paulson, and Cynthia Nixon as his liaison to the press; James Woods as Richard Fuld of Lehman Brothers; and Paul Giamatti as Ben Bernanke. His last film was Chasing Mavericks in 2012, but he was unable to finish the film due to ill health. Michael Apted replaced him as director during the final days of shooting.
Hanson later retired from film work and was reported to have frontotemporal dementia. He died of natural causes at his Hollywood Hills home at the age of 71.
Donald James Marshall (May 2, 1936 – October 30, 2016) was an American actor best known for his role as Dan Erickson in the television show Land of the Giants.
Marshall was one of four children and was schooled at San Diego High School. While studying engineering between 1956 and 1957, he was encouraged to try acting by a friend, Peter Bren. Marshall was still in the army at this time, but later studied acting at the Bob Gist Dramatic Workshop, while undertaking a course in Theatre Arts at Los Angeles City College.
Marshall provided consultation on matters connected with his work and with racial issues, and received an award for "Outstanding Achievement in his field as a Black Achiever in the United States."
Marshall died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles on October 30, 2016.
Marshall's first professional role was in a 1961 Columbia Studios feature The Interns. In 1964 he took the role of Chris Logan, playing opposite Nichelle Nichols in Great Gettin' Up Mornin,' a TV production about an African-American family preparing their children for their first day at a racially integrated school in America's south.
In 1965, Marshall appeared in a pilot for a series Braddock. In 1966 he appeared as Luke in Daktari, in the episodes Predator of Wameru, The Killer Lion and Trail of the Cheetah.
STAR TREK
Later in the 1960s he appeared in Roddenberry's next series, Star Trek portraying Lt. Boma in the episode "The Galileo Seven" (1967).
Other TV series he appeared in were Tarzan (the series with Ron Ely), Dragnet 1967, and Ironside. In 1968 he appeared as Ted Neumann, the recurring love interest of Julia Baker, in the television series Julia, a series about an African-American widow raising her son on her own.
Marshall had a role in the film The Reluctant Heroes, aka The Egghead on Hill 656 (1971), a film that was directed by Robert Day. This was a war film set in the Korean War with men under a newly commissioned lieutenant who are trapped on a hill surrounded by the enemy. His character as Pvt. Carver LeMoyne was subject to continual racial abuse by Cpl. Leroy Sprague (Warren Oates).
In the seventies he set up his own company called DJM Productions, Inc., which produced television commercials and documentary films.
In the 1980s, Marshall had few roles, appearing occasionally in episodes of Little House on the Prairie as Caleb Ledoux.
LAND OF THE GIANTS
As a result of appearing in the pilot for the TV series Braddock, the actor met Irwin Allen, leading to Marshall gaining his the role in Land of the Giants, in which he performed alongside Gary Conway, Don Matheson, Kurt Kasznar, Stefan Arngrim, Deanna Lund and Heather Young. The series, created by Irwin Allen, featured Marshall as a competent African-American in a leading role. This was also a first for an African American male in the 1960s to be featured so prominently in science fiction. The only other African American actors to be in such a position in the 1960s were Nichelle Nichols, known for her role as Lt. Uhurain the TV series Star Trek, and Greg Morris as electronics expert Barney Collier in Mission: Impossible.
On set, the actors had to perform many of their own stunts and Marshall's athleticism was an asset, he credited his previous football, track and pole vaulting work that helped him with the stunts required. In one of the episodes, "Ghost Town," while diving over a fire, Marshall actually dislocated his shoulder and the next day they had to shoot new scenes with Marshall's arm in a sling. Another episode "Giants and All That Jazz" that featured former world champion boxer Sugar Ray Robinson as Biff Bowers and Mike Mazurki as Loach, where Marshall had to teach Biff Bowers how to play the trumpet was one that Marshall in his own words calls "Beautiful" seems to be a favourite of his and made him want to act rather than follow or figure out what dialogue to use or say. He also says that actors had a better time on the set when Irwin Allen wasn't on the set. When he was it was much different and people would get uptight.
In later years Marshall wrote a script for a sequel to the series called Escape from a Giant Land. He hoped that it would be a big screen production and would feature as many original cast members as possible.
THE THING WITH TWO HEADS
Marshall was subsequently cast in the role of Dr. Fred Williams in the science-fiction horror exploitation film The Thing with Two Heads (1972) which starred Ray Milland and Rosey Grier. This was a tale about a wealthy and racist white man who has his head transplanted onto the body of a black prisoner from death row.
