Remembering Uncle Forry - Part 1
Forrest J. Ackerman died this past December 4th.
I didn’t hear about it until nearly a week later, when the Rev. Ivan Stang sadly reported the news on his Hour of Slack radio show.
The announcement didn’t come as a complete surprise. Two years ago, in his introduction on the Equinox DVD; Forry looked gaunt and frail. He lived to be 92.
The AP, the LA Times, the London Guardian and Time magazine all ran brief obituaries. There’s been some mischaracterization of him -though not as much as might’ve expected- as some sort of Ur-geek, an eccentric fanboy who made his name on having amassed the world’s largest collections of sci-fi memorabilia. To be sure, he was those things, but he was -and did- so much more than that.
To put it simply: the man loved science fiction.
He understood that, at its high-minded best, science fiction was a way for us to transcend ourselves… a way to face the future with intelligence, hope, adaptability, compassion and the uniquely adventurous spirit of human-ness. He also understood that at its pulpiest, low-budget worst, science fiction was immense good fun. The fact that these two extremes tended to blur and run together didn’t diminish his love for the genre.
Above all, Forry wanted to share this thing, this sense of wonder, with as many people as possible. He made this his life’s work. As a teenager, he was the first to publish a short story written by his pal Ray Bradbury (with cover art by their mutual friend Ray Harryhausen). Later on, he served as literary agent to many up-and-coming authors, including Isaac Asimov, Hugo Gernsback, Charles Beaumont, Fritz Lieber, Marion Zimmer Bradley, A.E. Van Vogt and -“before he went crazy with all that Scientology mumbo-jumbo”, as Forry would say later-L. Ron Hubbard.
Today, Sci-Fi is a channel offered with your basic cable package.
In 1953 the term didn’t yet exist, so Forry coined it.
A few years later he founded Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine, which he edited until its demise in the early 80’s. Young readers like George Lucas, little Stevie Spielberg, Dennis Muren, Phil Tippet, Rick Baker, Peter Jackson, Frank Darabont, Stephen King (who submitted a short story at age 14), … all were inspired by the magazine’s heady mix of behind-the-scenes reportage, exclusive photos and Forry’s bad, bad puns… each went on to inscribe his own mark upon the scrolling hieroglyph of our culture’s iconography.
From the 1950’s onward, Forry made an uncountable number of friends and fans, who gave him signed first edition book printings, artwork, movie props, costumes, special effects miniatures, etc. Forry’s house became known as the ‘Ackermansion’, which gradually became a veritable Ali Baba’s cave of wonders. Not one to hoard his treasures, Forry embodied a certain noblesse oblige and opened his house to free guided tours up until 2002. It’s estimated that, over the years, no fewer than 50,000 visitors walked through his door. Personages as varied as Buzz Aldrin, Elton John and Marlena Dietrich signed his guest book.
I think Robert Bloch -yes, that Robert Bloch, the man who wrote Psycho- said it best at one of Forry’s birthday celebrations:
[and I paraphrase here liberally, because what follows was said nearly three decades ago and my memory becomes more Swiss cheese-like daily]
“You know those guys, those hawkers, those hucksters… who hang around outside the burlesque shows on Broadway and bark at you to ‘step inside and see Sheena and Her Pet Snake’, who peddle girlie magazine out of their trench coats? That guy with the coat? That’s Forrest Ackerman! Only instead of smut, he wants to sell you a magazine with Boris Karloff on the cover! ‘Pssst! Hey, kid! Looka here’!”
Good night, sweet Uncle Forry. Stop-motion-animated pterosaurs wing thee to thy rest.