Deaths 2022

Deaths 2021

Deaths 2020

Deaths 2019

Deaths 2018

Deaths 2017

Deaths 2016

Deaths 2015

Deaths 2014

Deaths 2013

Deaths 2012

Deaths 2011

Deaths 2010

Deaths 2009


Full list by date of death

Gordon Hessler

Director

Born - 12 December 1925, Berlin, Germany
Died - 19 January 2014

Dark-haired, bespectacled Hollywood director (born in Germany to an English father), who cut his teeth on Alfred Hitchcock's TV series, then came to Britain in the early 1960s and made a series of sometimes iconic and innovative horror films that remain his most distinctive work. After a hesitant start with Catacombs (1964) and The Last Shot You Hear (1968), Hessler found his metier in stylish horror and fantasy: The Oblong Box (1968), Scream and Scream Again (1969), Cry of the Banshee (1970), Murders in the Rue Morgue (1971) and The Golden Voyage of Sinbad (1973). He returned to America and became mired in TV movies, of which the chillers are the best: Scream, Pretty Peggy (1973), Hitchhike! (1974) and The Strange Possession of Mrs Oliver (1977). He rounded off his career with a series of often straight-to-video action movies, among them Escape from El Diablo (1983), Pray for Death (1985), The Misfit Brigade (1987), Out on Bail (1989) and Journey of Honor (1991), his last. He also made one final venture into the chiller field with The Girl in a Swing in 1988.