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Akira Ifukube, Godzilla composer, dies

GodzillaA self-taught composer whose scores for the original Toho Studios Godzilla films have become cult favorites, Akira Ifukube dies at the age of 91. He trained in the lumber industry and served as a forestry office during World War II, but he explored his interest in music in his spare time and became a university music instructor in 1946. In 1954, he scored the first Godzilla movie, and that music was tracked into later films in the series and has been re-recorded, covered and sampled by numerous artists since then. Aside from his film scoring work, he has been credited with hundreds of musical compositions since then and served as president of the Tokyo College of Music from 1976 to 1987.

Phil Brown, Star Wars actor, dies

Phil BrownActor Phil Brown, who secured a permanent place in SF lore with the role of Uncle Owen in Star Wars, dies at the age of 89. After spending the early years of his career working in stage productions in New York, he moved to Hollywood and co-founded the Actors’ Laboratory. He was only one film into a directing career when he was blacklisted during the McCarthy hearings, and left America to work in London in 1952 as both an actor and director, not to move back to the US until 1993. He found that his Star Wars role, even as brief as it was, won him a place of honor at many SF conventions, and he spent recent years making the rounds and meeting his fans. He also appeared in Superman, The Pink Panther Strikes Again, Twilight’s Last Gleaming, the TV miniseries The Martian Chronicles, and played a brief part in a trailer assembled by Richard Hatch to pitch a revival of the original Battlestar Galactica series.

Andreas Katsulas, Babylon 5 actor, dies

Andreas Katsulas as G'KarActor Andreas Katsulas, known to SF fans as Babylon 5′s eloquent Ambassador G’Kar, dies of lung cancer at the age of 59. After making a mark with Star Trek fans as Next Generation’s feisty recurring Romulan, Commander Tomalok, he landed the part of Babylon 5′s resident Narn ambassador and stayed with it from the 1993 pilot movie through the most recent Babylon 5 project to date, the 2002 TV movie Legend Of The Rangers. He also made appearances in Max Headroom, Alien Nation, Star Trek: Enterprise, Millennium, NYPD Blue, and movies such as the big-screen adaptation of The Fugitive.

White House honors Odyssey inventor

Ralph Baer with President BushRalph Baer, the inventor of home video games, receives the National Medal of Technology from President George W. Bush. While working for defense contractor Sanders & Associates in the 1960s, Baer pioneered the concept of interactive television programming, eventually gathering a hand-picked team to create a prototype called the Brown Box. Baer and his employer licensed the technology to Magnavox, which repackaged it and marketed it as the world’s first home video game console, the Odyssey. Baer also created other key video game innovations, such as the first light gun.

Doctor Who action figures, wave 1

Doctor Who action figuresBritish toymaker Character Options releases the first wave of 5-inch action figures based on characters from the new Doctor Who series, including the ninth and tenth Doctors, Rose and K-9. The figures are identical to those included in Character’s Dalek infrared battle set. Read more

NASA’s Dawn mission cancelled

DawnHaving been “on hold” since October 2005 pending an audit of technical and managerial issues related to the mission, NASA formally cancels the Dawn unmanned mission to the asteroid belt. The spacecraft had been intended to lift off in 2006, using an ion propulsion system to visit, orbit, and map not one, but two, of the largest bodies in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, in the following decade. The mission is cancelled when NASA auditors find unresolved technical issues and project a budget overrun of 20%. Planners and managers for the Dawn mission plan to appeal NASA’s decision.