Huw Weekes

Huw Weekes - who was born on January 22nd, 1957, in Newport, Monmouthshire, Wales - was a British journalist and broadcaster.  The son of Philip Weekes, a senior National Coal Board official, Weekes was brought up in Aberdare.  He began his journalistic career at the age of eighteen as a cub reporter on the Weston Mercury weekly newspaper in Weston-Super-Mare in the south-west of England, before joining the Bristol Evening Post.  Weekes's first broadcasting job was as a reporter on BBC Radio Newcastle in 1980.  In 1982, he joined Yorkshire Television as a sub-editor, graduating to a presenter's role on YTV's nightly news magazine, Calendar.  Following another presenting role at Tyne Tees Television, Weekes returned to south Wales in 1988, joining HTV Wales in Cardiff.  He stayed with HTV for thirteen years, becoming a well-loved newsreader on the channel.  He was described by HTV Wales Controller and Programmes Director, Elis Owen, as "...a first-class journalist, an excellent broadcaster, and a good colleague.", and "...one of the cornerstones of the HTV news operation for many years, and was well-known and popular...".  Weekes settled in Llantwit Major in the Vale of Glamorgan with his wife, Sue, and his three children: Jennifer, Robert, and Alice.  In September of 2000, Weekes - who was described by a work colleague as "an up-and-down kind of person" - was diagnosed with clinical depression.  On the evening of January 17th, 2001, one of Weekes's work colleagues - fellow newsreader, Tara Eugene - received a phone call from Weekes, saying that he had driven to a remote car-park with a bottle of wine and some sleeping-pills, and was planning to ingest them and freeze to death.  Weekes also said that a car had then pulled-up nearby, which he took as a sign not to go through with his plan.  Miss Eugene later tried to contact Weekes at his flat, without success, before contacting Weekes's sister to inform her of his distress.  His sister got no answer when she called at his Cardiff flat, assuming he had gone to bed, as he had to be in the news studio early the next morning.  Weekes had been due to arrive at work in Cardiff at 5 a.m. on January 18th, as he was scheduled to read the morning news bulletins, but he failed to turn up.  Concerned colleagues called his home, but to no avail.  Later that day, Weekes's dead body was found on Boverton Beach, where he used to play with his children, just two miles from his Llantwit Major home.  An inquest revealed that he had died by drowning after taking an overdose of Temazepam sleeping pills and some alcohol.  There were also rumours that Weekes and his wife had been having marital difficulties.  Huw Weekes was just 43 years old.

Lynette Davies

Lynette Vaynor Davies - who was born on October 18th, 1948, in Tonypandy, Glamorgan, Wales - was a Welsh actress of stage, television, and film.  The daughter of a Customs and Excise officer, she was educated at Our Lady's School, Cardiff, before training at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, and then going into repertory at the Bristol Old Vic.  In 1974, she appeared as Regan in a Royal Shakespeare Company production of King Lear, as well as playing Yulia in the R.S.C.'s first British production of Maxim Gorky's Summerfolk at the Aldwych Theatre.  Her highest-profile role was as Davinia Prince, the central character in The Foundation, a British television series produced by ATV from 1977 to '78, about the widow of a business tycoon, although she had previously appeared on television in The Ghosts of Motley Hall, Clayhanger, and Will Shakespeare, and subsequently acted in Tales of the Unexpected and Inside Story.  Throughout the 1980s, Davies continued to appear in British T.V. roles, including starring as Jenny Swanne in 32 episodes of Miracles Take Longer, in The District Nurse with fellow actress Nerys Hughes, and in episodes of Tales of the Unexpected, No Place Like Home, Inside Story, Bergerac, and The Watch House. Her final two television appearances were both in 1992: as Dr. Renata Berger in Street Legal; and her last-ever role, as Nerys Jones, in the Welsh production, The Christmas Stallion.  In 1986, Davies joined the English Shakespeare Company.  From then until 1988, she toured first the U.K. and then around the world with the company, at first performing The Henrys, and then The Wars of  the Roses.  However, whilst on this gruelling touring schedule in the U.S.A., Davies displayed signs that she was increasingly "out of kilter", and she eventually returned to Britain, where she was hospitalised, presumably with a stress-related illness.  In 1989, Davies played Doll Tearsheet in an English Shakespeare Company production of Henry IV, Part 2.  Most of her later years were spent on stage: in the West End, and in New Zealand, Canada, and America.  Davies was married twice, the second time to set designer Jose Furtado, with whom she lived in Toronto, while working in theatre and on radio there.  In 1992, Davies was cast in a starring in The Lifeboat, a new BBC series by Lynda la Plante, which was to be filmed in Pembrokeshire in Davies's native Wales.  Unfortunately, soon after shooting started in 1993, Davies's psychiatric illness returned, and the programme had to be recast and some scenes reshot.  Davies herself returned to Cardiff in a state of despondency.  On December 1st, 1993, a bag containing Davies's shopping was found on the beach at Lavernock Point, near Penarth, Wales.  Her fur-coat was found a little further away.  Later that day, Lynette Davies's body was found, drowned, also at Lavernock Point, on the coast of the Vale of Glamorgan, Wales.  Upon her death, which was ruled a suicide, Davies left an estate valued at £251,073.  She was 45 years old.

James Whale

James Whale - who was born on July 22nd, 1889, in Dudley, Worcestershire, England - was a theatre director, film director, and actor.  His first directing success was the 1928 play, Journey's End, which led to his move to the U.S.A.  In Hollywood, he directed a dozen films for Universal Pictures between 1931 and 1937, developing a style characterised by the influence of German Expressionism, and also becoming associated with the horror genre, with films such as Frankenstein (1931).  The peak of Whale's career was directing The Road Back (1937), but a series of box-office disappointments followed, and by 1941 his directing career was effectively over.
Very unusually for the 1920s and '30s, Whale was openly homosexual, and it was claimed that his refusal to remain 'in the closet' may have hastened the end of his career.
In the Spring of 1956, Whale suffered a small stroke, and was then hospitalised after a larger stroke occurring a few months later.  While in hospital, he was treated for depression with electric shock treatment.  Suffering from mood swings, and becoming increasingly frustrated that he was becoming dependent on others as his mental faculties diminished, Whale committed suicide by drowning himself in his swimming pool in Pacific Palisades, California, U.S.A., on May 29th, 1957, at the age of 67.  Initially thought to have been accidental, Whale's death was only revealed to be suicide in a suppressed suicide note which was not released until the death of Whale's long-term partner, David Lewis, in 1987.