I received an email from a mutual friend today.

He has been sent home from the hospital, supposedly with pneumonia, but he's 91 (92 this month) and every seems to think he is "gravely" ill.

The genres of science fiction and horror movies, fans owe him a tribute!

* I think I've seen, or know someone who was involved with, just about everything he's ever made It's such great schlock. *

Ackerman or, "Mr. Science Fiction,"saw his first "imagi-movie" in 1922 (One Glorious Day), purchased his first science fiction magazine, Amazing Stories, in 1926, created The Boys' Scientifiction Club in 1930 ("girl-fans were as rare as unicorn's horns in those days"), contributed to both of the first science fiction fanzines, The Time Traveller, and the Science Fiction Magazine, put out and edited by Shuster & Siegel of Superman fame, in 1932, and by 1933 had 127 correspondents around the world. He attended the 1st World Science Fiction Convention in 1939, where he wore the first "futuristicostume" (designed and created by Myrtle R. Douglas) and sparked fan costuming. He has attended every Worldcon but two thereafter. Ackerman invited Ray Bradbury to attend the now legendary Clifton’s Cafeteria Science Fiction Club, where Ray met the writers Robert A. Heinlein, Emil Petaja, Fredric Brown, Henry Kuttner, Leigh Brackett, and Jack Williamson. And with $90 from Forrest, Bradbury launched a fanzine, Futuria Fantasia, in 1939.

Ackerman helped found the Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society, a prominent regional organization in science fiction fandom, as well as the National Fantasy Fan Federation (N3F). He also provided publishing assistance in the early days of the Daughters of Bilitis, and (as the author of several lesbian novels under the name "Laurajean Ermayne") was dubbed an "honorary lesbian" at a DOB party.[1] He is (or was) personally acquainted with many twentieth-century writers of science fiction. He is noted for having amassed an extremely large and complete collection of science fiction, fantasy and horror film memorabilia, which was, until 2002, maintained in a remarkable home/museum known as the 18-room "Ackermansion" in the Los Feliz district of Los Angeles, filled with 300,000 books and pieces of movie memorabilia. He has entertained approximately 50,000 fans at open houses since 1951, including 186 fans and pros in one memorable night, including astronaut Buzz Aldrin. Ackerman is a board member of the Seattle Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame, where many items of his own collection are displayed. Ackerman received a unique 1953 Hugo Award for "#1 Fan Personality" which some might say is the equivalent of the present-day Hugo Award for Best Fan Writer.

Ackerman is credited with nurturing and even inspiring the careers of several early contemporaries[2] like Ray Bradbury, Ray Harryhausen, Charles Beaumont, Marion Zimmer Bradley and L. Ron Hubbard. He was Ed Wood's "illiterary" agent[3] and represents 200 authors of science fiction and fantasy.

Ackerman has had 50 stories published, including collaborations with A. E. van Vogt, Francis Flagg, Robert A. W. Lowndes, Marion Zimmer Bradley, Donald Wollheim and Catherine Moore and the world's shortest — one letter of the alphabet. His stories have been translated into six languages. Ackerman named the sexy comic-book character Vampirella and wrote the origin story for the comic.

Ackerman is fluent in the international language Esperanto, and claims to have walked down Hollywood Boulevard arm-in-arm with Leo G. Carroll singing La Espero, the hymn of Esperanto.[4]

Through his magazine, Famous Monsters of Filmland (1958–1983), Forrest J Ackerman introduced the history of the science fiction, fantasy and horror film genres to a generation of young readers. At a time when most movie-related publications glorified the stars in front of the camera, "Uncle Forry", as he's referred to by many of his fans, promoted the behind-the-scenes artists involved in the magic of movies. In this way Ackerman provided inspiration to many who would later become successful artists, including Peter Jackson, Steven Spielberg, Tim Burton, Stephen King, Penn & Teller, Billy Bob Thornton, Gene Simmons (of the band Kiss), Rick Baker, George Lucas, Danny Elfman, Frank Darabont, John Landis and countless other writers, directors, artists and craftsmen.

In the 1960s, Ackerman organized the publication of an English translation in the U.S. of the German science fiction series Perry Rhodan, the longest science fiction series in history. These were published by Ace Books from 1969 through 1977. Ackerman's German-speaking wife Wendayne ("Wendy") did most of the translation. The American books were issued with varying frequency from one to as many as four per month. Ackerman also used the paperback series to promote science fiction short stories, including his own on occasion. These "magabooks" or "bookazines" also included a film review section, known as "Scientifilm World", and letters from readers. The American series came to an end when the management of Ace changed and the new management decided that the series was too juvenile for their taste. The last Ace issue was #118, which corresponded to German issue #126 as some of the Ace editions contained two of the German issues, and three of the German issues had been skipped. Forry later published translations of German issues #127 through #145 on his own under the Master Publications imprint. The original German series continues today and passed issue #2400 in 2007.

He also contributed to film magazines from all around the world, including Spanish speaking La Cosa - Cine Fantástico magazine, from Argentina, where he had a monthly column for over four years.

Ackerman says, "I aim at hitting 100 and becoming the George Burns of science fiction".

Ackerman currently lives in the new "Acker-mini-mansion" in Hollywood where he continues to entertain and inspire fans weekly with his amazing collection of memorabilia and priceless stories of the golden age of art, filmmaking, literature and all things fantastical.

From Wiki
This is a better site: Forrest Ackerman's Sci-Fi Mansion

I love Forest...

I had the extreme pleaure of meeting him in the 1970s, and also later on at shows...
could talk forever...

I love all monster movies, especially the cheesy ones...

especially-
Beast from 20,000 fathoms
The day of the triffods (Howard Keel)


Uncle Forry indeed!


May he find a magic elixir and may he live forever

like

Dr. Phibes! (Vincent Price)
or some of the Hammer Horror movies (Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee...

Or the Fly (Al David Hedison) or Return of the Fly (Brett Halsey)...

the list is endless...

I knew you would know Graham....I just knew it.

What a great life has led.

I never met him personally, I know people who do know him well though.

I've really always liked those cheesy movies too.



I think he will do just fine, but the mortal coil he now inhabits is not where I would want to see him spend eternity.

Ever see "Caccoon"? That would be an awesome thing for his next adventures in incarnation.

Hey G....did you ever read "Piers Anthony"? I especially loved the "Incarnations of Immortality" series, and I read them to my kids when they were like...seven and nine...Even though I'm sure they didn't understand them then.

for you G.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjlsk4_zLYE

Cocoon? You mean the one with the old people including Wilford Brimley?
That was a great fun movie, that reminded me of the Twilight Zone's Kick the Can in some ways.

Wilford Brimley diving into the pool...(among others)...

Forrest knew how to have fun...in some ways he was very similiar to Vincent Price too

they don't make monster movies the right way anymore...now its all special effects, but they forgot to put in the one ingredient the others had, maybe
two...

heart and cheese. Today's don't have heart and they aren't cheesy
(well, maybe Mars Attacks

where Slim Whitman saves the day...

maybe tomorrow all day, everyone should play (on their old stereos...Slim Whitman's Indian Love Call... maybe that's what we need to save us...

Uncle Forey Died Today. Go hug a monster or two for him!

Forrest J Ackerman, High Elder of Fantasy Fans, Is Dead at 92

By BRUCE WEBER
Published: December 6, 2008
It’s a common claim that someone is the world’s biggest fan of such-and-such. Elizabeth Taylor’s biggest fan. The biggest fan of the New York Jets. The world’s biggest country music fan. Hardly anyone takes such a designation seriously, except, perhaps, when it comes to Forrest J Ackerman, whose obsessive devotion to science fiction and horror stories was so fierce that he helped propel their popularity. Indeed, he was widely credited with coining the term sci-fi.



Lennox McLendon/Associated Press
Forrest J Ackerman in his Hollywood, Calif., home in 1986.
Mr. Ackerman died on Thursday at his home in Los Angeles. He was 92. The cause was heart failure, The Associated Press reported, quoting Kevin Burns, who is head of the production company Prometheus Entertainment and a trustee of Mr. Ackerman’s estate.

In the cultural niche defined by monsters, rocket ships and severed body parts, Mr. Ackerman was decreed by acclamation to be its leading citizen. He was a film buff, an editor of pulp magazines and anthologies, a literary agent for dozens of science fiction writers and an amateur historian. No one has evidently disputed his claim that he created the expression sci-fi.

He was also an omnivorous memorabilia collector who once turned a former home of his overlooking Los Angeles into a sort of scream-a-torium. Thousands of science-fiction fans made pilgrimages to the house, a repository of more than 300,000 books, posters, masks, costumes, statuettes, models, film props and other artifacts. (He sold the house several years ago to pay for mounting medical bills.)

“He was the world’s biggest fan,” the writer Stephen King said in a recent phone interview. “If you had been to his house, you wouldn’t doubt it.”

Mr. Ackerman’s appetite for science fiction embraced the highbrow as well as the low. His favorite film, he often said, was Fritz Lang’s futuristic masterpiece from 1927, “Metropolis.” He said he had seen it nearly 100 times. In 2002, when he received a lifetime achievement award at the World Fantasy Convention, he shared honors with one of the most admired writers of fantasy and science fiction, Ursula K. Le Guin, whose book “The Other Wind” was named the year’s best novel.

But Mr. Ackerman spent most of his time in the arena of pop culture. Between 1958 and 1983, he wrote and edited Famous Monsters of Filmland, a seminal black-and-white magazine heavily illustrated with photographs from Mr. Ackerman’s collection. The magazine emphasized the scream-worthy features of movies and was fond of groan-worthy wordplay. “Menace, Anyone?” was a typical title. But it also conveyed the idea that language was flexible and that using it could be fun.

The magazine fired the imaginations of generations of young horror fans, including Mr. King and the filmmakers George Lucas and Joe Dante (“Gremlins”).

“When you think of the size of the business, the dollar amount, that has sprung up out of fantasy, the people who made everything from ‘Star Wars’ to ‘Jaws,’ ” Mr. King said, “well, Forry was a part of their growing up. The first time I met Steven Spielberg, we didn’t talk about movies. We talked about monsters and Forry Ackerman.”

Forrest James Ackerman (he used his middle initial, but without the period) was born in Los Angeles on Nov. 24, 1916. His father was a statistician for an oil company. He saw his first science-fiction film in 1922: “One Glorious Day,” the story of a disembodied spirit that takes over the soul of a tired professor, played by Will Rogers. Four years later he discovered science-fiction magazines, starting with Amazing Stories, and began collecting them and science-fiction memorabilia. His collection eventually included more than 40,000 books and 100,000 film stills.

His wife, Wendayne, a teacher who translated many science-fiction novels from French and German into English, put up with the collection but restricted it to the lower floors of the house, which in the science-fiction world was known as the Ackermansion, in Horrorwood, Karloffornia. (After her death in 1990, the collection began creeping up the stairs.)

The couple had no children, and Mr. Ackerman leaves no immediate survivors.

After serving in the Army during World War II, he started a literary agency that eventually represented, by his count, 200 writers, including, at different times, Ray Bradbury, H. P. Lovecraft and L. Ron Hubbard, who later founded Scientology.

Mr. Ackerman said he came up with “sci-fi” in 1954. He was driving in a car with his wife when he heard a radio announcer say “hi-fi.” The term sci-fi just came reflexively and unbidden out of his mouth, he said.

Over the years he published as many as 50 short stories of his own, wrote most of the articles in Famous Monsters himself under pseudonyms like Dr. Ackula and wrote and edited many other magazines with titles like Monster World. At his induction into the Horror Hall of Fame in 1990, the actor Robert Englund (a k a the serial killer Freddy Krueger in the “Nightmare on Elm Street” films) introduced Mr. Ackerman as “the Hugh Hefner of horror.”

Mr. Ackerman also invented the comic character Vampirella. And as testimony to his ubiquitous presence, he acted (sort of) in more than 50 films, almost always as an extra. His longest screen appearance was a two-minute scene in which he played the president of the United States in the science-fiction spoof “Amazon Women on the Moon” (1987).

“He was an appreciator, a collector, not a creator,” Mr. King said. “Well, he was a creator in the sense that with the magazine he gave us a window into a world we really wanted to see. He was our Hubble telescope.”

pt. 1
visit with Forrest at the Ackermansion
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYhIkDROLwI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F16hfQ_7hGA...feature=related

R.I.P. Betty Page too!