OBITUARY
Forrest J Ackerman, writer-editor who coined 'sci-fi,' dies
at 92
The Los Angeles native influenced young fans with his Famous
Monsters of Filmland magazine and spent a lifetime amassing a vast collection
of science fiction and fantasy memorabilia.
By Dennis McLellan
December 6, 2008
Hero Complex: Forrest J Ackerman dead at 92
As editor of Famous Monsters of Filmland, Ackerman wrote
most of the articles in the photo-laden magazine launched in 1958 as a forum
for past and present horror films.
"It was the first movie-monster magazine," Tony
Timpone, editor of horror-movie magazine Fangoria, told The Times in 2002.
Timpone, who began reading Famous Monsters as a young boy in
the early '70s, remembered it as "a black-and-white magazine with cheap
paper but great painted [color] covers. It really turned people on to the magic
of horror movies."
Primarily targeted to late pre-adolescents and young
teenagers, Famous Monsters of Filmland featured synopses of horror films;
interviews with actors such as Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi and Vincent Price;
and articles about makeup and special effects.
The magazine reflected Ackerman's penchant for puns, with
features such as "The Printed Weird" and "Fang Mail."
Ackerman referred to himself as Dr. Acula.
"He put a lot of his personality into the
magazine," said Timpone, who became friends with Ackerman. "It was a
pretty juvenile approach to genre journalism, but as kids that's all we
had."
Among those who grew up reading Famous Monsters of Filmland
was author Stephen King. Other childhood readers included movie directors Joe
Dante, John Landis and Steven Spielberg, who once autographed a poster of
"Close Encounters of the Third Kind" for Ackerman, saying, "A
generation of fantasy lovers thank you for raising us so well."
Ackerman was a celebrity in his own right, once signing
10,000 autographs during a three-day monster-movie convention in New York City.
This, after all, was the man who created and wrote the comic
book characters Vampirella and Jeanie of Questar and was the ultimate fan's
fan: a man who actually had known Lugosi and Karloff and whose priceless
collection of science-fiction, horror and fantasy artifacts ran to some 300,000
items.
For years, Ackerman housed his enormous cache of books,
movie stills, posters, paintings, movie props, masks and assorted memorabilia
in his 18-room home in Los Feliz.
He dubbed the house the Ackermansion. The jam-packed
repository included everything from a Dracula cape worn by Lugosi to Mr.
Spock's pointy ears and from Lon Chaney Sr.'s makeup kit to the paper-plate
flying saucer used by director Ed Wood in "Plan 9 From Outer Space."
For Ackerman, a native Angeleno born Nov. 24, 1916, it all
began at age 9.
That's when he stopped at a drugstore on the corner of Santa
Monica Boulevard and Western Avenue in Hollywood and bought his first copy of
the science-fiction magazine Amazing Stories.
Ackerman was helplessly hooked.
By his late teens, he had mastered Esperanto, the invented
international language. In 1929, he founded the Boys Scientifiction Club. In
1932, he joined a group of other young fans in launching the Time Traveler,
which is considered the first fan magazine devoted exclusively to science
fiction and for which Ackerman was "contributing editor."
Ackerman also joined with other local fans in starting a
chapter of the Science Fiction Society -- meetings were held in Clifton's
Cafeteria in downtown L.A. -- and as editor of the group's fan publication
Imagination!, he published in 1938 a young Ray Bradbury's first short story.
During World War II, Ackerman edited a military newspaper
published at Ft. MacArthur in San Pedro. After the war, he worked as a literary
agent. His agency represented scores of science-fiction writers, including L.
Ron Hubbard, Isaac Asimov, A.E. van Vogt, H.L. Gold, Ray Cummings and Hugo Gernsback.
In 1954, Ackerman coined the term that would become part of
the popular lexicon -- a term said to make some fans cringe.
"My wife and I were listening to the radio, and when
someone said 'hi-fi' the word 'sci-fi' suddenly hit me," Ackerman
explained to The Times in 1982. "If my interest had been soap operas, I
guess it would have been 'cry-fi,' or James Bond, 'spy-fi.' "
At the time, Ackerman already was well-known among
science-fiction and horror aficionados for his massive collection. After a
couple from Texas showed up on his doorstep in 1951 asking to view the
collection, Ackerman began opening up his home for regular, informal tours on
Saturdays. Over the years, thousands of people made the pilgrimage to the
Ackermansion.
The Dracula/Frankenstein room featured a casket as a
"coffin table" and the cape Lugosi wore in the stage version of
"Dracula." A case displayed one of the horror film legend's bow ties,
which, Ackerman would gleefully note, contained a drop of blood.
Among the collection's other highlights: the ring worn by
Lugosi in "Dracula," the giant-winged pterodactyl that swooped down
for Fay Wray in "King Kong," Lon Chaney's cape from "The Phantom
of the Opera" and "Metropolis" director Fritz Lang's monocle.
The affable Ackerman would escort his visitors through the
priceless warren of books, posters and memorabilia, settling into a chair in
each room and answering questions.
"He was always just a big kid," said Fangoria's Timpone.
"I really cherished all the times I've been with him."
Ackerman wrote more than 2,000 articles and short stories
for magazines and anthologies, sometimes under the pseudonyms Dr. Acula, Weaver
Wright and Claire Voyant.
He also wrote what has been reported to be the first lesbian
science-fiction story ever published, "World of Loneliness." And
under the pen name Laurajean Ermayne, he wrote lesbian romances in the late
1940s for the lesbian magazine Vice Versa.
Ackerman edited or co-edited numerous books, including
"A Book of Weird Tales" and "365 Science Fiction Short
Stories."
Over the years, he made numerous cameo appearances in films,
including Dante's "The Howling" and Landis' "Innocent
Blood." Landis also had Ackerman eating popcorn behind Michael Jackson in
the movie theater scene in his "Thriller" video.
Famous Monsters of Filmland ceased publication in 1983, but
returned a decade later with Ray Ferry as publisher and Ackerman as editor.
Ackerman, however, reportedly had a falling out with Ferry and left the
magazine. Years of litigation followed. In 2000, after a civil trial, Ackerman
won a trademark infringement and breach-of-contract lawsuit against Ferry,
though he said a year later that he had not yet collected a penny of the
judgment.
In recent decades, according to a 2003 Times story, Ackerman
slowly sold pieces of his massive collection in order to survive. Because of
health problems and his still-unresolved legal battle, he put up all but about
100 of his favorite objects for sale in 2002.
The same year, he moved out of the Ackermansion and into a
bungalow in the flats of Los Feliz. But he continued to make what was left of
his collection available for fans to view on Saturday mornings.
R.I.P.
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