JOHN DEHNER, 76, veteran radio, TV and film actor, died Feb. 4. He was an animation assistant at Walt Disney Productions, working on “Fantasia” and “Bambi,” before launching his acting career in such films as “Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo,” “State Fair” and “Carousel.” He worked as a radio newscaster before he started acting in that medium. His distinctive voice was heard in numerous Gunsmoke segments as many of the burned-out homesteaders, whiskey-soaked judges and mad-dog killers who passed through Dodge City. He played an English reporter touring the American west in Frontier Gentleman, and he starred as Paladin in the 1958-60 radio version of Have Gun Will Travel (one of the few series to originate on television then move to radio).

     On television, Dehner was a regular on many, mostly short-lived, series, including The Westerner, The Roaring Twenties, The Baileys of Balboa, The Virginian, The Doris Day Show and Young Maverick. In between those parts he did countless guest turns on most of the westerns on the air, and villain roles on leading adventure shows like The Man From U.N.C.L.E. and The Wild Wild West. His more recent pictures included “The Cheyenne Social Club,” “Slaughterhouse Five,” “Day of the Dolphin,” “The Boys From Brazil,” “The Right Stuff” and “Jagged Edge.”

CESARE DANOVA, 66, film and TV actor, died March 19. Already a leading man in his native Italy when he signed with MGM in 1956, Danova’s American pictures included “Cleopatra,” “The Man Who Understood Women,” “Viva Las Vegas,” “Mean Streets” and “Animal House.” He played charming cads and continental villains in The Man From U.N.C.L.E., Mission: Impossible, It Takes A Thief and dozens of other shows. His only regular series role was as “Actor,” one of the World War II commandoes of Garrison’s Gorillas, the “Dirty Dozen” rip-off seen on CBS in 1967-68.

PAUL HENREID, 84, actor and director best known for his role in the classic film, “Casablanca,” died March 29. His two indelible movie roles occurred in 1942: selfless resistance leader Victor Laszlo in “Casablanca,” and suave J.D. Durrence, lighting two cigarettes and handing one to Bette Davis in “Now, Voyager.” He went on to appear in “Deception,” “The Spanish Main,” “Of Human Bondage,” “Hollow Triumph,” “Deep in My Heart” and dozens more. In the ’50s he turned to producing and directing, first in film then for television. He directed segments of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Thriller, Cheyenne, Maverick, and others, also acting in many shows, including a villain turn on It Takes A Thief. His last screen appearance was in 1977’s “Exorcist II: The Heretic.”

JAMES BROWN, 72, star of The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin, died April 11. The series aired on ABC from 1954 to 1959, with Brown as U.S. Cavalry Lt. Rip Masters, father figure to orphaned Corporal Rusty and his pet German shepherd. Brown also appeared in such films as “Going My Way,” “Sands of Iwo Jima,” “A Star Is Born” and “Irma La Douce,” and appeared on television as recently as Dallas and Murder She Wrote.

RAY DANTON, 60, veteran actor and director, died Feb. 11. Specializing in smooth-talking tough guys, Danton starred in such films as “The Rise and Fall of Legs Diamond,” “Portrait of a Mobster” and “The George Raft Story.” On TV he was unscrupulous saloonkeeper Nifty Cronin on The Alaskans and a guest villain in episodes of The Man From U.N.C.L.E., Honey West, It Takes a Thief, The FBI, Hawaii Five-0 and many others. He later turned to directing and was a producer on the Mike Hammer series.

ANGELIQUE PETTYJOHN, 48, fondly remembered ’60s TV actress and more recently a Las Vegas burlesque comic, died Feb. 14. She played the battling space-babe in “The Gamesters of Triskelion” on Star Trek, and appeared in segments of Batman (in the Green Hornet episodes), The Girl From U.N.C.L.E. and It Takes a Thief. She also had a recurring role on Get Smart as Charlie Watkins, the male Control agent always disguised as a voluptuous woman, and appeared in such films as “The President’s Analyst,” “Clambake” and “Tell Me That You Love Me, Junie Moon.”

BERT PARKS, 77, TV host, announcer, actor, singer and pop culture icon as emcee of the Miss America Pageant, died Feb. 2. As a radio and TV game show host, Parks was at the peak of his fame when he was selected to host the Miss America broadcast in 1955, which he returned to every year until 1980 when he was unceremoniously dumped by pageant officials for someone with “younger appeal” (TV Tarzan Ron Ely). The firing actually revitalized his career and he kidded his image in commercials, TV roles and the 1990 feature, “The Freshman.” In 1960, after most of his quiz shows had ended, Parks succeeded Robert Preston as star of “The Music Man” on Broadway, and later appeared on such shows as Burke’s Law, Ellery Queen and The Bionic Woman.

JACK ARNOLD, 75, director of “The Incredible Shrinking Man” and other ’50s monster stuff now dubbed genre classics, died March 17. As a contract director at Universal, Arnold helmed “It Came From Outer Space,” “Creature from the Black Lagoon,” “Tarantula,” “Revenge of the Creature,” “The Space Children,” “Monster on the Campus,” and others. His non-genre work included “The Mouse That Roared,” “The Lively Set,” “A Global Affair” and the marijuana-exploitation flick, “High School Confidential!” Arnold was an executive producer and frequent writer on It Takes a Thief and directed segments of Science Fiction Theatre, Buck Rogers, Nancy Drew, Holmes and Yoyo and many others.

DICK YORK, 63, actor best known for his role in Bewitched, died Feb. 20. From the show’s premiere in 1964 until he left in 1969, York’s performance as bewildered and abused ad man Darrin Stephens made him a ’60s sitcom favorite. But prior to Bewitched he had appeared in dozens of series episodes on The Twilight Zone, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Thriller, The Millionaire, Playhouse 90, Father Knows Best, Naked City, The Untouchables, Wagon Train, Dr. Kildare and more. He played the school teacher on trial in “Inherit the Wind,” and was also a regular on the 1962-63 series, Going My Way. He left Bewitched because of a recurrent back problem and related dependence on painkillers, and had been virtually unseen since.

ELVIA ALLMAN, 87, comic actress invariably cast as domineering old biddies in TV sitcoms, died March 6. Her regular roles included the scheming Selma Plout on Petticoat Junction and Mrs. Dithers in the ‘50s version of Blondie. She played similar roles on countless shows, from Herman Glimcher’s mother on The Dick Van Dyke Show, to the foreman in the famous candy factory episode of I Love Lucy. In the ’30s she was the voice of Clarabelle Cow in Disney cartoons, and in the ’40s played the Brenda half of Brenda & Cobina, the dimwit debutantes on Bob Hope’s radio show.

PAUL MAXWELL, 70, Canadian actor who provided the voice of Colonel Steve Zodiac, hero of the second “Supermarionation” kids show, Fireball XL-5, died Jan. 2. In the U.S., the series ran Saturday mornings on NBC from 1963 to 1965. Maxwell also appeared in live-action shows like The Saint, and most recently was seen in “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.”

NEVILLE BRAND, 71, TV and movie actor known for brutal villain roles as well as the comical western series Laredo, died April 16. His movie roles included a POW in “Stalag 17,” a gunman in “D.O.A.,” and Burt Lancaster’s friendly prison guard in “Birdman of Alcatraz.” Other film roles ranged from “Prince Valiant” and “Tora! Tora! Tora!” to “That Darn Cat” and “Alligator.” He appeared in dozens of TV shows but his only regular series was Laredo (1965-67), in which he played rowdy, none-too-bright Texas Ranger Reese Bennett. Brand was also well known for portraying Al Capone in the two-part Desilu Playhouse pilot for The Untouchables (later released to theaters as “The Scarface Mob”). He also played Capone in “The George Raft Story.”