S

ometimes I think Earth has got to be the insane asylum of the universe. . . and I’m here by
computer error. At sixty-eight, I hope I’ve gained some wisdom in the past fourteen lustrums and
it’s obligatory to speak plain and true about the conclusions I’ve come to; now that I have been
educated to believe by such mentors as Wells, Stapledon, Heinlein, van Vogt, Clarke, Pohl, (S. Fowler)
Wright, Orwell, Taine, Temple, Gernsback, Campbell and other seminal influences in scientifiction, I
regret the lack of any female writers but only Radclyffe Hall opened my eyes outside sci-fi.

I was a secular humanist before I knew the term. I have not believed in god since childhood’s end. I
believe a belief in any deity is adolescent, shameful and dangerous. How would you feel, surrounded
by billions of human beings taking Santa Claus, the Easter bunny, the tooth fairy and the stork seriously
and capable of shaming, maiming or murdering in their name? I am embarrassed to live in a world
retaining any faith in church, prayer or celestial creator. I do not believe in Heaven, Hell or a Hereafter;
in angels, demons, ghosts, goblins, the Devil, vampires, ghouls, zombies, witches, warlocks, UFOs or
other delusions and in very few mundane individuals - politicians, lawyers, judges, priests, militarists,
censors and just plain people. I respect the individual’s right to abortion, suicide and euthanasia. I
support birth control. I wish to Good that society were rid of smoking, drinking and drugs.

My hope for humanity - and I think sensible science fiction has a beneficial influence in this direction -
is that one day everyone born will be whole in body and brain, will live a long life free from physical
and emotional pain, will participate in a fulfilling way in their contribution to existence, will enjoy true
love and friendship, will pity us 20th century barbarians who lived and died in an atrocious,
anachronistic atmosphere of arson, rape, robbery, kidnapping, child abuse, insanity, murder, terrorism,
war, smog, pollution, starvation and the other negative “norms” of our current civil(?)ization. I have
devoted my life to amassing over a quarter million pieces of sf and fantasy as a present to posterity and
I hope to be remembered as an altruist who would have been an accepted citizen of Utopia.

- Forrest J Ackerman - 1984

Mr. Monster 3

Through These Portals W ho can argue over the last 90 years, Forry Ackerman has stirred
the gray matter of millions of fans the world over? Some to wonder,
some to create, share, get involved, and more importantly, to think. The
Enter fact you are reading this is testament to Forry’s tenacity and love of life.
Another world And certainly, the legacy of the man will live beyond the pages, the
Where time bides full spectrum, movies, the collections, the conventions to all the people who will never
A world of ageless thoughts know they’ve been touched by “Mr. Monster”, Forrest J (no period)
Preserved on paper; Ackerman.
Of sights— This isn’t to say Forry didn’t have his detractors; not everyone can
Captured frames of moments go, and do and be and have and aspire without discovering those who
Out of time, may not share the same ideals. And who, after all can always be right
Souls frozen in eternal posture; all the time?
Of illusions - We are now at that point, that parting we all know must come,
Fantasies that rival Nature’s best, saddened perhaps, but not surprised.
A far-flung universe of Stars, Whether you met Forry through the pages of some dusty tome, over
A galaxy of a box of popcorn at a double horror matinee, a legendary Open House
at the Ackermansion, the “Famous Monsters of Filmland” letter-
Resplendent hopes and dreams.
column or shaking his hand at a convention, you are now charged with
taking what you have and doing what you will to pass along the joy, the
Our future’s here,
interest and enthusiasm that we all share to those less fortunate. If we
among this past— don’t, then what does that say about ourselves?
The visions of the greatest minds It was 1960 when this 13 year old kid walked into the drug store and
This world could hope to offer: smack into the 10th issue of Famous Monsters of Filmland. It called to
Brilliant flashes Of vivid imagination, me from the rack, crying “Take me home little boy and I’ll change your
Of calculated abandon; life forever.” (with apologies to 4E). I was smitten. Months later, I
A strange and awesome perspective, returned for my next dose, in the form of the Gorgo clad issue #11 and
A bold and daring legacy. found it fresh from the delivery truck, still baled and pulsating on the
floor. Inquiring to the time of Gorgo’s freedom, I was told “Those
And amidst it all, magazines are going back to the distributor because they are bad for
One man - kids’ minds. ”

I
That legacy’s curator, The rest is history.
Administrator of the past, Alan White
Harbinger of the future
Offers graciously n one way or another Forry, directly or indirectly, you have
This cornucopia changed the lives of millions of people. you were the parent, the
For those who would pursue, guardian of light and leader of the way to an entire generation of
For those with eyes to see baby boomers.
By your friendship, willingness to give of yourself, contributions to
And hearts with courage to embrace
fandom, and ability to laugh along with, as well as question fandom,
The future’s past,
you have, for 70 years proven yourself to be an exemplary resident of
Its present
Fandom and planet Earth.
And its destiny. Just remember that whatever highway, country, planet, plane or
dimension you travel, you will be remembered by those who love
Ann Wilmer-Lasky you.
©1988
This publication is dedicated to Forry Ackerman and the world he
Dedicated to Forrest J Ackerman, Mr. Science Fiction, without
helped create that in one way or another we all live.
Alan White / Xanadu Las Vegas
whose foresight, much of our science fiction heritage would have
been lost forever.
4 Mr. Monster

In July of 1989 I published the last issue of my megazine “Delineator”. That issued featured a tribute to Forry Ackerman
allowing our readers to add their own tribute to Mr. Monster. Here is a reprinting of those tributes, plus a few picked up along
the way. Almost 20 years ago; were we insightful or just silly?
Forry provided me with a lot of material for a project such as this and for the first time, it will all be printed. Many of the
photos where taken by myself, yet Forry, while giving me permission to print everything, didn’t necessarily include names of
individual photographers. My apologies.

Mike Yerkes. . .
I’m 37, but only became personally acquainted with Forry over the last 6-7 years. Yet, in a way, I’ve “known” Forry since I was
8 years old. In Fall, 1960 - when my step dad left on the coffee table a magazine called Famous Monsters (it was issue #10, the Claude
Raines Phantom cover).
As I grew older, I actually read “M” in ADDITION to looking at
those HUGE, clear black and white pictures of ghouls, mummies,
robots and, of course, Lon Chaney. So, like most readers of FM, I
became acquainted with Forry through his editorials and personal
asides inside the magazine. And I loved it all. The kindness and
warmth of his words only hinted at the kindness and warmth of the real
man.
I suppose, looking back on childhood and FM, I’m like a lotta guys
my age who loved the magazine and the man behind it; I was poor (in
the early years) and had sometimes a chaotic family life (oh well, who
doesn’t?) but FM and Forry’s writing was a dependable - and needed -
friend to someone growing up like myself.
I only regret - because of law school - I can’t see him. He’s the
most accommodating, decent and warm person I think I’ve ever
encountered.
I just wanted to express my affection and admiration for him. In
this world there are few truly decent and good people, of this I’m
convinced. that’s why Forry Ackerman is a person who makes the
world livable because he surely is one of those few.
And Forry, if this is published and you’re reading this, THANK
YOU for being so nice to me the past years, welcoming me into your
home and your life. I’m very lucky!
After all, if it wasn’t for Forry Ackerman and “Famous Monsters,”
a skinny little kid would never have earned the appellation “Monster
Mike” amongst all the other kids.

Jim Morrow. . .
Always Gentle on My Mind
Memories are a wonderful gift that we possess while we are here
on earth. As we travel life’s party, we experience many things, some
good and some bad! We also meet people from all walks of life.
Again, some are good and some are bad. These individuals, forever
etched into our minds, teach us important lessons on happiness and
sorrow.
Yet, if we are lucky - we will meet someone like Forry.
I have known Forry personally since 1974. It seems like I have
known him a lifetime.
I first became acquainted with Forry when I started reading
“Famous Monsters of Filmland” when I was in the first grade. The
year was 1963, right before John F. Kennedy was assassinated. (It’s
funny how those things stick out so vividly in my mind.) I was not
allowed to buy the magazines, but I still read friends copies at school.
 Mr. Monster 5

In 1965, when my father was stationed in Tripoli, Libya, we (my mother and brother Jeff) flew to meet him at our new home. The
first thing my father did was to take me to the AFB Bookstore. (This bookstore became my link to the outside world)). He promised
that he would buy anything that I wanted. What did I see? FM. #36 leapt out and grabbed me! Well, to a little kid, so far away from
the U.S. of A(ckerman), let’s just say that I felt a little closer to home.
I have many fond memories of Forry over the years. He is one of the most gracious people I have ever known. The many times
that I have been with him, I have never seen him rude to anyone. He has never turned away a fan. He is always eager to answer any
questions or chat with them. I think that because he has been a lifetime fan himself, he knows how good a fan feels when they are not
talked down to. When I see the smiles of the fans and Forry, I have to say that I have a warm feeling inside.
There is one thing for which I will always be grateful to Forry. In 1983, I invited my brother Jeff to attend his first convention
(Atlanta Fantasy Fair). Forry was kind enough to visit us in our room. He entertained my brother with tales of FM, Boris Karloff,
movies, and gave a demonstration of Esperanto. Jeff met him again in 1984, where he was also warmly greeted by Robert Bloch. To
this day, he still talks of these two men and how interesting and entertaining they were.
I had always wanted to personally visit the Ackermansion. In 1986, 1 finally had the pleasure of seeing his collection. To finally
see it was a dream come true. To see the collection is to see the history of the sci-fi, horror, and fantasy world. It is a time machine
that will take you on a journey to the past, present and future.

Jay Singer. . .
This is simply a thank you letter; admittedly one I should have written when I was thirteen. (I have just turned thirty four. ) My
younger brother and I attended the auction in New York and meeting you and hearing your speech as a high point in our life.
I understand this comment sounds a bit dramatic, but to us it was a thrilling moment. (I am not a mushy type of guy. ) When your
formative years are heavily influenced by someone you never actually met… well, it’s a SHOCK to finally meet that man in the flesh.
We grew up in the “Golden Age” of monster books, collecting FM, Castle of Frankenstein (whatever happened to Calvin T. Beck?),
monster cards, Aurora models and, of course, Creepy and Eerie.
1, along with legions of fans, want to finally thank you for the moral values you instilled in us and the appreciation of the world of
science fiction and horror in both film and print. If there is one man who is responsible for the interest and devotion we show to the
genre, it is you, Mr. Ackerman.
While I am happy for Fangoria’s commercial success, they and their various offshoots dwell so heavily on sickening depictions of
disembowelments, facial disfigurations, etc. , that it seems to border on the psychopathological. Forry, if censorship was as lax in 1966
as it is in 1988, you would never have printed these images. You never even whispered the name Hershel G. Lewis nor acknowledged
the existence of his film. For this, Forry, I thank you. I just wrapped
up seven years in the video retail business, and, during that time, I
would seriously ponder what the long-range effects of these intense
gore films will be on the minds and personalities of young people.
Fortunately, the owners accepted my recommendations so we did not
even stock most of the stuff. We just told customers to try other stores.
I have always believed in freedom of expression, but I also believe in
moderation.
I wish you and yours much good luck and success in the future and
hope one day to stride through the portals of the Ackermansion. Just
seeing the photos and video isn’t enough. Through your efforts you
keep the past alive and remembered. Without the past, without
memories, life is just existence. Once again, Forry, THANX!

Donald A. Wollheim. . .
News of my November 1987 winning of the Forry Award made
my day - I now find I cannot see my reflection in mirrors. Forry is
certainly one of the pillars that uphold the fan world and keep the faith.

Al Shamie. . .
pic: Alan White

“I cannot bear to contemplate Forry’s mortality. If he should

depart this realm via any mode, my reaction would be to eat the wild
Forry bookended by Carroll Borland and her daughter grass of the fields and bathe in the dust for at least 7 years.”
at Halloween party, 1966
6 Mr. Monster

Tetsy Pryor. . .
“Forry is the guardian angel of sci-fi.”

John Kobal. . .
“Forry is a real-life Margo in his very own Found
Horizon.”

Emil Petaya. . .
“He is the ‘Mental Emperor’ of sci-fi”

Donald Franson. . .
Originally written for Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction
Magazine in response to some “antisci-fi” editorial.
Higgledy-piggledy
Forrest J Ackerman
Coined a new word that now
Isaac assails.
Experts on everything
Scientifictional
Forry struck first and so
“Sci-fi” prevails.

I’ve never used the term myself, thinking it neofannish,

pic: Alan White

but I believe it’s time for us all to accept the fact that it’s
now part of the language. I cite Ninth New International
Dictionary, and Leonard Matlin’s TV Movies and Video
Guide, which doesn’t confine its use to bad movies. It’s Carroll Borland set to pounch on the Ackermonster
become non-pejorative, at last, so Forry can quit fighting; the battle’s won.

Walter Willis. . .
Forry Ackerman and the Pacific Ocean

One of the sideshows turned out to be the Pacific Ocean. It . had a concession of a few yards of rather dirty sand, and looked
depressingly like the Atlantic. It was my intention to wade out a short distance, thinking appropriately solemn thoughts such as that I
had now reached the furthermost point of my journey westwards and this was the turning point. Feeling as poetic as I could in bare
feet with my trousers rolled up, I stalked rapidly into the Pacific Ocean only to slow down with an aching sense of injustice. It was
COLD. My Ghod, the Pacific was cold! It was intolerable. However I suppressed my indignation and continued on to where the water
got deep. I paused, savoring the solemnity of the occasion. Here I was in the Pacific Ocean — my romantic reflections were shattered
by a shout from Forry. I looked round. He pointed. I looked down. There, sailing past in a line ahead at a good 15 knots, were my
only pair of shoes in 7000 miles. With a strangled cry I leaped after them, letting go my rolled up trouser legs, which immediately fell
into the water. I overtook my shoes halfway to Hawaii and struggled back to dry land. I regret to have to tell you that Forrest J
Ackerman, a fine man in many ways, failed to show the quiet sympathy which would have been appropriate at this tragic moment. He
was rolling on the sand, laughing. And as I trudged up to him and said, “a slow boot to China!”

Jay Kay Klein. . .

A long time ago, back when I was 17 and had just been graduated from high school, that summer I met ForTy at a science fiction
get-together in New York City. I knew who he was, and had met him a time or two before, but this was the first time I’d ever done
more than exchange a few words. I had a copy of the science fiction novel written by John Jacob Astor and published at the end of th
19th century, intending to peddle it to help defray expenses. Forry was interested, but said he was short of cash at the moment, but
would send it to me when he got back home.
 Mr. Monster 7

Knowing I would leave for college in a few weeks, I told him to wait until I let him know my new address. And then, I forgot all
about it until about six or seven months later. I wrote, and received a check practically by return mail.
I only wish everyone were that dependable.

Brad Linaweaver. . .
Forry and Wendy are characters in my first sci-fi novel, Moon of Ice (with Forry’s full cooperation I might add). This is the long
version of an article I did on FJA for Tropicon III, December, 1984. He was Guest of Honor.

Forry-Word to the Future

(c 1984 by Brad Linaweaver)

Long before there was discussion in various circles of Academia over the cinema of terror, there were monster movies. Eons before
serious attempts at finding the boundaries of SF, there was the hoary pleasure of sci-fi. Always before the coming of the connoisseur,
there must be wine to put in the bottles.
Forrest J Ackerman, tee-totaler that he is, holds the record for the most complete cellar of vintage science fiction, fantasy and horror
memorabilia. Not a small portion of that vast accumulation is the result of his own work as editor, writer, agent, journalist, columnist,
actor, anthologist, and public spokesman for the field he has made his own.
Forry is a popularizer. Ray Bradbury has called him, “the most important fan / collector / human being in the history of science
- fantasy fiction.”
His is the necessary figure, the complete librarian, a man able to cross-reference highly diverse material as though a real life psycho-
historian. He has met virtually everyone in the field but those few giants who passed away before he had the opportunity, one such case
inspiring the title of proposed book by Ackerman:
I Never Met Jules Verne. But he did meet H. G. Wells!
Born in 1916, Forrest J Ackerman didn’t waste much time. By 1923, he had seen his first Lon Chaney film; by 1929, he had started
reading Amazing and had seen what was to be the favorite film of his life: Metropolis. (Forry being ForTy, he would eventually meet
Germany’s greatest director, as he always seeks out those who inspire his admiration.) Like all those who are to be eternally young, he
was the kind of child who allowed himself to be impressionable in the most total way: science fiction became the center of his life.
FJA was in the right places at the right times for this monomania to result in a series of firsts, the flavor of which is captured by the
following: he wore the first costume at the first Worldcon in 1939, thus setting in motion the masquerade balls; had the first fan letter
published in the first issue of Science Wonder Quarterly in 1929; received the first Hugo from the hands of Isaac Asimov in 1953; wrote
the first article in the first fanzine, The lime Traveler, in 1932; founded the first exclusively SF-oriented fan club in 1929; published
Ray Bradbury’s first stories in the fanzines, Voice of the Imag-i-Nation (Forry having had his own first pro sale in a 1936 Wonder
Stories; was polled as the first fan in 1941; along with Boris Karloff, received the first Ann Radcliffe Award from the Count Dracula
Society; published the first Fancyclopedia; was Guest of Honor at the First International SF Con; was the first BNF to make cameos in
SFilms, beginning with The Time Travelers (shades of an earlier fanzine!) in 1964; started the custom of nicknaming conventions, an
example of the practice being Tropicon; and last, but hardly least, was the editor of the first filmonster magazine (Famous Monsters of
Filmland in 1958), and the first science fiction film magazine (Spacemen in 1960).
Regarding the last credit, Forry is especially famous — or infamous, according to some — for coining sci-fi in 1955. Since then,
the neologism has caught on to the extent of appearing in modern dictionaries and being used on the cover of Playboy. Although many
identify “sci-fi” with the worst of SF (an
argument used by Harlan Ellison, usually
accompanied by an example of a giant insect
movie), the term is yet another example of
short-hand for the entire field. that it has
caught on with international journalism is
eloquent testimony to Forry’s impact as a
popularizer.
His good friend, Terri Pinckard, is doing
a biography of FJA. I had an opportunity to
talk with her about the project at one of her
Salons, held a week after LA con II at her
pic: Alan White

home in Santa Maria. Terri informed me that

the most practical manner of approaching the
Forry alongside Curtis Harrington, Peter and Polly Bogdanovich, subject is to place Ackerman’s various
Terri and Lucky Pinckard and the Right Honorable Dr. Donald A. Reed. contributions in historical perspective, since
8 Mr. Monster

he’s been around from the beginning, and has not lost contact with the field at any point of its development. Not for nothing is he a
fan of dinosaurs.
When one thinks of all the young people who came to an appreciation of silent films through the work of a man who dreams of the
future, it is clear that love of imagination is the bridge between yesterday and tomorrow. Nothing is more important than this sense-of-
history in the career of Forrest J Ackerman. And if a man’s wealth is ultimately judged by his friends, then Forry is one of the richest
people in the world. There is many a person who has been glad of such a relationship, as when Forry befriended Bela Lugosi whom
he had first seen live on the stage in Dracula back in the actor’s heyday - in the late year of 1954, when the world was pretty much
ignoring the Count. Forry did a lot for Bela in the closing years. The man who gives out the Big Heart award at worldcons has the
biggest heart, himself. He never forgets anyone or anything, because he won’t even consider the possibility that someone who has made
a genuine contribution to the Imagi-Nation could become a “has-been.”
Yet with all his idealism, one can’t say that Furry lacks a practical side. Consider: he has edited 100 Perry Rhodan books; he has
sold over ten properties to the movies that have been produced; as a literary agent, he has represented over 200 writers; as an editor, he
not only captained the original filmonster magazine (and survived years of dealing with James Warren), but saw it succeed against all
competitors, and that to the tune of 190 issues!
Many a fan spends a lifetime collecting, but without having an effect on the subject of his interest. Forry is the collector who
influences. He has made no small contribution to the continuing popularity of the films of Lon Chaney and Lang’s Metropolis.
Recently, he has published “Lon of 1,000 Faces” a definitive photographic record; and the most recent release of Metropolis carries a
well deserved credit for him.
Who but Ackerman could, at a moment’s notice, write a script for his favorite actor that became the performer’s most complete oral
record (pun intended) of his own career: “An Evening with Boris Karloff and his Friends?” Who but Forry could, appear in films with
such diverse cast of characters as Basil Rathbone, Dick Miller, Kirk Alyn, and Robbie the Robot? Who but FJA could turn years of
interest in comic-books into as popular a new character as Vampirella? Who but 4E could have been on the receiving end of criticisms
from sources as diverse as H. P. Lovecraft and Harlan Ellison? Who? “Mr. Science Fiction,” that’s who, the man they also refer to as
the poor man’s Vincent Price.
Anthony Bouchee wasn’t kidding when he said, “If Forry Ackerman had not existed, it would have been necessary to invent him”.
I had the pleasure of first meeting Forry in 1971, a year after I’d had a loch published in Famous Monsters, which latter event
seemed to convince me that I’d lost my finnish virginity. Little did I dream that over a decade later, I’d sell my story, “The Lon Chaney
Factory,” to the number one Chaney fan!
Nor would I have believed at the time that in 1982, I’d be eating dinner with Forry and his old friend, Ray Harryhausen, thanks to
the Atlanta Fantasy Fair. Upon that occasion, Forry let me put on the original Lugosi Dracula ring that he wears. Imagine my surprise
when I learned that a good atheist like Forry possesses an artifact with supernatural powers. I mean, after I pointed it at special effects
wizard Harryhausen, that splendid gentleman began moving in slow motion, without stroking! Realizing what I had in my possession,
I hastily returned the cursed ring to a man with sufficient maturity of vision to control its power: the owner known as Dr. Acula.
No discussion of Ackerman’s career would be complete without saying a few words about his wife and helpmate of many years,
Wendayne. One example of her dedication is a story of two decades ago, when she undertook with her husband an 8,700 mile
automobile trip across the USA to meet 1,300 readers of FM who had written that they would like to meet the Ackermonster.
Wendy helped their dreams come true. As a new-comer to Los Angeles, I quickly learned first-hand that Wendy has as big a heart
as they come. She and Forry make quite a team.
Despite all that may be assigned to the ever-lasting credit of Forrest J Ackerman, there is a fly in the ointment, one dire aspect of
his character that must be mentioned if the portrait is to be complete. He is a punster, a complete and total punster. When I attended
one of his birthday parties, I heard that old standby: “Here we
are in Karloffornia, and I’m sure it won’t Boris.” It was to be
expected. But the most chilling evidence of all comes from
his friend, Robert Bloch, who says that as a punster, Forry is
second to none. That’s Robert Bloch talkin’! The mind reels.
One is tempted to say, “Gosh wow
pic: Alan White
 Mr. Monster 9

Alan Warren. . .
FJA and And ME
Forrest J Ackerman (no period after the J, thank you) first entered my life in the late summer of 1960 - 27 years ago? Can it be?
- when I came upon a newsstand in downtown Philadelphia. There, amid the racks teeming with copies of TV Guide, Newsweek and
the National Enquirer, was a magazine with a colorful cover bearing the likeness of Vincent Price. I implored to buy it for me, which
she did. The magazine bore the unlikely title of Famous Monsters of Filmland.
That was my introduction to Forrest J Ackerman.
I spent hours poring over that issue (#9). The cover alone was worth the price (thirty-five cents); Vincent Price, in the guise of
Roderick Usher, peering out from under the oils of Basil Gogos. Inside was a wealth of articles, some titles bearing Acker-puns: “ne
Ship of Things to Come,” “You Axed For It,” “The Winter, Spring, Summer and Fall of the House of Usher,” “The Scream Test.” Most
amazing of all were the photos, particularly those of Lon Chaney, of whom I had only a vague awareness, as the Phantom of the Opera.
And those ads! Pages and pages of them, offering amazing things — monster masks, paperback books, comics, 8mm movies, records
— all this in one 68-page magazine, mine for thirty-five cents.
It opened up a world for me, as it did for thousands of others. It introduced me to movies I’d never heard of, authors I’d never read,
personalities whose very names conjured up visions of the weird and wondrous: Lugosi, Karloff, Chaney. . . it was in FM that I first
became aware of Ray Bradbury, Robert Bloch, Fritz Leiber, Theodore Sturgeon and others. It was here that I was exposed to the
artwork of Basil Gogos, Charles Neutzell, George Barr. Best of all, FM informed us of movies to come, some of which were never
made, existing only (as FJA would put it) in the Realm of Unwrought Things: titles like Monster in my Blood, The Devil’s Elixir, The
Experiment of Dr. Zahn, Frankenstein From Space, The Phantom of the Ferris Wheel, When the Sleeper Wakes, and (most marvelous
of all the unmade titles) The Library of Dr. Maldonado. In addition, there were names to conjure with, up-and-coming actors and
makeup artists like Frank Coe, Allen Fife and John Lackey, seen in Martian guise on the cover of Spacemen #3 (and, come to think of
it, what did become of John Lackey?)
After that heady first experience, I did not encounter another issue of FM till #12 (by which time I’d found a local supermarket that
carried it), and from that issue on I was a devoted reader. The magazine reached it’s peak in 1963: by then it had expanded to 100 pages
(for fifty cents!) and it’s editor’s knowledge of unseen films and his ability to reproduce mouth-watering stills from the most obscure
and esoteric horror and sf films were apparently limitless. FM had also become more literate, featuring though-provoking articles by
Robert Bloch and Wendayne Wahrman (whom I never realized was also known as Wendayne Ackerman). Best of all, the quality and
scope of the magazine increased to a point where it was very nearly unbeatable for ferreting out obscure bits of information and
dredging up incredibly rare photographs (remember the Frankenstein of 1910, the spider scene from King Kong, Conrad Veidt as Mr.
Hyde from Der Januskopf, Lon Chaney Jr. in his own makeup from One Million B.C., etc., etc., etc.)
And, always, those peculiar Acker-spellings, which
lent the magazine a kind of breezy shorthand and
informality even at its most augustly professorial:
shortenings like thot, tho, nite, thru, nextime, foto,
Karloffilm.
And those pseudonyms! Did anyone ever have so
many outrageously extravagant noms-de-plume: Dr.
Acula. Robert Benson, Karlon (and Vespertina) Torgosi.
The Ackermonster. 4sJ. Weaver Wright. Spencer Strong.
J. Forrester Eckman.
The downfall of FM, courtesy of James Warren, lay
ahead. Forry was told to lower his sights, to slant the
magazine toward a less discerning readership, and a great
opportunity was missed. Even now, to envision what an
intelligent, literate and informative magazine FM was, all
one has to do is thumb through issues #21, 22, 23, 24, 25
and 26 to see Forry (and M at their best. Even so, after the
quality dropped, FM kept going. Where magazines like
Castle of Frankenstein, Mad Monsters, World Famous
Creatures, Monster Mania Monsters and Things, For
Monsters Only, Shriek, Modern Monsters and so many
pic: Alan White

others bit the dust (most of them deservedly), FM kept

plugging away, with Forry at the helm.
I first met Forry at the 1968 World Science Fiction
Dr. Donald A. Reed, Verne Langdon, Don Post, Orriel Smith, Convention in Berkeley, where he signed my copy of FM
Lon Chaney Jr., Forry and Robert Bloch. The Haunted House, 1966. #1, said some encouraging things (how many youngsters
10 Mr. Monster

has he met over the years and encouraged in just the same way?) and awarded me a batch of stills from 2001, my prize for winning the
“monster contest he had staged. My memory of that day is very clear. And in the years since, FJA had been a constant inspiration, a
never-ending source of information and erudition, and an apparently bottomless source of bad puns.
If there had been no Forrest J Ackerman I would probably not be a writer today. Or at least not the same kind of writer. Before I
picked up FM #9, my favorite kind of entertainment was westerns. For all I know, I might have been writing stories in that genre today.
I’m sure many of my contemporaries, who were also brought up on a nutritious diet of FM and Acker-puns, feel the same.
So, for all that, and for so capably embodying all that fandom stands for so many year, I’d just like to extend to Forry, as he has
always extended to us, my fondest “Beast wishes.”

Mike Glicksohn. . .
4E’s A Generous Fellow. .
I met Forry for the first time at my very First Contact with fandom, the 1966 Worldcon in Cleveland (and would not have been there
at all had it not been for an announcement in his Famous Monsters of Filmland, the reading of which probably changed my life more
than any other action I’ve ever performed) and have since re-encountered him, always pleasurable, at several regionals, seventeen
subsequent world science fiction gatherings, and once or twice in the corridors of his own museum. But the incident that most
encapsulates Mr. Science Fiction in my own mid took place at the 1973 Westercon. . .
At the time I was married to the legendary fan Susan Wood and we’d both been working hard on the upcoming worldcon, Torcon
2. We though a change of scenery would do us both good and so scheduled a holiday in California, framed around visiting fannish
friends, exploring San Francisco, and attending the Westercon. The memories of that trip will always be with me — I will forever
treasure the glow of sheer enthusiasm that suffused the youthful faces of Susan Wood and Walt Leibscher after their helicopter ride
above the City — but oddly enough I have only the one clear recollection of the convention itself. . .
In 1973 Susan hadn’t yet become the BNF she would be before her untimely death, and she wasn’t yet the fan historian she would
soon develop into, but the seeds had been sewn, and she was more willing to accompany me to the auction that was scheduled as part
of the Westercon program. I checked out the displayed items, took a look around the room, and was immediately gripped with subdued
excitement. One of the volumes to be auctioned was a rare and leatherette bound copy of the original “Fancyclopedia,” edited by Jack
Speer (as “John Bristol”) and published by Forrest J Ackerman. What a find! I’d previously only boasted a photocopy of Eney’s
“Fancyclopedia 11” as part of my collection and I’d never even seen one of the original tomes. And the audience was both small and
not recognizably fannish! I sensed the possibility of a trufan’s dream coming true.
(To place things in context: in 1973 I’d been a high-school teacher for two years. My annual salary was considerably less than I
now pay each year in taxes and although I was no longer as indigent as I’d been at Baycon in 1968 when I’d sadly watched as Kelly
Freas “Analog “ covers had gone back to the shelf for want of an opening $40 bid, neither did I have vast amounts of spare cash to
indulge my collecting instincts. So the chance of perhaps obtaining an original Fancy for a non-outrageous price was stimulating
indeed. )
A few items went under the hammer and my instincts were shown to be correct. This was not a big-money fannish audience. I
kept hoping “my” item would be presented before some of the affluent West Coast fans showed up and bid me out of contention. And
finally it was brought up for sale.
If memory is serving me correctly, there was not a lot of interest in the item. I doubt that most of the sparse gathering even knew
what it was they were seeing auctioned. I bid, and
someone behind me raised the bid. I bid again, and that bid
was also raised. I raised a little more, to test the waters,
and that bid was also reraised. I was mildly annoyed that
at least one other person in the room knew what sort of
fannish treasure this was. But I bid again, just to see what
would happen. And as that bid was raised Oust a dollar), I
turned around to see who the knowledgeable counter-
bidder was.
Just in time to see Forrest J Ackerman make his fourth
bid on a piece of fannish history he himself had, once
published!
Damn! If Forry wanted it then (a) he had every right to
have it, and (b) there was no way my limited resources
could stay in the fight. Or so my reasoning went.
(Understand this was 1973: we’re talking what would now
pic: Alan White

be only a moderate amount, but this is now and that was

then. You remember “then,” when the Canadian dollar was
worth more than the American buck?) I made one last
moderate jump bid, only to have it quietly raised another Forry’s induction into the “Order of St. Fantany”, Worldcon 1968.
 Mr. Monster 11

dollar by 4E himself I was still under my own pre-set ceiling for the item, but
I saw no point in raising myself to that ceiling if the only end result would be
to cost Forry more than he needed to have paid for an item that wouldn’t even
have been up for sale were it not for Forrest J Ackerman Himself So I stayed
silent and the beautiful fanhistorical memories went back to the man who’d
given it birth in the first place.
Susan and I stayed for a few more items but my interest in the auction had
dissipated, so it wasn’t long before we were out in the halls chatting with too-
seldom-seen fan friends from the western part of the country. And so it was
that, mere moments later, Forry walked up and totally blew my mind.
He handed me the gold-stamped, red-bound copy #67 of the original 250
print run of John Bristol’s
“Fancyclopedia” — originally issued to Phil Bronson. Inside, on the
frontispiece, neatly inscribed in Forry’s
immaculate calligraphy was, “Dedicated, with Admiration, to Mike and
Susan Glicksohn, at the Westercon
1973 (and don’t let me buy this back again!)” There was an asterisk
beside the name of the original owner and at the bottom of the page Forry had
added, “Footnote 1973: At the time of issuance, I believe Bronson was
pic: Bill Appleton

considered to be one of the top 10 fans. Alas, long gafiated. ”

What’s to say? If anything captures the joyous spirit of giving that Forry
brings to fandom this example of fannish generosity must be it. He had
brought me into fandom, and he knew he had me completely hooked. I’d
visited his collection and the latest issue of my fanzine Energumen — a Hugo-winner less than two months later — was already part
of the Ackermansion museum. And still he wanted to give me his fanzine, one faned sharing with another, even if he had to stop by
buying it first!
Fourteen years later, much has changed. We’ve lost many friends and we’ve lost a part of fandom since 1973 and much that is good
has been consigned to memories. But some things do not change. Forry is still here and he’s probably changing the lives of young fans
as much as he changed mine so many years ago. Our paths have crossed, amicably, a score of times since then. But for me it remains
the one clear recollection of the entire convention. And I have no intention of parting with it, Forry-at least not until the giving of it
can be as memorable for the recipient as your wonderful gesture was to me in 1973.
And that could be a long, long time.

Bill Warren
Forry has been part of my life for 30 years, ever since I discovered his column in Imaginative Tales about a year before Famous
Monsters appeared. When I moved to Los Angeles, I first got a job at an insurance company, which I later lost partly because I was
calling Forry too much on company time. So I worked for him for several years, and pride myself on having initiated some practices
he follows to this day. Mostly putting movie things in order.
He and I have had our ups and downs over the years; we’re both people of strongly-held viewpoints, and sometimes those
viewpoints don’t coincide. There was something about a rug that I thought a minor incident, but which Forry thought more significant.
There were clashes I had with Walt Daugherty which spilled over into Forry territory, and later other confrontations with Dennis
Billows, one of the people who later did for Forry more or less what I had been doing. While Forry was my agent, there was an
embarrassing involvement with Amazing, Stories — the magazine, you acultural dolts, the magazine.
But you don’t know someone for 30 years without having some unpleasant times — not if you, like Forry, are a vivid alive person.
After all, there are all those things to remember: Fritz Lang grumbling while watching “Dark Shadows,” the great Ricky Schwartz
discovery, the limericks that made corners giggle, fatty lumps, Olaf Staplegun, my first published story, professional appearances in
Famous Monsters — under a variety of names, Thanksgiving dinner with Carlos Clarens, many sneak previews of 2001, staying at
Forry’s while he was out of town, Steve Pickering’s suitcases, hamburgers with Brother Theodore, James Warren and the dancing hippos,
Barbara Steele and the faunching fans, Boris Karloff at the Magic Castle and a t a hot, cramped soundstage on Santa Monica, tours of
the house for kids of all sorts, the back of the Robotrix, suddenly discovering that Forry can play the piano, which is why that monster
baby grand is there all the time, Forry’s mother and Forry’s aunt, drives to Long Beach, a letter to George Pal that resulted in Forry eating
sunflower seeds in their shells and winding up on the cutting room floor - or in the refrigerator, Christopher Lee in the wingmaster room,
Kenneth Anger in the wingmaster room, after Forry’s heart attack — the parties resume, dazzling a yokel from Oregon, The Most
Dangerous Game for Ray Harryhausen , Dick Smith ‘and Jack Palance’s face, the people, great and small, I met through Forry — Ray
Bradbury, John Berg, Phil Tippet, Larry Niven, Greg Bear, Boris Karloff, Robert Bloch, Christopher Lee, Robert Quarry, Fritz Lang,
Michel Piecoli, Barbara Steele, Don Glut, “Jack Turner,” Fritz Leiber, Curtis Harrington, Dr. Donald A.
12 Mr. Monster

Reed,presidentofthecountDRACulasociety,
the Brooks Brothers, Bjo, Tom Savini,
Lawrence Tierney, Jim Danforth, Ray
Harryhausen, even Russ Jones, LASFS itself,
and on and on and on and on. But probably
most of all, Sundays at the old
Ackermansion, with me sorting stills,
Beverly wrapping packages, and Forry
typing away like a snare drum. And feeling
like I was home. You see, in many ways, I
feel closer to him than I do to my own father;
when I talk to him, I often still revert back to
a babbling, enthusiastic Famous Monsters
fan.
The point I am hoping to make is that in
all those 30 years, 20 of knowing him as a
friend and not just FORREST J
ACKERMAN, MY ROLE MODEL OF
MODELS, whether I was angry at him, or he
was angry at me, I have never stopped loving
Forry. I’m proud to be a part of this tribute.

Alan White, Forry, Walt Daugherty and Karl

Fruend at banquet held at Universal
Studios for the re-release of “Frankenstein”
and “Dracula”, 1968

Forry Ackerman is one of the earliest science-fiction

fans. He was active when most of us didn’t even know
there was a thing called science-fiction. From his very
early days in fandom, science/fantasy movies was his
“dish”. He first columns for fan magazines were on s-f
films. After World War II he became of of the most
successful science-fiction agents. Many writers and
artists owe their success to their agent, Forry. It didn’t
seem strange at all when he announced that he was editing
a monster one-shot a few years ago. it was only natural
that a guy with his knowledge and connections with the
movie industry should edit a movie mag. Famous
Monsters of Filmland hit the jackpot. many others tried to
cash in on this new popular theme - they all failed. Today
he has almost no competition in this field. His new
magazine Spacemen brings him closer to the field he
loves and is a big part of - science fiction.

— Editor Science Fiction Times

 Mr. Monster
pic: Alan White
13

With Help from Amélie Frank who transcribed all this from tape; 1985.

This interview, if you could call it that, was merely turning on the tape recording and rambling on about
anything that came to mind. So what we have here isn’t so much an interview as a stream of consciousness done
during before the fateful auction of doom.

4E: About the auction, I’m beginning to get some reaction. Some people chafed, and some people said “How
could you?” And after 62 years of collecting, why are you selling. Well, first of all, the , it’s considerably
overblown, when they say 2000 items, I think it may be more like 1000 items. It’s also bulked up with material
that Frank Frazetta put in, and Bert I. Gordon individually put in to bulk it up. It all began six months ago when
I was discovered by the president of of an auction outfit named Guernsey’s. I’d never heard of it, but they talked
to me over the phone for about an hour saying they only do six auction a year, and they specialized in really far
out things, like they auction a merry-go-round piece by piece so you could get one horse if you wanted, and they
auctioned the entire contents of the U.S.S. United States, right down to the towels and the toothbrushes.
14 Mr. Monster

So he thought it would be unique

to have the world’s first great auction
of science fiction and I said I don’t
want all the raisins picked out of my
collection leaving just the dross, I said
I do have three garages full of
duplicate material I would be happy
to empty as much as that out as
possible, so he came out and looked it
over, got very enthusiastic and
eventually came out with two
assistants, and we spent a week here
each morning from about 8:30 to
about 10:30 at night, and at the time I
was well into talks with Disney and I

pic: Jim Williams

thought at last it looks like the
majority of the collection was going
to go down to Disneyworld and so as
I looked at various things in my collection that were really erotic, exotic, nudie, and so on, I though, well, that
wouldn’t do for Disney-for instance the first cover Margaret Brundage did for Weird Tales I knew wouldn’t be
suitable for kiddyland way down yonder in Disneyworld, so I began to take various things of that nature out of
my personal collection so it wouldn’t be going to the museum anyway, so where I had 6 autographed photographs
of Boris Karloff, or Bela Lugosi, I don’t have to be greedy, I could live with one less, so I’ll put that in.
When I met Bela Lugosi in 1951 prior to our meeting, he had 25 little statuettes of himself made as Dracula,
and he gave me one. And in some fashion, I don’t remember, I wound up with another one, giving me two of
the statuettes, and again I thought I don’t need to be greedy, I could put one in. Well, had I been able to look
at the crystal ball, when I got back from my trip to Europe to see if the earthquake had done any damage, it
had smashed my own Lugosi statuette to smithereens, so now it’s really going to be a rare item. I myself don’t
have one.
We worked day by day, including books by Edgar Rice Burroughs, some of them signed, I’m not so particular
about Burroughs books because I have most of his work in the magazines that preceded the books, and I could
let 1 piece of Bok art go, and 1 Frank R. Paul, and one Bonestell, just to spice the whole thing up, so it’s really
a pretty incredible collection of goodies back there, and they are arranging for some television appearances.
It was 25 years ago I was on the Joe Franklin show called “Down Memory Lane” and a quarter of a century
later, I’ll be on that again. And various interviews and so on, and they want me to talk for an hour or two about
interesting anecdotes during my collecting career of some of the more astonishing things that have happened.
When I was in France, I got a call from Omni magazine, I guess in their new issue, I haven’t seen it yet they
have an article about the auction and they wanted to know flat out, how come after 62 years of collecting you’re
auctioning some of your world. I said “It’s very simple. In those 62 years of collecting, I have poured about
every penny I have ever made into the collection, I haven’t wound up with a big bank account like Bradbury, or
Stephen King, or Lucas or Landis or any of them. I actually have no money in the bank, and I woke up to the
fact several years ago that I’m not editing the magazine any more, or agenting, or really, I’m not earning much
money. Then I said, “Whoa! Wait a minute. I’ve got a few years left, a lot of standard money due for me on
insurance and one thing or another, and where’s it going to come from? I had hoped, for the first 5 years I was
willing to give the collection away, and then I began to realize I’d better get. a little cash for it and then I was
willing to let it go for about 10% of what it was really worth, but I’ve had these big carrots dangled in front of
my nose now for seven years, and nothing has happened.”
If I had sold it to Disneyworld or some of the other places, then I would have been intact and I wouldn’t have
 Mr. Monster 15

had to worry about cannibalizing a little of it here and

there, but I’d let just enough of it go over the next few
years so that the next few years, if nothing happens, at
least I won’t be overdrawn at the bank.

AL: Do you have any bare spots?

4E: You’d never notice anything had happened. You

know, to this day, I’m still buying, actually. Saw an ad
the other day, and I called up and I thought maybe I’ll
only own this for 6 months, but I’m still in the habit of
getting things and adding things, so as long as I can I’ll
probably even out of the auction money, I’ll turn around
pic: Jim Williams

and buy a few nice pieces.

AL: What does the future hold for the Ackermonster and Wendy post - mugging?

4E: Now more than ever, we really have to live with a lady with her right side that will never be the same
again, so we need to eliminate as much danger as possible - stairs and efforts and we really must get out of this
house and into a smaller place. I have no intention of leaving the general area; I was born here, expect to die
here, I love it around here, all my friends and activities are here - we just need a place half this size once the
collection is gone, so I’m afraid unless there’s an 11th hour miracle
that somebody comes along to take it all, that bit by bit, I’m just
going to have to let it go.
When I saw the late Terry Carr’s collection of fanzines had been
bought for $25,000 by the University of California out at Riverside,
I sent a letter to them pointing out what I had, and also I thought
they might be interest, I have over half a century put together the
greatest collection of Frankenstein and Dracula of over 250
different “Frankenstein’s” and “Draculas. “There’s no place on
earth you’ll find such a compact collection. I read someplace that
Riverside got a grant I think of $195,000, so I thought it might be
ideal they might like to add the Frankenstein and Dracula and the
fanzines and then bethought myself of other special areas I have that
I probably have the greatest collection I have of juvenile science
fiction, and then also something I think nobody has bothered to
collect, which is the vanity press books where people pay
themselves. I think it would be psychologically interesting for
someone to analyze these books, why were they failures, or maybe
there would be one great one in there the world overlooked. After
all, if 18 editors could pass by “Dune” and could pass by “Who
Goes There,” well who knows?

AL: I’ve always been wary of museums and libraries where the
public has access to the artifacts. When it was discovered, back in
the mid-seventies the Library of Congress had complete runs of
“Superman”, “Batman”, all the ECs and other original comic books,
of course they disappeared over night.
16 Mr. Monster

4E: Yeh, well, I have copies of Weird Tales in

my possession plainly stamped that they are part
of the Library of Congress and how they got out,
I don’t know.
Oh, something has turned up in this auction
book I am morally certain belongs to me. I have
never known anyone in the whole collecting
field who has sound discs from movies 50 years
ago from “Frankenstein”, “The Mummy”, Jekyll
and Hyde the (March version) and “Murders in
the Rue Morgue”. I had all of the sound discs on
those four films. The “Frankenstein” discs were
stolen from me many long years ago, I think by

pic: Jim Williams

a fellow named John Andrews. About 10 years
later, a fellow named Kramer, Robert or Ken
Kramer or something like that, called up and said
“Ohhh Mr. Ackerman I’ve got something I’m sure you’re gonna want these… I’ve got the sound discs from
“Frankenstein” and I’m willing to sacrifice them for $8,500. ”
“Oh, so that’s what my discs are worth?”
“What do you mean?”
“Those discs were stolen from me.”
“Oh no, I got these discs ten years ago.”
“Yes, that’s about the time they were stolen!” Click, down goes the phone!
Now, and then, they are advertising sound discs from “Frankenstein”! Well out of 25,000 fantastic movies
that have been made, it seems mighty strange to me that they would have sound discs unless they have come from
this Kramer, or maybe they have passed through many hands by now, but I contacted right away, and said “Look,
before you find yourself inadvertently stolen goods, I suggest you contact the (quote) the fellow who gave you
these discs and discover where he got them and go back, back, back, and see if you wind up with the name
Kramer or John Andrews at the beginning of it all. Of course there isn’t any way on earth I could prove they’re
mine, obviously maybe 500 sets were made but it does seem highly suspicious. I never heard of anybody else
in the collecting field who had sound discs of those early films.

AL: It would be It would be ideal if an ambitious SF club could finance a museum. They would have the
most to gain from it.

4E: Maybe even part of LASFS.

AL: Well, those people just aren’t on the bus.

4E: Yeh.
When I discovered the group in the ‘60s I was hoping they’d be a focal group for some creative activities, but
I… I don’t understand how Larry Niven and his collaborator… why they bother about that group at all.

AL: In 1962 some of my friends and I put on a convention… It was in Long Beach; we’d gotten a list of
fans from you, and about 50 people showed up and you let the little buggers climb all over you and ask questions
and what not for the better part of the day. The highlight of that first con, was while you and the rest of us had
moved into the garage for some movies, the exhibit room that boasted the entire collections for the lot of us was
entirely cleaned out by thieves unknown. Upon returning from the garage, we found a completely empty room.
Mr. Monster 17

But thanks for taking us all out for a consolation dinner. That helped drown our sorrow!
The next year we put on our big convention where you also invited Ib Melchior, Raoul Delgado, and Bert
Gordon. What a great day that was, over 100 people showed up and all the guests got a chance to speak. I like
to think these were the first multi-media monster cons.

4E: Well, what I remember out of the whole thing was Eric Hoffman turned up at the penultimate moment
just as a caravan of cars was pulling out of my place on Sherebourne, and there wasn’t really any place for him
in any cars - I don’t know if he had to sit on someone’s lap, but somebody accommodated him, maybe I did, and
that evening, when it was over, I seem to recall one of the fathers of one of the fans. . .

AL: Steve Dobbins.

4E: . . . invited everybody to dinner. Eric didn’t quit understand, and I don’t know that any of us knew the
dad was going to pick up the tab, and so Eric ate very sparse, I don’t know, a watercress sandwich and a
toothpick. Then when it was all over, he turned to me and said “I could’a had a steak!”
I once made the comment in an issue of “Famous Monsters” that I’ll never know how many words I’ve
written about monsters so then the kid, Jeff Kenoki came down with epazutic or something and was out for about
a week and he counted every word in 27 issues and he called up saying “Mr. Ackerman, would you really like
to know?” So he told me and my eyebrows flew off, I couldn’t believe anybody would really spend all that time,
well he lived about an hour’s drive so one Sunday, I called up and said “Hey young fellow, I’d like to come down
and meet you and when I got there, I noticed his father was kind of stand-offish and I thought he wasn’t too keen
‘bout my coming down to see his kid. Anyway I went down to his den and there was the usual thing, all the
pictures on the wall I was familiar with, “Frankenstein” and “Dracula”, and it didn’t matter to me that there was
a gulf of 40 / 50 years between us, I fairly enjoyed myself. But about 5 in the evening, I was halfway to the car,
about to leave, and all of a sudden the father came running out and he grabbed hold of me and he shook my hand
and he said “I gotta apologize to you,” he says “I didn’t believe that any grown man would really spend his time
on a Sunday driving out here just to see my crazy kid. I figured in the end you’d open up your trunk and say
now… now you take 50 copies of this magazine and sell them at school and you get to keep a dime on every
copy, or you’re going to show him a lot of masks for sale, or have some commercial ulterior motive.”
“Absolutely not”, Gosh, they wanted me to come in for dinner, and any time it was hot come down and use
there pool.

AL: What’s the tale on Trina? All those years of

seeing her picture, and then only last year realizing
it was Trina Robbins the artist?

4E: I was over at some friends, when they took

me into this room and introduced me to this cute
little creature named Trina, and… uh, all I did was
hold out my hand to shake hands with her and she
put her little nose up in the air and said “So you’re
the great Forrest Ackerman? You’re not so much!”
And she walked away, and I was standing there
with egg on my face thinking “What’s that all
about?” A year or two later, I was at the World
Science Fiction Convention out here in L. A., and
that was the year Ray Russell, who has been the
Forry admires Trina’s assets while Paul Robbins is otherwise occupied editor of Playboy had moved out here and he was at
18 Mr. Monster

the convention and Trina turned up, she had a cute little
costume… total black leotard I guess you’d call them… she had
some wires going around her, and she was Miss Saturn or
something. Well I saw her and I stepped up to her and I said
“Well Trina, you’ve had a couple of years, what new insult do
you have for me?” She looked up… “I insult you Mr.
Ackerman? So being a little artist, she immediately made a little
badge that said “My Claim to fame is that I Insulted Forry
Ackerman.”
Well Ray Russell got the big eye for her and about that time,
I noticed that Bill Rotsler was photographing a lot of nudes and
I thought “That would appeal to me,” so I got out a little Brownie

pic: Jim Williams

and queried Trina about it. I said we might just have an
opportunity to put you into Playboy. I don’t suppose my
personal pictures would be professional enough, but at least they
could get a look at’cha and some high-powered guy would come out here. So I took that famous photo of her
she signed “From your little nymphette discovery,” and other pictures around the office, and I think Bill Rotsler
came over and took some pictures of her, and I sent my set into Playboy and I got a great letter from them and
they were all enthusiastic about her being a Playmate of the Month, but they discovered in the month before, she
had appeared in Penthouse so you have to undrape yourself first for Playboy if you're going to be the Playmate,
so in an alternate universe, had she not appeared one month earlier, I might have been on my way as a
photographer. Well, I really thought Trina had been photogenic, that she could make her way in movies, and at
the time they were talking about making Lolita and would need somebody that could look about 12 and also look
like a mature woman. I though Trina was born for this role! I’d heard stories about Marilyn Monroe, how she
started out at $50 a week or so, and the next thing, she was making $500,000 a month and I thought if anything
like that should happen to Trina, I’d better have a seven year contract on her that I go along for the ride in case
I’m able to make her rich and famous.
I thought I could introduce her to Jim Nicholson of A.I.P, who was making a lot of teenage sorority films and
beach parties and so on… also took her out to the set of “Atlantis, the Lost Continent” and introduced her to
George Pal and just hoped that he would see her through my eyes. She to me was the 7th Wonder of the World.
With her face washed and with no make-up or anything she was not so special, but she could go into a bathroom
and in 5 minutes and she’d come out and… WOW! Like in-went Cinderella and out-came Marilyn Monroe.
And as I would go around with her, introducing her to motion picture, people, hoping I would get her a role, I
felt I was virtually the Invisible Man as far as any men went you know. I felt that in those days, you could stand
at the corner of Hollywood and Vine with her in broad daylight and I mowed down 7 people that no man could
say who dunnit because all eyes would have been on Trina!
Eventually she turned up in some of the lesser men’s magazines, Adam, I believe, and I don’t know what
else… she was called “The Gas House Girl” or something like that.
I’m distressed to hear she’s turned her back on all that now, somebody told me she was kind of miffed at me
when I ran those pictures in Mr. Monster’s Magazine.
Well, I think a think of beauty is a joy forever, although she’d probably regret being called a “thing,” but I
always think that all beautiful young women should have nude pictures of themselves. I’m sorry that in Marlene
Deitrich’s case that wasn’t done yet, or we got in on the tail-end of Brigitte Bardot, but I think when women get
to be 50-60, 70-80 or something, it would be nice to look back and see what they were. And if there pictures can
still please people… Frank Robinson was here a couple of months ago in my garage and into his hands came
one of the “Adams”, or whatever it was, and he came out “That’s Trina?” Well he enjoyed looking at the Trina
that was… I don’t see anything, she could be upset about.
 Mr. Monster 19

AMO: Where, ideally would you like to have the

museum, would you like this house to be the museum?

4E: No, it would be too much of a problem, even if

we used all of the 18 rooms. There wouldn’t be proper
parking space, neighbors wouldn’t like Greyhound
busses coming up. Down here, a couple blocks away at
the corner of Vermont and Las Feliz is a great big
empty lot, and a bus runs there, and I certainly think
that could be included; after people take in the Chinese
Theater, they could come an another couple of miles,
pic: Jim Williams

and it would seem like an ideal location. Failing that,

at least somewhere along Hollywood Boulevard if they
ever build it back to former glory.

AMO: Do you think it would take much of fandom to get the impetus to get this going?

4E: I’ve no hope whatsoever in fandom, none whatsoever.

AMO: Why is that?

4E: I’m a member of the Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society. I was at the first meeting, I’ve been the
director, the secretary, the treasurer, the publisher, the editor, the garbage man, everything you can think of. I’ve
poured thousands of dollars into that club, I’ve been to over 1500 meetings of it. I have never once heard any
suggestion that they raise a dime to help me out. I understand that over 100 fans a week go to the club and I’ve
put on the bulletin board I have open houses here, I’d be happy for members of LASFS to come and see the place
but you know, I just don’t seem to exist, and the unkindest cut of all… finally, 50 years rolled around and I went
to the 50th Anniversary meeting. There I was, the sole survivor of the first meeting and I though they’d like me
to get up and tell how it began, the highlights, the lowlights, and so on. Well, the speaker of the evening was
Harlan Ellison, who constantly claims he doesn’t write science fiction, and he began by saying something like,
“I don’t know why you invited me because in 26 years I’ve only been to 3 meetings.”
I sat there through the entire meeting, as though I was the invisible man, nobody even said “Oh, Forry
Ackerman… He’s our first member!” So I drove back with my wife, and I said “You know, have I lived too
long or what?” She says “Well, young people, they don’t care anything about history, the world began when they
were born, and that’s all they are interested in.”
But I’m forever reading that the club is having some sort of fund raising thing for a variety of good reasons,
but nobody’s ever thought of raising a dime to help out here. And I’m told that Steven Spielberg has been here,
he’s seen with his own eyes and wrote that very nice, flattering thing on the “Close Encounter” poster about
raising my generation of fantasy fans right but he or Lucas or at least a combination of Bradbury, Larry Niven
and Jerry Pournelle formed a combine, they could make it all come true, or the late L. Ron Hubbard, he was after
glory in the science fiction field, trying to make a comeback and ingratiate himself. Well, out of petty cash he
could have written out a check for 5 or 10 million dollars, and have “L. Ron Hubbard presents the Forry
Ackerman Science Fiction Museum”. George Lucas present it, or Steven Spielberg.
Nowadays, as fast as somebody dies, like the late Manly Wade Wellman, Kelly Freas wife, it seems like they
leave a big indebtedness behind and fandom goes to bat and raises a nice sum for them. When I moved here 14
years ago I had about a $2,000 mortgage on the house every month before I got around to eating, and fandom in
general didn’t respond. It’s more “fringe fans”, readers of “Starlog” responded. And what was really the straw
that broke the proverbial camel’s back… nearly 20 years ago , I think, A. E. Van Vogt, Ray Bradbury, Fredric
20 Mr. Monster

Pohl, and a number of authors at the time said “Hey Forry, we’ll come to bat for ya! We’re sure that all the major
magazines would welcome a free feature, and each of us in our own words would write about you and your
dreams for a museum, and assure that Galaxy, and Analog, and Fantasy and Science Fiction would all be happy
to feature this article, especially since we’ll just give it away.
Well, the majority of the articles were never even published. I don’t think Ray Bradbury’s got into print.
The one that did was A.E.Van Vogt. It got into “Analog” when they were reputed to have something around
135,000 readers. Well, Van Vogt’s article was published in the readers department and it said something
like… “Folks, maybe you’ve never heard of Forry Ackerman, but he’s the very monomaniac who’s been devoting
his whole life to the single minded subject of trying to collect every speck of science fiction on this or any other
world, and he’s gettin’ along in years, and he’s not all that affluent and about the middle of the letter, he said,
“Now don’t get nervous, you probably realize we are going to make a pitch here for some money, but we’re not
talking $100, we’re not talking $25, or $10… $5. ONE dollar will do it! If each of you $135,000 readers will
now put down my letter and put a single dollar bill in an envelope and send it to Forry, (now don’t expect he’s
going to write 135,000 thank yous, you know, but I’m sure you know he would appreciate it, and this would
really take the curse off it.”
Now if I’d really have gotten $135,000, that would have taken care of buying the home.
Well, Van Vogt’s article appeared in “Analog” , in the shortest month of the year, February, and at the end of
28 days, you wanna guess how many responses I bad? Just asking for a dollar? Even then, if one blew out of
your hand, you wouldn’t chase it very far.

AMO: Several hundred maybe?

4E: Twenty eight days . . . . 28 envelopes! Then it was all over. But there was a particularly astonishing
one. In 1953 there was a young Japanese boy named Tetsu Yano who had just been bitten by the science fiction
bug, he came back from the war to find he had no home, his house had been blown to smithereens, and he laid
on the ground at night where there used to be a house.
He found a science fiction magazine that turned him on and
by Japanese standards, he did a rather unusual thing. He had a
letter published I think in “Wonder” or “Startling”, and said I’m
just a poor know-nothing Japanese boy bitten by the science
fiction bug, and he was throwing himself on the mercy of
American fans asking them if they had any beat-up magazines or
pocketbooks they didn’t want. Well I thought they would have
to put 5 more postmen on his route there would be such a
reaction. I amongst hundreds of others sent him books and
magazines, and started correspondence and then I mentioned
that we were going to have a Westercon, a science fiction
convention in July. Well I got a very excited letter from Tetsu
that said “If I could possibly get there, would I be permitted to
attend the convention?” I go, “Would you? My God, you’d be a
guest of honor. We’d be thrilled”. Nobody up to this time had
come from Japan. The consequence of which I got a telegram
that read: Tetsu. Have bought a ticket. Come and go. Please be
waiting 29 days from now.
He got on a boat with only five passengers aboard and the
pic: Jim Williams

rest was cargo. Took him 29 days to get here, and we took him
with us and we kept him for 6 and 1/2 months. We made sure
Mr. Monster 21

that he met Bradbury, and Kurt Siodmak, and went to the

Westercon, took him to the Worldcon where he saw me get the first
Hugo and sent him back with all kinds of memories, information
and loads of books and magazines, and he became the science
fiction personality of Japan.
He read that letter by Van Vogt. He went to his wife, and
Kumiko - permanently beautiful baby - and discussed what he
wanted to do and they said “Yes father, that’s what you must do,”
and he sent me a check for $1,000. And then he followed that up
with the greatest present of my life!
On my 60th birthday, I believe it was, he came, and he brought
with him an incredible gift. He had gone to all the science fiction
writers, editors, everybody in Japan, and as he put it, I had “kept
everybody’s rice bowls full for a lifetime”, and he collected $30,000
and arranged for a three week vacation for us all over Japan, staying
in the best hotels. One night 150 men and their wives and all of the
ladies in their kimonos and everybody bowing, and, there were
geisha girls serving such mountains of food, I’d never seen in my
whole life. I didn’t get a thing to eat! At midnight I went and had
a hot dog in the hotel! I was so busy signing things, smiling and
posing for pictures, and looking at the geisha girls, and there were
three TV camera men at all times photographing every move I made, and one of the most embarrassing thing of
my life, I was wearing a tuxedo that was a little to large for me and one of the smiling Japanese fellas came
forward, shook my hand, whispered in my ear and said “Excuse me sir, your fly is unzipped!”
But basically fandom has never taken an interest in me. There is something about me I don’t understand.
Look… 400 people came to my 70th birthday you know. I don’t know if that many people would go to
Heinlein’s birthday, or Ellison’s, or anybody else. I’ve certainly accumulated a great number of friends, and yet
out there I feel there is a great antagonism toward me on the part of Norman Spinrad and different people, and if
not antagonism, then, I don’t know, “I ain’t got no respect! You know old Forry Ackerman, he just fools around
with kids and monsters,” so I’m not taken very seriously or something. I don’t see anybody rushing to my rescue.

AMO: But then, you didn’t start out to do this to be taken seriously so much as to follow the thing that you
loved?

4E: Un-huh.

AMO: Would you say that you’re the original fan?

4E: Yes, but a chap who really deserves that is about 5 or 6 years older than me. Aubrey MacDermott. He
calls himself “The” first fan, and he has a number of years on me and started earlier than I. .

AMO: Is there one item in your collection you favor over all others?
4E: Yes! Absolutely. The October, 1926 Amazing, Stories that started it all. I was attracted to the cover of
it. So I went to the artist, Frank R. Paul, and he redrew it for me in huge size, and in place of the original man
on the over, he drew a kind of a futuristic version of me. He’s long gone from this world, and I think if the big
earthquake came, the one thing I would run for to rescue would be that, and the second would be the Metropolis
automaton. That of course could be reproduced. It took a year and a half and $600 to do in the first place. But
the Frank R. Paul painting is unique.
22 Mr. Monster

by Amélie Frank

omeone has to have a tough talk with Fandom, and it

might as well be an outsider who will neither be offended
by the repercussions nor tremendously heartbroken if she is
burned in effigy. Permit me to address you collectively about the
future of your past.
Fandom is a culture comprised of people with high I.Q.s and a

pic: Alan White

willingness to invest time and money in pursuit of science fiction,
fantasy, and horror. I would like to know why a rich, magnificent
collection of your literature, your relics, your art, your history, and your
heritage is allowed to inch ever closer to disrepair and decay due to your indifference.
Three months ago, this infidel breathlessly toured the Ackermansion and rejoiced in the wealth contained
therein. To mundanes, this collection is the stuff of curiosity pieces in travel magazines and fillers in the local
paper. To Fandom, however, it must surely be the genre Smithsonian. Imagine my surprise when 4sJ lamented
Fandom’s non-response to his search for a new home for this invaluable collection.
Perhaps it’s my low tolerance for apathy and mediocrity, but it appalls me that you denizens of Fandom’s
imaginative realm would rather quibble over "Sci-Fi” vs. “SF” than attempt to preserve your own antiquities.
Pardon me if I can't think of a more useless literary pastime. I'm sorry to have to break the news to you, babies,
but IT’s NOT IMPORTANT! Sheesh! If the library is on fire, you don't stand outside the structure engaging in
these sophomoric debates.
Does the prospect of actually shifting from the passive to active mode frighten you that much? Is the mere
thought of taking action too anxiety-producing? To their credit, the silverfish chowing down on 4sJ’s priceless
posters and precious first-edition magazines from the early part of this century can at least enjoy some sense of
accomplishment. You, Fandom, have succeeded at nothing for you haven't shown the self respect to take care of
the things you so adamantly claim you love. I, for one, am embarrassed for you.
I am not a friend of Forry’s, and I don't believe the matter has anything to do with him personally. What irks
me is that his search to permanently house his collection for your edification is utterly wasted on you. The
treasure trove is decidedly his, but the collection as much pays tribute to your dreams, your heroes, and your
achievements as it does his efforts. You dishonor all of it when you allow such wonderful things to languish and
disintegrate.
No distinguished society should be this irresponsible. Fandom and its heritage deserve a museum, but
perhaps you, the apathetic fans, don't deserve Fandom. What is your five-year mission, folks? To boldly go
where human culture has never gone before and ultimately have nothing to show for it? Who would blame the
old man if he threw up his hands at the thought of you and tossed a burning match into his basement?
Mr. Monster 23

Terri Pinckard

Enter through a door at 915 South Sherbourne

in Los Angeles and you enter the doorway to
2300 A.D. where in the many nights of the years
that pass, the Mighty Giants of Horror, Science
Fiction and Fantasy have come to visit and to
dwell among the thousands of books and models
of the weird and fantastic for an hour, a day, a week...
Ray Bradbury, A.E. Van Vogt, Robert Bloch, Bela Lugosi,Yma Sumac… the list could go on and on, for
days are end-less and so are the visitors to the house, this monument to the future; this home of Forrest J
Ackerman.
There are men who dream -- and men who are dreamers and of these, none are so sure of the coming reality
of their Utopias than he. Born to the future, born before the time of his dreams, he lives in constant
preparation for that future.
Through, the years of Fandom… of agenting, editing, counseling and advising; through a myriad of
followers; most loyal, some adverse ... like a many-faceted zircon, the various personalities of Forry shine on
many planes.
Two aspects that have come through all our studies of him all the letters that have come our in the unending
research for his biography; his sense of,humor and his open-mindedness. His humor, the teasing:, taunting
punning funning that is so much a trademark of Forry. Yet the thing we are most conscious of, is the perpetual
curiosity that has never left him since childhood. The willingness and even compulsion that has made him
go beyond mere curiosity to find the why’s and wherefore’s of all he saw and felt.
An “A” student-all through school, Forry quests and absorbs discussion. He embraces new knowledge with
the arms of a lover. There Is no aspect of life that does not stimulate his to learn and experience and no-social
dictates he bows to. He balances this nicely with a good decisive analysis of whether the experience would
have merit. If not, well, let someone else experience it and he will absorb the knowledge second hand.

Bill Crawford and FJA

Mr. Monster 24

by Forrest J Ackerman

Forgotten Facts:
Thomas Edison invented electricity so murderers could be executed in the electric chair.
Alexander Bell created the telephone so nuclear threats could be instantly exchanged
between the White House and the Kremlin.
Monsieur Daguerre introduced photography to make pornographic pictures possible.
Ug the caveman fashioned the first knife for the benefit of Jack the Ripper.
Forrest J Ackerman coined the term “scifi” as a put-down for schlocky SF films.

Forgotten facts? I call them facts, but actually none of them are, and all of them should be forgotten.
They are the wildest fantasies, the Ackerman anecdote having no more validity than the Edison.
25 Mr. Monster

Al Jackson is the latest victim of Ellison’s Syndrome.

He probably wasn’t born yet in 1954, when I was driving
my automobile with the radio on and an announcer
mentioned hifi. Since science fiction has been on the tip of
my tongue since 1926 (when it was originally known as
scientifiction), I stuck out my tongue, looked in the mirror,
and lo and behold, tattooed there (on my tongue, not the
mirror) was the now ubiquitous (not iniquitous) “sci-fi.”
Shortly thereafter I offered it to fandom in a news column
in Fantasy Fiction Field, the Locus/SF Chronicle of its day,
and I first put it into professional print in 1955 in a regular
feature in Spaceway magazine. Oddly enough, no mundane
reporter ever accepts the fact that I coined the term the
phrase is always “Ackerman claims to have invented the
term “ whereas no one in the SF field has ever dreamed of
crediting (or discrediting) it to anyone else.
At no time did I intend it as a term of denigration.
I accept it as simple ignorance, not malicious insult,
when someone like Al Jackson in the Cinefantastique letter
column (or others in STARLOG) falsely inform the world
that “sci-fi” was created to distinguish between good
science-fiction films and bad.
Wrong... tilt ... error... does not compute.
It was never created as an adverse adjective to apply to
films, it was never created as a negative term, period. I am the ultimate authority on “sci-fi” and I am reiterating
for the 10,000th time that I coined it with no object in mind other than that it could take its place with s.f., sf,
S.F., SF, ess-eff, sci-fic, stf or any other abbreviation past, present or future of a simple descriptive non-pejorative
nature for science fiction. If anyone, with the single-minded fanaticism (un)worthy of a witch-hunter, has led the
crusade to crucify the term for the past quarter of a century, it has been Harlan Ellison. He has stated publicly
that (in less elegant terms than I employ here) “sci-fi” is the sound made by “two crickets mating” and “no one
but an anal orifice uses the term sci-fi.” This could be considered an insult to legends Eke A.E. van Vogt, Playboy
(which has employed the term on at least three occasions on its covers in conjunction with new SF works by
Arthur C. Clarke, Gore Vidal and Kurt Vonnegut) and Tom and Terri Pinckard, creators of the internationally
famous Pinckard Science Fiction Writers’ Salon (established over 20 years ago) and most recently recipients of
the Big Heart Award at the World Science Fiction Convention. Would the Pinckards drive a prestigious $42,000
Mercedes-Benz with the license plate SCI Fl if they thought they were advertising schlocky SF films?
I could fill an issue of STARLOG with a defense of “sci-fi.” All that happened for a year when I wore a badge
with a heart proclaiming “I Love SF” was that I got raised eyebrows in Southern California-why was I a supporter
of San Francisco? Or appreciation in Finland (where SF stands for the Finn’s country) for being a Finnish fan;
criticism in Northern France for favoring Southern France; and kinky offers in Soho and Greenwich Village from
deviates into SadoFlagelism.
“Dune” and “2010” are currently being characterized everywhere as sci-fi films who among you wants to
enlighten the public that this indicates to “True Fans” (I’m a fake?) that they’re Godzilla clones? Harlan Ellison
thought “Brainstorm” was the worst sci-fi film of the year; I thought it was the best scientifilm, and voted it such
as a member of the Academy of Sci-Fi, Fantasy & Horror Films (Dr. Donald Reed, creator of the Academy, has
no trouble with “sci-fi”). Obviously intended as praise, a Los Angeles telecaster described Harlan Ellison’s A
Boy and His Dog as “an excellent example of a sci-fi film.”
When I was a kid, 55 years ago, the Earth as seen from space was always believed to be green, and was
painted as such on the covers of “stf” (scientifiction) magazines. We know better now: blue. When we got out
Mr. Monster 26

into space and looked back upon our planet, it laid to rest at last the Flat Earth fallacy. I submit that it is high
time and over time that we put an end to this science friction about the term “sci-fi” and accept it for what it is
and what I intended it to be, a simple alternative to “SF.” I use “SF” interchangeably with “scifi” to avoid being
boring, just as I wouldn’t use films, film, films when such variations are available as movies, motion pictures,
cinema, talkies, silents, celluloid, etc. (Can you believe that “talkies” was once considered a despicable
neologism?)
If there are those among you who feel a term for schlocky pseudo-SF films (“Robot Monster’, ‘Village of the
Giants”, “Cat Women of the Moon”, “Plan Nine from Outer Mongolia”, et al) if you feel a cathartic requirement
for a term to describe cinematic star dreck, then I challenge you to come up with a word of your own and leave
mine alone. In fact, let me make an attractive offer to pro and fan alike: Harlan, Norman, Ben, Fred, Ike, Marion
and other fellow pros, and the misguided Al Jacksons of fandom; I was paid $100 for a single letter of the
alphabet for my world’s shortest ess-eff story “Cosmic Report Card: Earth”… I’ll give that. 100 bucks as a prize
for one word from the inventive mind which can come up with an acceptable term for schlocky science fiction.
I’ve coined “spy-fi” for Bond fic, “cry-ri” for soap operas, “die-fi” for murder mysteries (did anyone ever decry
“whodunits?”), now see if you can beat me at my own game. I thought up “sci-fi” in a split second. You have
until June 1, 1985 to cudgel your brains for the right word to replace the one that makes some of you so uptight.
I can’t comprehend it, but some of the same intellects in tile SFWA which many accept without cringing,
“sefwah” as a pronunciation for ess eff double-you aye, scream bloody murder and have a hemorrhage of
hemoglobal proportions over “sci-fi.” Well, here’s your golden opportunity to exercise your imaginations: I’m
offering you $100 a word.
Nobody ever paid me anything (but compliments) for creating “sci-fi.” If I had a penny for every time it’s
appeared in print or been spoken with approbation, I would long ago have accumulated the $5 million that the
City of Los Angeles is still looking for to house the 300,000 piece Museum of Sci-Fi & Fantasy which (my life
work of 59 years since age nine) I’m willing to make a present of to posterity.

16 June 88

Dearest Jack (Williamson);

I don’t want to get into an argument with you of all people but I wd like to think I cd change your mind
with an appeal to sweet reason, whereas logic cd never reach emotion-drenched Harlan, not the man who
fulminates in print (F&SF) about the asininity of puns and fans’ penchant for them, and lives in a house
which he ironically calls Ellison Wonderland!
Surely you wdn’t go so far as to agree with HE that “no one but an asshole” (van Vogt? Linaweaver?
Dave Kyle? George Gallet? the Pinckards?) “uses the term sci-fi”? Or that it is “scurrilous” and “the sound
of two crickets screwing”? Or so poisonous to the atmosphere as to foul the Ackermuseum beyond Ellison’s
wish to set foot in it — even to join Bear, van Vogt, Pournelle, Bloch et al in honoring the 101st birthday of
Olaf Stapledon. I cannot forgive Spinrad for dirtying my term by declaring it is the sf equivalent of “nigger”.
Jack, every Saturday in the year that I can I have an open house and am visited by hundreds of fans from
all over the world. Perhaps they’re not fanzine fans or con-goers but they are the money-spending readers
who keep you, Harlan, Silverberg, Bradley, Heinlein’s estate et al in business. To a man, woman and child
they say “sci-fi” when they mention science fiction, not because they know I am its originator and to
propitiate me because the majority weren’t even born in 1954 when I introduced the term. They speak of
their favorite sci-fi writers as Asimov, Clarke, Heinlein, Bradbury — even Ellison. When I ask if they know
who coined the abbreviation they look blank. When the papers reported the death of Sci-Fi Author Heinlein,
was it an ignorant put down? “Sci-fi” is no more heinous than “ess-eff” and simply means science fiction
of any quality.
27 Mr. Monster

Were you as staggered as I by the revelation on page 94 of “Grumbles from the Grave” where we find that in
1949, five years before I thought I coined the term, Heinlein used “sci-fi” in conjunction with his classic “Year
of the jackpot”?! His only saving grace, that saved him from disgrace, was that he employed the term (certainly
not in a derogatory sense) in a private letter to his agent rather than putting it into print. Just imagine an alternate
universe where Grand Master RAH employed “sci-fi” publicly in 1949, then legions of SF pros and fans would
have been cursing him rather than me all these years for foisting this “scurrilous” term off on the SF field, and I,
the first to condemn the nauseous neologism, would be blessed for having added the indispensible bref-wort
“egoboo” to the English vocabulary. Probably Heinlein would cannily have copyrighted “sci-fi” and collected
millions for its use by “Playboy”, “Omni”, the $20 Million TV “Sci-Fi” Channel, et al.

WHY IS THIS MAN SMILING?

105 boxes, a ton of treasures from my 62 years of
collecting, went on the auction block in New York and
for me it was a complete financial catastrophe and a
personal tragedy.
“I hope you make a million,” said Don Wollheim in
advance.
Anticipated Kenneth Galante, dealer: “You’ll make a
billion!”
After the fact: “An unmitigated disaster” — Robert
A. Madle, pioneer fan, collector, dealer.
“A horror chapter for New York Babylon”—Kenneth
Anger, author of HOLLYWOOD BABYLON.
For the first issue, April 1926, of Amazing Stories I
realized $36.
An inscribed foto of LON CHANEY SR, for which I
anticipated wild bidding up to $5000, went for $50 ($40
to me).
With 3 issues of Schuster & Siegel’s “Science Fiction”
currently in a catalog for $23,000, I expected the entire
set by the creators of Superman would command
$35-$50,000. (1 understand the world-class collection of
Supermania is being leased to Cleveland for 5 years for
$2 million.) My set: knocked down at $2750 ... less 20%
28 Mr. Monster

Two years ago I let go of my least favorite of three Brundage pastels for $25,000 (and no 20% commission
to auctioneers). My second best (and, historically, her first published cover on Weird Tales) went for less than
half that ... less commission!
Collectors' items were selling at 10%, even 5%, of estimated bids.
One dealer was heard to glee that what he bought for $80 he could sell for $500 ... Heinlein’s “Discovery of
the Future” went for $600 (previously $1300 to a dealer) ... The 1912 “All-Story” featuring first publication of
“TARZAN OF THE APES”, which the American Booksellers Association reported a couple years ago sold for
something in excess of $8000 (and mine was inscribed by Edgar Rice Burroughs!) slipped away for $2500
($2000 net to me) to a young Texas fan who decimated me afterward by informing me he’d been prepared to go
$20,000!
It was a field day for buyers, “Freebie Time in the Candy Shop”; for me, Heartbreak Hotel. A major downfall
for me was the lack of reserves on important pieces. I told the auctioneers in advance that I didn't want to part
with a valuable piece worth, say, $25,000, for a tenth of its worth; that it should sell for at least no less than half
its value; but they insisted that it was against their policy to have reserves: “You lose some but you win some and
the bidders have to feel that it’s possible to get an occasional bargain” In reality, it was almost impossible not to
get a bargain, and too late I learned that Vallejo and Frazetta et al did have reserves on their works: for instance,
the highly-sought-after “Conan” was withdrawn when it raised (as I recall) “only” something like $42,500. My
Brundage, “Tarzan”, “Fear” (Hubbard/Cartier), “Science Fiction” (Schuster & Siegel), inscribed Chaney and
“Ghost of Slumber Mountain” posters definitely should have had reserves on them. The “Slumber Mountains”
(no sleepers!) went for about one-third of what I paid for them and about one-fifth of what I (and others)
anticipated they would fetch. Did it make sense for the Auction to profit 10 bucks on the sale of the Chaney
portrait at the expense of a loss to me of a potential several thousand dollars??
Among those present at the debacle were Robert A. Madle, Erle Korshak, Julius Schwartz, Tom Savini, Boris
Vallejo, Ron Borst, Mark Frank, Zacherly, Phil Riley, Sam Moskowitz, Stuart Schiff, Peter Michaels, EF Bleiler,
Frederick C. Durant III, Barry Malzberg, John McLaughlin, Bruce Francis, Andrew Porter, Richard Bojarski,
Harvey Clarke and David Hartwell, from Los Angeles, Texas, Canada, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, England and
elsewhere. I have heard from Atlanta, France and Israel (!) that I was seen on TV. I think 499 of the approximately
500 present, told me I made their childhood or was their hero or idol or expressed some similarly warm and
humbly appreciated sentiment. I was flattered that Isaac Asimov came with his wife and made opening remarks
about me at the reception sponsored by OMNI. I have no complaint that I didn't receive all the (unexpected)
egoboo one could ask for. But my goal of financial independence was radically unrealized. I won’t know for a
month but my educated guess is that, after commission & taxes, I won’t wind up with more than $75,000 whereas
my expectation had been for a sale in excess of half a million. Farewell, fond dreams, of another car (after 12
years), a vidicam recorder, money to restore & preserve important imagi-movie posters, spare cash to repay all
major financial supporters of the Ackermuseum thru the years such as Mike LeVine, Bob Peterson, Charles
Lorance, John Andrews, Peter Many Jr. et al, to invite quarter-century fan-correspondent Giovanni Scognamillo
of Turkey to the Ackermansion at my expense, and in general play Scienti-Claus.
Mr. Monster 29

I WASTED the first five and a half years of my life, but

in 1922 my eyes were opened to the wonderful world of
Fantasy via what unfortunately is a long lost film one
glorious night, well over half a century ago, my maternal
grandparents, last of the big time angels, took me to see it:
“One Glorious Day”, starring the internationally famous
wit of his time, Will Rogers. But it was not the adult actor
who amused me, it was a youngster named John Fox who
portrayed Ek, a
mischievous ectoplasmic wraith who convinced me in 56 mesmerizing minutes that imaginative movies were
more entertaining than mundane.
It was a great time to be alive, young, have doting grandparents who would take you to as many as seven films
in a single day (we could have seen, more between opening time at 11 a.m. and midnight, but first-run downtown
movies in those days took up the time of an extra film with vaudeville or stage shows) and it was a period of the
flowering of fantastic motion pictures. The 13 greatest consecutive years of imaginative movies were the
seminal period 1923-1936. At six, at seven, at eight, at nine, my wondering eyes beheld 49 dinosaurs and one
prehistoric brontosaurus rampaging in London (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s “The Lost World”); The Man of a
Thousand Faces, Lon Chaney Sr., as Erik, the nightmare incarnate, “The Phantom of the Opera”; the horrors of
Hell in Dante’s Inferno; Quasimodo, the demented human monstrosity with a heart of gold, “The Hunchback of
Notre Dame”; The Thief of Baghdad vs. the fire-breathing dragon, the giant undersea spider, astride the flying
winged horse, in the forest of the arboreal beings, wrapping himself in the cloak of invisibility, the magic powder
of power; Siegfried fighting Fafnir and bathing in the slain dragon’s blood; the ravishing robotrix of Metropolis,
in the premiere city of the year 2027 with its population of 60 million, soaring cloudscrapers connected by aerial
skyways, offices equipped with telephotophones, the amazing machinery of Moloch in the steaming subterranean
depths; the revivals of the early German classics The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Conrad Veidt as the sinister
somnambulist) and The Golem (Paul Wegener as the clay statue imbued with life) and the Russians' picturization
of a revolution on Mars, Aelita.
And at 10 and 11 and on into teenhood the silver screen burgeoned with titles that titillate to this day: Lon
Chaney’s lost London After Midnight, Lionel Barrymore's The Mysterious Island, A. Merritt's Seven Footprints
to Satan, High Treason (England’s vision in 1929 of the Federated Atlantic States of 1940 in Britain’s second
talking film with Raymond Things to Come Massey in a bit part), “Just Imagine” (1930’s vision of a world of
indexed numbers--hero J-2 1, heroine LN 18, et al – and a rocket trip to Mars in 1980, starring Mia Rosemary’s
Baby Farrow’s mother Maureen “Tarzan’s Jane” O'Sullivan), Fritz Lang’s “Woman in the Moon” (wherein the
director invented “countdown” on the screen), “The End of the World” from France, “The Strange Case of
Captain Ramper” from Germany (Paul “The Golem” Wegener as a kind of Arctic “manimal”), Charles
Laughton’s Island of Lost Souls, that inseparable pair of horror classics “Dracula” and “Frankenstein”, “Dr.
Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” with Fredric March’s Academy Award-winning performance in the directorial masterpiece
of Rouben Mamoulian, Clarence Darrow’s “Mystery of Life”, the perennially remade (never as successfully as
the original) “Most Dangerous Game”, “The Mummy”, “The Old Dark House”, “The Ghoul”, “The Invisible
Ray”, “The Black Cat”, “The Raven” (all with Boris Karloff and sometimes additionally Bela Lugosi), “Murders
in the Rue Morgue” (Lugosi as Dr. Mirakle), “White Zombie” (Lugosi as “Murder” Legendre), “Dr. X” and “The
Mr. Monster 30

Mystery of the Wax Museum” (both with Fay Wray, immortalized as the heroine of “King Kong”), “Transatlantic
Tunnel, F.P.1 Doesn’t Answer” (both the futuristic visions of Curt “Donovan’s Brain” Siodmak) up to and
including “The Invisible Man”, the memorable H.G. Wells cinemadaptations of “The Man Who Could Work
Miracles” and “Things to Come”.
While all these “scientifilms” and “imagi-movies” were being seen (and, after Al Jolson, heard) on the screen,
something new had been added: the world’s first monthly magazine of science fiction was published--Amazing
Stories, bearing the date April 1926. At the time its tales by Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, Edgar Allan Poe et al were
all reprints, an amalgam of imaginative literature transporting the reader from micro-space “The Man from the
Atom” by teenaged G. Peyton Wertenbaker, later to make his literary mark as Green Peyton) to the rings of Saturn
via Jules Verne’s “Off on a Comet”. The editor/publisher of this audacious periodical, which took off like a
rocket, was Hugo Gernsback, author and inventor, an immigrant from Luxembourg who started the ball
(lightning) rolling into the future with a momentum that by nearly 50 (49, to be exact) 1953 would produce a
plethora of/fantastic periodicals which a dedicated aficionado could acquire (if probably not read) in a single
enchanted month.

A VISIT WITH

No interview, to my knowledge, ever has appeared with fantasy fiction’s

foremost exponent of the unclothed feminine form divine in cover art. Learning
that she lived in Chicago, I resolved to meet this mysterious Madame during
“Chicon Week", and accordingly called her on the phone one morning.
On my first call I explained I was an admirer of her work from the West Coast
and would it be possible to see her sometime during the day? She replied she had
certain things to do but that it was probable they could be put off and would I
check back with her within an hour? Which I did, to learn she would be free and
glad to see me -- and here I introduced the names of Erle Korshak and Walt
Leibscher, who were guiding me around the city that day -- she would be free
and glad to see me and my friends anytime after 6:30. So I made a date for 7
o'clock. A short time after the hour we three - plus Ross Rocklynne, who stayed
over specifically to be in on Brundage - we four found ourselves on the 2nd
floor of an apartment building on the north side of Chicago. We were
admitted to her room by Mrs. Brundage.
Margaret B., creator of those come-hither, getcha alladither, Mither-of-
Mercy, Minga-maid-like pastel pretties is a woman in her mid-30’s, tall,
blond, affable. Has a teenage son who reads science fiction, Amazing
being his pick for first place. Brundage, believe it or not, is an authority
on Hitler having read every line available on the would-be World-dictator
during the last year.
Margaret B. got started in fantasy with her Oriental lady on an early
cover of Oriental (one-time companion to Weird Tales). Simply walked
into the office and showed a sample of her work. Soon Oriental
became Magic Carpet, and Brundage also began to draw for Weird
Tales where her work was greeted with wild acclaim.
Used to get $90 for a cover: now $50. Cannot draw a cover in under a week, and the
Mr. Monster 31

materials that go into its making cost about $10 with packing and mailing taking a good part of $5 more. For such
a price as this she cannot afford models and, like Finlay (who is a 2nd cousin of Mrs. Wright, we learned), frankly
copies from photos. The phantom lover on the November (1940.RW) Weird Tales was Robert Taylor: the dancer,
Loretta Young.
I have come to be far less critical of artists since Learning some of their trials and tribulations.For instance,
Margaret pointed out to us, on a proof of one of her covers, that, the hands were over-large. That issue, no doubt,
many fans said “What the heck’s the matter with Brundage,she ought to be able to draw better hands than that;
why, they're all out of proportion.” Pastel is a hell of a difficult and delicate medium in which to work. When
she was about 7/8ths thru with that particular pic, the publisher ordered a change in it necessitating enlarging one
hand, so naturally she had to make the second bigger. And so, they were out of proportion, thru no ignorance or
intention of hers. Oft-times, too, the plate-maker does not reproduce her colors correctly, she stated, as in the case
of the current cover of WV where the green was black.
Brundage also has done calendar art under the pseudonym of Bron, and now is developing a new black-and-
white technique for propaganda work under her maiden name, Johnson. Considered by fans a natural for the late
South Sea Stories, tho Palmer was all for her work, unfortunately she was never able to click with Ziff-Davis (the
dope).
We were privileged to see two of her original unpublished calendar subjects; the most delicately done and
delectable of damozels Hey Erle, Walt, Ross - your mouths still watering? Mine is! (from The Alchemist,
February 1941).

A Visit With

For the better part of my life I had lived only an hour’s journey
from one of fantasy fiction’s most famous Figures, the late Edgar
Rice Burroughs, whose stories of interplanetary adventure have
thrilled millions; yet I had never met him. Having gone out of my
way to shake hands with H.G. Wells, Abe Merritt, Hugo
Gernsback, Frank R. Paul, Austin Hall and many other science
fiction celebrities, I decided it was high time I paid my respects to
the creator of “Tarzan of the Apes”, “John Carter of Mars” and
“Carson of Venus”.
Perhaps it was because he lived so near me in California that I
had contented myself with the thought that I could visit him at any
time. Anyhow, I finally did so and spent three hours talking to him about his work, hearing him confirm much
of what I had read about him and deny what was mere legend.
He lived, as every Burroughs fan knows, in the San Fernando Valley, in the little community once known as
Reseda, until his fame overshadowed the town and gave it the name of Tarzana.
But we three other admirers of his who went with me actually had trouble finding him. The gas station
attendant couldn’t direct us, and the drug store owner was no help; he didn’t even have a Burroughs book in his
circulating library. I began to wonder: how famous is fame?
Mr. Monster 32

Then we found we’d gotten the name of the street wrong

and had overshot our mark by about a mile, so we went back
and finally came to a large rural-type mailbox bearing the
Burroughs name. But the palatial residence I expected didn’t
materialize. The great sprawling estate of my imagination
was a modest six room house surrounded by a garden and a
lush lawn, with an orchard in the rear. The house had a built-
on porch, where the owner spent much of his time reading.
Burroughs himself opened the door to us. We all liked
him at first sight. He had aged, of course, since he posed for
the familiar photo on the dust jackets of his books, but none
of us would have taken him for 73. He had lived to see
science catch up with and outdistance some of the wild
imaginings of his earliest writings. “In some of my early
Mars stories,” he recalled, “I made the mistake of describing
amazing airships which traveled at the incredible speed of
two hundred miles an hour.”
He led us through the living room, on the floor of which
was a handsome black and white zebra skin, out on to the
porch. He took an easy chair beside which lay the scattered
pages of the Sunday paper; nearby on a table was a pile of
cartoon books. On one wall hung the ornate robe of an Indian
chief and a Japanese silk painting of a slinking tiger. A pair
of Oriental equestrian statuettes stood on twin tables on
either side, and by the door leading to the backyard orchard
was a huge vermilion jar decorated with ebony elephants and other jungle figures. Amid this colorful tableau, we
talked.
I asked if it was true that he wrote his first stories on the backs of old envelopes, as I had read somewhere.
That wasn’t so, he said. But he did use old letterheads which he had printed when he went into business for
himself years ago, and for which he had no better use when, as invariably happened, his venture failed.
He was an unsuccessful businessman for several years before he tried writing fiction, and succeeded. So much
that his Tarzan stories, translated into various languages from a Turkestan dialect to Hindustani (not forgetting
Esperanto) have sold over thirty million copies, while a score of full length films adapted from his books have
added to the rich proceeds of his imagination.
In addition, he gathered a small fortune from the use of his universally famed ape-man in newspaper cartoons
and comic books. He had also been on the radio, with Burroughs’ son-in-law playing the lead along with his
daughter Joan. Few dream-children have been as profitable for their creator as Tarzan.
He also debunked the story that he began to write because he couldn’t sleep. “I wrote because I was hungry,
not through insomnia,” he told us. “I had a wife and two children to support, and I wasn’t making much money.
But I did have a lot of weird dreams; both sleeping and waking. I thought I’d put them down on paper and see if
they'd sell.”
He was 35 and, having tried several different jobs - cowhand, policeman, railroad patrolman, salesman; he
was working for a patent medicine firm. It was his duty to check their adverts in the pulp magazines of the time,
and he sampled some of the stories in them. He thought he could do as well, if not better, and so he began to
write-fast. In his early days, once he got started, he could turn out a novel in a month or two at the most.
His first story, “Under the Moons of Mars,” ran as a serial in ALL-STORY MAGAZINE (Feb.-July, 1912)
which for years previously had been featuring the fantasies of Garrett P. Serviss, George Allan England and
others. He was paid about half a cent a word for it, and wrote under the pseudonym of “Normal Bean,” which
Mr. Monster 33

appeared as Norman Bean. Five years later it appeared in book

form as “A PRINCESS OF MARS”, to be followed by the rest
of the Mars series.
But before John Carter continued his exploits, “TARZAN
OF THE APES “had made his bow in the October 1912 ALL-
STORY, and in hard covers two years later. He was such a
success that ALL-STORY and ARGOSY leapt at the chance to
publish his adventures through the decades before they were
presented in book form for the benefit of his followers
throughout the world.
They also featured his tales of the world “AT THE EARTH’s
CORE”, “THE MOON MAID”, “PIRATES OF VENUS” and
others. “THE LAND THAT TIME FORGOT”, so beloved of
early AMAZING readers and all who grew up on his stories,
and which he himself titled “The Lost U-Boat,” was first
published in BLUE BOOK in 1918.
I asked if he, as a youngster, had been fond of fantasy
fiction-if, for instance, he had devoured Wells, Verne or Rider
Haggard, but he said no. The second story he wrote was “THE
OUTLAW OF TORN”: he intended it to be a serious historical
novel and did a lot of research for it. The effort wasn't wasted,
however, as he drew on the material later for “TARZAN, LORD
OF THE JUNGLE”.
The handwritten manuscripts of the first stories of Tarzan
and John Carter are carefully preserved, he told us. The original Tarzan of the Apes is still his favorite. “Re-read
it a few months back. My memory was never very much good, so every once in a while I get out one of my own
stories and re-read it.”
He autographed for me one of the rarest of his works, the novella “Beyond Thirty,” romance of a barbarian
Britain of the 22nd Century, full of wild men and beasts. One of the others produced a copy of the Esperanto
“Princino de Marso” and got him to sign it in Esperanto. Then we got to talking of space travel. “What do you
think of a trip to Mars or Venus?” I asked. He considered. “Well, I don't think it will come in our lifetime. I’d be
interested in knowing what they found there, but I don't think I’d care to go myself.” One of us, fresh from
reading “THE MOON MAID”, pointed out that in 1926 he had predicted radar as coming in 1940, in the shape
of “an instrument which accurately indicated the direction and distance of the focus of any radioactivity with
which it might be attuned.”
I asked him if he had spent much time thinking up such names as Barsoom, Gathol and Pellucidar. “Oh, I
thought them all out carefully,” he assured us. “I discarded many combinations of syllables before I was satisfied
with ‘Tarzan.’ I think the name of a character has a lot to do with his success, don't you? And I don't believe in
describing them too accurately; I've never given Tarzan’s actual height. I leave as much as I can to the reader’s
imagination.”
He wasn’t too happy with Tarzan’s transformation into a screen hero. He had thought of him, he said, as a
pretty grim character, and the movies made him too humorous for his liking. He has a projector, with prints of
“THE NEW ADVENTURES OF TARZAN” and others, but he hasn't seen all the Hollywood versions of his
stories. Of the nine different actors who have played the part, he liked Herman Brix the best. “He was absolutely
fearless!” I suggested “THE MONSTER MEN” as a likely movie, and he said it had been considered on and off
for years.
The only fantasy volume, apart from a few of his own, which we saw in his den was Otis Adelbert Kline’s
Mr. Monster 34

“THE PLANET OF PERIL”. The story goes that Kline’s “Buccaneers of Venus,” which appeared in WEIRD
TALES, was declined by ARGOSY because they preferred to use Burroughs’ first Venus novel instead.
A monstrous tiger skin covered the floor of this room, where we saw a collection of oddments including a
stone turtle which Burroughs had dug up himself. In the hallway hung a real human head which its hunters had
shrunk, and from which we shrank. He could never bring himself to touch it, he confessed. There was a beautiful
bronze statuette of a sabre-tooth tiger done by his son John Coleman Burroughs, who illustrated some of his
books. John and his brother Hulbert collaborated on several science fiction stories, beginning with “The Man
Without a World” in the 10th Anniversary issue of THRILLING WONDER.
Burroughs said he never rewrote, and never wrote a character into a situation from which he couldn’t extricate
him, though often he had no idea how the story would end. He once tried the Dictaphone, but couldn’t find a
stenographer who could spell and punctuate correctly, so he continued to type his own manuscripts. Although he
never had a formal education in grammar, a piece from one of his books was once used as an example of good
English in a British textbook.
Just before we left, our host produced an autograph book and asked for our signatures. Collecting visitors’
autographs had become a hobby in recent years, and we signed in his fourth book. As we departed he shook hands
with all of us, said that he had been honored by our visit and what we had to say about his work. “Not everybody
is quite sincere,” he added, “but I believe you have been. Thank you for calling, and if I don't recognize you next
time I see you I hope you won't think too badly of me-I have a terrible memory.”
Mr. Monster 35

TO ALL THOSE WHO CARED FOR

4 November 1912: 5 March 1990

Née: Mathilde (Malka) Wahrman Temporarily: Tilly Porjes
LAST 41 YEARS: WENDY ACKERMAN

THE ONLY Wendayne (Mondelle) in the world died at 8

o'clock on the evening of March 5th in our home after a 5-
month period of increasing and immeasurable misery due to
renal failure compounded by dialysis dementia. In the end her
gallant heart simply stopped. Sometime in the next century or
beyond there may be another Wendayne if the hope of her son
by a previous marriage, Michael Porjes, is realized: Upon his
demise he will be cryonically preserved and, with his Mother’s
permission, a sample of her body tissue is being cryonically
preserved, the intention being for Wendayne to be cloned and
for her son to raise her like a daughter. What hath science fiction
wrought?
The first words my Wendy ever spoke to me (as a book clerk
in a department store) were, “May I help you, sir?”
Heartbreakingly but comforting, the last words she ever said to
me were, “Forry--help me!” In between she:
Was the translator-in-chief of 137 novels of the German space opera series Perry Rhodan, the majority a
phenomenal success for Ace Books and some she published herself, proud to have created Master Publications.
To this day legions of fans love her for her role in bringing Perry Rhodan to America.
Was the translator of Stanislaw Lem’s “The Invincible”, her rendition of which (from unorthodox East
German German) was not received kindly by most critics. I suppose I must bear the brunt of some of the blame
as I did the final editing on it. She was consoled by the fact, however, that the author himself expressed his
satisfaction with the translation.
Was the translator (from French) of Pierre Barbet’s “Games Psyborgs Play” (her title), published by
DAW.
Was the translator of the Strugatsky brothers. “Hard To Be A God”, which is being made into a motion picture.
Met the authors in Russia.
Was the author of one of the most popular and oft-reprinted features out of 191 issues of Famous Monsters
of Filmland magazine, the entertaining and informative “Rocket to the Rue Morgue”, originally a paper for a
university project.
Earned a degree in Biology, taught science in high school, acquired an M.A. Magnum Cum Laude in record
time in her 40s, and was a professor of German and French for 20 years at East Los Angeles Jr College.
Accompanied me around the world to England, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Scotland, Wales, Canada,
Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Hong Kong, China (one tiny border town), Sweden, Norway, Lappland,
Luxembourg, Liechtenstein (we longed and planned to return to this fairyland), Moscow/Leningrad/Kiev,
Finland, Hungary, Yugoslavia, E. Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia. She did more than accompany me, she took
care of it all: the transportation, tickets, accommodations, passports, that sort of thing; things I have no patience
for and am not adept at. I quail at the thought of international travel without her but this year it’s back to Holland
Mr. Monster 36

and Belgium, where we were happy once before, and Denmark, which she never saw. Abroad, her command of
languages was indispensable: French, German, Spanish, ordinary Italian...and Hebrew. Perhaps some-eyebrows
raise at the mention of Hebrew? Why did she know Hebrew? Because according to the law of Germany at the
time she was born there, since her Mother and Father were Jews born in Poland, Wendy was considered a Polish
Jew. Yes, racially she was Jewish--so what? Do you think it mattered one iota to this Esperantist? Not for one
fraction of a nanosecond. I only hope you're not one of those unfortunate people who cracked a Jewish joke in
her presence or made some anti-Semitic remark which now embarrasses you when it’s too late to apologize. She
suffered in silence and never let on. She didn’t practice Judaism. She lived the major part of her life an American
Angeleno Agnost. In pre-war Germany she was a pre-med student at the Goethe University till one day Hitler
dismissed her because of her ancestry. Years later she was tickled by the irony of being an honored guest of the
city of Frankfurt-am-Main, where she was born, and in 1951 in Munich in the home-of Brigitte (METROPOLIS)
Helm she could hardly contain herself and refrain from exploding with laughter when her “tainted” hand was
kissed by the grandson of Kaiser Wilhelm! In 1933, a pariah in Germany, she went to France and practiced
midwifery; long hours, grueling work, one day a month off. When she moved to London she continued the
nursing profession till she left for Israel (still Palestine) where she experienced enough of the horrors of war to
last her a lifetime; married and had her son. In ‘48, getting a divorce, she moved to LA where she became a clerk
in the book department of a major downtown emporium. When her body chemistry reacted attractively to a 32-
year-old shy-guy she saw approaching her station with an armload of books, she said to her fellow clerk, “Lay
off him, he’s mine.” The moment I heard her charming accent I asked her where it came from. “Oh, my
ancestors,” she replied mischievously, “were highly civilized while yours were hanging by their tails from trees!”
Naturally, I never spoke to her again.,
Favorites among her fantasy and film friends were Tom & Terri Pinckard, the Robert Blochs, Frank & Bobbie
Bresee, the Yanos, Shibanos, Fritz Lang, Kenneth Anger, Ray Bradbury, Brad Linaweaver, the van Vogts, Kyles,
Pohls, Siodmaks, Avices, Walt Liebscher, Vincent Price, the Wm. Temples, Wm. Tuttles, Walter Ernsting,
Georges Gallet, Cornelia Ilie (Sweden), Ion Hobana (Romania), Luis Gasca (Spain), Boris Grabnar (Yugoslavia),
Josef Nesvadba (Czechoslovakia), Oscar Estes, Bela Lugosi, the John Landises, Aubrey MacDermotts,
Melchiors, Harryhausens, Ferraris (Italy), Rich Corrells, Vern Corriell, E. Everett Evans' widow, Catherine
Moore, Charles Higham, Amy Jewett, Cyndi Gossett, the Waldrons, Stuart J. Byrne et ux, Sam Sherman family,
Phil Riley, Edgar Rice & Danton Burroughs, Cynthia Goldstone, Erik von Buelow, Verne Langdon, the Brooks
family, all 4 Nuetzels, Jean-Claude Romer. Forgive me if in my upset state I've overlooked you and you know
you qualified. Unfavorites: Jim Warren, the New York editor who sabotaged the Perry Rhodan program and
wouldn’t publish anyone (including van Vogt!) I represented, Author Services (but she liked L. Ron, Arthur and
Diana), the female editor (now deceased) who treated me so cavalierly, the 2 chief detractors of the term “sci-fi”
(we often laughed how in 1954 when I first uttered it, she said, “Forget it, Forry—it will never catch on!”) and
Herr “Heartburn” (Bernhardt, the German arbiter of Rhodan'’s USA fate).
In 1963 she co-drove with me on the 8700-mile cross-country adventure to meet as many as possible of the
1300 filmonster fans who wanted to see us. She was the world’s slowest eater, had the world’s most sensitive
nose. Accompanied me to nudist camps for 5 years. Accepted gay men and lesbians. Loved sushi and gefuelte
fish. Had a sweet singing voice (we dueted on “True Love” & “Side by Side”). Didn’t drink, smoke dope-- or
swear. Curt Siodmak, Albert van Hageland (Belgian sf agent), George Pal, Georges Gallet, Dave Kyle, Vincent
Price and several others considered her “a real lady”. “Her sparkle, enthusiasm, feistiness, wit, intelligence,
protectiveness-of-Forry, generosity”; these are some of her attributes for which admiration has been expressed in
the first two days’ cards and condolences. I think she was a candidate for the Big Heart Award. Favorite singers:
Theodore Bikel (Uber Alles), Al Jolson, Bing Crosby, Dean Martin, Marlene Dietrich, Maurice Chevalier,
Brigitte Bardot (!), Aznavour and (blush) me! (She said she preferred my singing to Sinatra’s!) Actor: Burt
Lancaster. Novelists: Thomas Mann, George Simenon. Films: “African Queen”, “Cabaret”, “Lies My Father Told
Me”, “The Jolson Story(s)”, “Metropolis” and all Busby Berkeley musicals. SF: “The Forever War”, “4-Sided
Mr. Monster 37

Triangle”, the Auel series, “Childhood’s End”, “Letter to An Angel” (by me) and “Forever” by Mildred Cram.
She read the latter to me years ago; I read it to her a few weeks before she died. She had no use for religion of
any kind, didn’t believe in a life before or hereafter. Was reserved in her praise of my writing (how do you judge
this obit, my dear?). Was once active in LASFS and early Westercons. Especially liked the San Diego Comic
Cons and their sponsors.
We always planned to celebrate the year 2000 together. My broken heart asks, “How could you leave me?”
My reasoning mind tells me you couldn’t help it. I forgive you; I love you.

Ross Rocklynne, Leroy J. Tackett, Trudy Kuslan, Bob Tucker, Walt Liebscher, Morojo,
Erle Korshak, FJA, Julius Unger, Robert A. Madle, Robert G. Thompson

J. Michael Rosenblum, Ethel Lindsay, Roy Hunt, FJA and Leroy Tackett
4SJ, 3 Esperantists and Morojo hiding among other fans
Mr. Monster 38

LASFS, 1939 Dorothy Finn, Helen Finn, Eleanor O’Brien,

Morojo, Arthur Louis Joquel II, Ed Chamberlin, Grady
Zimmerman, Henry Hasse, Paul Freehafer, Peggy Finn,
Walt Daugherty, 4SJ, Technocrat STFan

Charles J. Hornig, Albert Nuetzell, Wendy, A.E. Van Vogt,

E. Mayne Hull, Tigrina, 4SJ, Terri & Tom Pinckard,
Dawn Langdon

A.E. Van Vogt, Grady Zimmerman, E. Everett Evens, 4SJ,

Kenneth Bonnell, David Lesperance, ?, Jean Cox Morojo and Sgt. Ack Ack
Mr. Monster 39

Arnie Katz. . .

Forry Ackerman is gone, but he left indelible memories

with everyone he knew. Even beyond that, though, Forry
will never be forgotten as long as Fandom endures.
There were many who loved science fiction and fantasy
before Forrest J Ackerman, but he was the first member of
the enormous cluster of subcultures known as Science
Fiction Fandom. It was the vision of this boy, for he barely
qualified as a teenager at the time, which created the
human network that has swollen to over 250,000 people
today.
Forry wanted to bring all lovers of science fiction,
fantasy and horror together so they could enjoy sharing
their interest. Already well-known for his letters in the
prozine letter columns, Forry reached out to others, first
alias Jack Darrow and then Jack Williamson, which started
Ed Chamberlain, David L. Fox, Peter Bogaslawski, 4SJ,
the fannish chain reaction. Henry Eichner, Walt Daugherty
I knew Forry a long, long time before I met him in
person on one of two mid-1960’s trip some Fanoclasts took to support the club’s worldcon bid. *We won; Ted
White and Dave Van Arnam co-chaired the 1967 NYCon 3.)
I “knew” him even before I’d ever heard of Fandom, as the jocular presence that saturated Famous Monsters
of Filmland. I began buying it with the third issue – and eventually acquired the first two – and read it regularly.
Back then, I didn’t know that Forrest J Ackerman pioneered discussion of science fiction movies in fanzines with
his numerous 1930’s articles about “scientifilms.”
Of course, I learned that and much more besides when I finally did enter Fandom, The First Fan certainly had
an impressive list of fannish accomplishments. So you can imagine that teenaged Arnie Katz was pretty thrilled
when Ted White told me that Forry had invited our roving band of Fanoclasts to visit the Ackermansion and then
join him as his guests for dinner. That visit, still fresh in memory after more than 40 years, encapsulated so many
of the man’s virtues and also the colorful quirks, idiosyncrasies and eccentricities that helped make him such a
memorable character.
The Ackermansion was a museum of science fiction memorabilia, including many one-of-a-kind priceless
mementos. Forry let us roam through a house where even the bathroom had a bookcase. I saw the headpiece from
“It Came from Outer Space” and the enormous nude of Trina Robbins that fuelled the ceiling over his bed.
At that time, Forry favored an all-you-can-eat smorgasbord place on Sunset, which sounded pretty wonderful
to a bunch of perpetually starving fans. We soon found ourselves motoring toward what turned out to be a very
nice dinner in Forry’s black Cadillac. I say “toward,” because a malfunction prevented the mighty Caddy from
reaching its goal under its own power. And so it was that the Fanoclasts ended up pushing Forry in his Cadillac
down the Sunset Strip.
Forry remained the convivial host and reaped a just reward after the dinner; his car started. Capping off the
visit, he showed us the largest newsstand in Los Angeles, where they knew him by name.
That was so like Forry, too. He had an infectious friendliness and warmth that often cut through situation that
are fairly anonymous experiences for most of the rest of us.
Farewell to Fandom’s Founding Father.
12/6/08