Blacula will Scream no more... William Marshall has died in Hollywood

Father Geek here with word that the great black Shakespearean Stage Actor William Marshall has died...

I received this just minutes ago...

Greetings Harry,

Get working on the obit. William Marshall who played Blacula passed away this afternoon at a Los Angeles rest home. Don't forget to mention his role as the creator of M-5 on Star Trek.

Rolling Stone

Here's the brief note carried on the AP Wire...

"Blacula" actor William Marshall dies

(Los Angeles-AP) -- The actor who starred as "Blacula" has died. William Marshall played the title character in the 1972 film and its sequel, "Scream, Blacula, Scream." He died at a Los Angeles rest home. He'd had Alzheimer's disease in recent years. Marshall was 78.

He appeared in dozens of films and popular T-V series -- including "Star Trek" and "The Jeffersons." And his stage roles included Shakespeare's "Othello."

Father Geek back again... well those piddling notes are extremely lacking. So I'll try to fill in some of the holes.

Harry and I have a great 16mm print of what has been called by some the blaxploitation version of the EXORCIST that stars Marshall called ABBY aka POSSESS MY SOUL. Its a fun flick typical of the 70's Exploitation genre that spawned it and it had a long popular run on the Drive-in circuit and in the Grindhouse cinemas of the day. Its sort of a combo of "Blood Feast", "The Exorcist", and "Audrey Rose", or the "Beyond the Door" series all rolled into one single flick, and William Marshall's great in it. Lots of fun!

Marshall was classicly trained in Shakespeare and Grand Opera and worked on Broadway before answering the siren's song and turning himself over totally to Hollywood. He appeared in dozens of films other than the afore mentioned BLACULA series including HELL WITH HEROES, THE FISHER KING, TO TRAP A SPY, AMAZON WOMEN ON THE MOON, THE BOSTON STRANGLER, even a couple of 1960's TARZAN movies.

He also did alot of TV work appearing in many popular prime time shows... a couple of MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E.'s, a DANGER MAN, an ALFRED HITCHCOCK HOUR, and a host of Westerns. However, I'll best remember him on TV as the near-mad-scientist Doctor Daystrom in the original STAR TREK's "THE ULTIMATE COMPUTER" back in March of 1968.

WILLIAM MARSHALL has left us it is true, but we've got all the films and TV he's left us with forever.