re: From the 2008 sucks dept: Forrest J. Ackerman - RIP
Johnny,
I grew up as a "monster kid," meaning I watched Sir Graves Ghastly-hosted movies on local Detroit TV in the 1960s, built Aurora monster models, cooked up my own Creepy Crawlers in the basement and so on. When Boris Karloff died in 1969, I cut out the newspaper article and started keeping a monster movie scrapbook. Halloween was my favorite holiday.
At some point I noticed Famous Monsters magazine on display at our local drug store, but my mom wouldn't let me buy it until after I turned 11 (it was issue #60 from December of 1969, with Dorian Gray on the cover, if you're interested). After that, I bought every issue for about six years and devoured them for information on my favorite films and filmmakers. For a while I wanted to be an animator like Ray Harryhausen, and experimented with still cameras. My friends didn't really care about the details, so the magazine filled a void: there were other people out there who were as deeply interested in this stuff as I was. And it was Forrest Ackerman who connected me to them. Uncle Forry. The Ackermonster. He was like the cool, supportive grandfather/uncle I never had.
Eventually I outgrew the magazine, but not my love of movies. Flash forward 20 years.
I was living in Los Angeles. Every year the L.A. Weekly newspaper publishes a "Best of L.A." issue, and one year they had a listing that caught my eye. It said that Forrest Ackerman gave free tours of his movie memorabilia collection at his house in the Hollywood Hills. All you had to do was call. So I did, and one Saturday morning I drove over to the Los Feliz area, up into the hills, and to his house, the Ackermansion. A small group of people showed up. Forry came to the door and let us in.
It's obvious that Forry was an obsessive collector. I'm fascinated by them, but I never could be one. I'm a minimalist; being surrounded by all that stuff would drive me crazy. But it doesn't mean I can't admire someone who does it, and does it well. Forry did it very well. His collection was huge, but for the most part it was very well displayed. And the house was big enough to give him room to work. There were paintings lining the stairs that I recognized as covers from the magazine. There were shelves and shelves and shelves of books. There were props and models from King Kong. A full-sized Cylon from Battlestar Galactica in the living room. By that time I was attending the World Science Fiction convention and was a member of the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films, so I recognized his Hugo and Saturn awards by the fireplace. He told a story about Bela Lugosi's cape, and showed us Dracula's ring. There were tentacles, and skulls, and bugs galore. Not only in the house, but beneath it! He called the crawlspace "Grislyland" and it was full of treasures as well. The whole time he's telling stories about his life. At some point I went into overload; I simply could not process it all.
I do remember trying, at some point, to tell him about the effect he had on my life. I must have sounded like thousands of other fans who had said the same things. As I mentioned above, he just smiled.
A year or two later, I went back with a couple of friends who were also "monster kids." One of my prized photographs is from that visit: standing in Forry's living room, he has his arms thrown around us, with a big smile on his face.
I've managed to run into him a number of times over the years, mostly at WorldCons. I followed his battle with Ray Ferry online and rejoiced at his courtroom victory. Once I was sitting in a theater waiting for Jurassic Park 2 The Lost World to start and heard a familiar voice behind me. It was Forry, with a bunch of friends. I doubt he remembered me, but he was always gracious.
The world without him will be a poorer place.
Thank you, Forry, for everything.
