The Southland Firestorms: The Battle Goes On : Screenwriter Burned in Topanga Dies

SHERMAN OAKS — A British film director-screenwriter Wednesday became the first fatality of the weeklong siege of Southern California firestorms, succumbing to burns he received trying to save a pet cat as flames swept the guest house where he lived in Topanga Canyon.

Duncan Gibbins, 41, who crafted sci-fi dramas including “Eve of Destruction” after turning out music videos for groups including the Eurythmics and Wham!, was pronounced dead at 8:44 p.m. at the Sherman Oaks Hospital and Health Center, said Doris Delverde, the hospital’s administrative supervisor. He had been treated in the hospital’s burn center for third-degree burns to his head and upper body and smoke inhalation.

The victim’s mother was en route to Los Angeles from her residence in Cornwall, England, late Tuesday, but had not arrived when he died.

Gibbins’ cousin from Surrey, England, who was on her first visit to the United States when he was injured, was at his bedside when he died.

Gibbins had lived in a guest house on a 10-acre estate owned by Peter Alexander, an art dealer, who fled the blaze that started near the property about 11 a.m. Tuesday.

Ron Mass, 40, a carpenter who also lived on the estate and was injured in the fire, lay in critical condition late Wednesday at the burn center with second- and third-degree burns over 60% of his body, a hospital spokeswoman said.

Friends described Gibbins as a quick-witted man who mimicked the accents of English bluebloods with sharp accuracy, a man who, when his weight-watching California friends ordered salads, would sit down to what he called a three-course “proper meal.”

“He was just quick in repartee--a very English quality,” said Yale Udoff, who co-wrote several films with Gibbins and had known him since 1986.

A movie lover, Gibbins moved to California after directing music videos in London. He was a former soccer reporter for the BBC and radio networks. He had also reported for the BBC from Northern Ireland, Udoff said.

“He was very interested in the world. He was a CNN junky,” Udoff said late Tuesday night while waiting with friends at the hospital. “If he was up now, he’d be watching this (fire) on all the networks.

“He was crazy about this cat,” he said. “The desire to save an animal that is very close to being a part of the family--it’s very understandable. Nobody knows whether the cat is alive or not.”

Although three of Gibbins’ credits bore ironic titles--”Eve of Destruction,” “Fire With Fire” and “Third Degree Burn”--their story lines had nothing to do with fire devastation.

“Eve of Destruction,” a 1991 film directed by Gibbons, starred Gregory Hines and Kevin McCarthy, with Hines playing a government agent chasing a female android run amok.

In “Fire With Fire” (1986), also directed by Gibbins and featuring Craig Sheffer, Virginia Madsen and Jeffrey Jay Cohen, an adolescent boy and girl flee a detention camp and a convent, with prison guards and nuns in pursuit.

“Third Degree Burn,” a 1989 HBO television film for which Gibbins wrote the screenplay with Udoff, starred Treat Williams and Richard Masur. It tells the story of a debt-ridden ex-cop who reluctantly agrees to join an investigation, only to fall for the blonde subject.

Gibbins’ most recent work was “A Case for Murder,” a television film he directed for release last May on the USA Network.

In the 1980s, Gibbins directed music videos, including “Who’s That Girl?” by the Eurythmics, “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go” by Wham! and “The Heat Is On” and “Smuggler’s Blues” by Glenn Frey. The redheaded, ruddy-faced Englishman had recently traveled to Alaska to research a script about an anti-environmental U. S. congressman who must survive alongside a Greenpeace activist when their airplane crashes in the Arctic wilderness. He had finished the first draft of the script that touched on the beauty and destructiveness of nature, said Udoff, who has read the draft.

Gibbins’ cousin Penny Stewart, her companion, Nigel Mills, and several friends had maintained a somber vigil in the burn unit throughout the day.

Stewart and Mills, both lawyers in England, said they had visited Gibbins only days before and then left for Hawaii. When news of his injury reached them, they caught the first plane back to Los Angeles and sat at his bedside since Tuesday night.

“We had a couple of days in Topanga with Duncan, which was idyllic,” Mills said.

Also at his side were Jim Piddock, a fellow British subject who played in the Valley Soccer Federation with Gibbins, and two other members of Gibbins’ team, The Wanderers.

“He had a big heart,” Piddock said, while Gibbins clung to life Wednesday afternoon. “He had the energy of a 25-year-old in a 41-year-old body. He loved the sport so much.”

Piddock said he delivered a message from the team, hoping that Gibbins heard it. He said doctors told him that brain wave readings suggested that Gibbins was capable of hearing.

Times staff writer Timothy Williams and correspondent Rebecca Bryant contributed to this story.