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THE FORRY IDENTITY

“WHEN THIS YOU SEE, REMEMBER ME: 4E- 4E- 4E”

As I write these words, 91 year-old Forrest J. Ackerman is on his deathbed in Los Angeles surrounded by die-hard monster fans and his caregiver. It was just a day or so since he was brought home from the hospital at his own request. This is a bittersweet reflection on a childhood relationship that went sour around 1988, and until this week I have kept my feelings private regarding the circumstances that ended such a powerful tie that bound FJA and me in the magical world of fantasy and imagination.

Who is Forrest J. Ackerman? He may be a well-kept secret to most of the civilized world, but if you are connected in any way to Science Fiction or classic Horror films this man is a legend whose lifetime on Planet Earth has been utterly devoted to becoming just that: a legend is his chosen field of Science Fiction. For those of us who write about film his legacy is even more profound. From the early thirties, Forry has taken the task of preserving, at least in memory if not material, all the genre films that would have fallen through the cracks, regarded as worthless by critics of the day, if not for his magazine and his lifelong interest in them. If you look at film history in 2008, his influence is widely apparent, as we now respect the importance of cult films whether they are Ed Wood-directed fever dreams like PLAN NINE FROM OUTER SPACE with Bela Lugosi in his final bow, or a Z-grade Science Fiction film like ROBOT MONSTER with a gorilla wearing a space helmet.

Forrest Ackerman made himself known to me at an early age through the magazine that will always be his legacy, FAMOUS MONSTERS OF FILMLAND. This magazine united for the first time children around the age of 12 like me, who found themselves attracted to horror films thanks to the shock packages of CLASSIC MONSTER MOVIES that were sold to television stations all over America during the fifties and sixties. This was the way baby-boomers were first introduced to Bela Lugosi as DRACULA and Boris Karloff as FRANKENSTEIN. Nearly five decades cannot diminish the memory of the first issue of FAMOUS MONSTERS I ever laid eyes on. My mother and I were in Portland, Oregon on a shopping trip from Seattle where we were living at the time. We were staying in a large hotel downtown that had a newsstand, and from across the lobby I saw this bright yellow cover with blood-red letters that spelled CURSE OF THE WEREWOLF. Above that was the masthead that cried out FAMOUS MONSTER OF FILMLAND.

I must have read that magazine from cover to cover a dozen times before I could put it down and try and comprehend just why I was so excited. Looking back, the magazine justified my obsession with horror films, and for the first time I realized that I was not alone in my rapture for graves and ghouls. Because a guy named Forrest J. Ackerman cared about what I did, all at once as if by magic, I felt endorsed–not to mention part of a coven of like-minded kids that loved what I loved. We would all live then and there for the next issue, which turned out to be number 13.

Thus began my childhood as a fan of the Horror genre in earnest, although by then, 1960, I had already seen most of the Universal classics and never missed a horror film in the theater. My poor mother had to sit through some pretty damaging cinema as I was never “of age” to see a film. When I first saw HOUSE OF WAX in 3-D or, as she always reminds me, ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET DR. JECKYLL AND MR. HYDE, being just four years-old, I cried during the credits and had to be taken home.

This experience was not unlike what happened to all of us baby-boomers during those days, and Ackerman’s monster parade was always a part of this as his magazine was akin to what the trades are for a Hollywood agent, keeping up with new releases as well as seeing for the first time movie stills from all the horror films that came before.

It was in following the development FAMOUS MONSTERS OF FILMLAND throughout this period (1958-1983) that Forrest J. Ackerman became more than just the name of its editor. “Uncle” Forry, as he advised all his admirers to address him, lived and breathed what seemed then like an enviable fan-ish lifestyle devotedly to be wished by every reader in each and every issue. He published pictures of himself with notables in the field of horror films and soon we would learn that he had been a fan of science fiction even longer than most of us were on the planet. By the late sixties he had even published an article in FAMOUS MONSTERS about a day in the life of Forrest J. Ackerman. When I read this article, which depicted an adult male, by then in his mid forties, living by himself in the outskirts of Beverly Hills surrounded by nothing but books, Magazines, movie posters and file cabinet after file cabinet of photos from every horror film since CALIGARI, I realized that should be me. He even had his mail box rigged for sound to alert him to what goodies the postman would bring to his house every day. You see, Forrest J. Ackerman was the first of his kind – a FAN, and not just any fan, but a Horror and science fiction fan who lived for that purpose only.

What most of us could not have realized at that time, being so young, was a not-so-subtle variation on the Peter Pan syndrome of never growing up. Forry was Peter and Captain Hook rolled together and we were the lost boys. By the mid sixties Ackerman was allowing the faithful to visit his home if any of us happened to be in Los Angeles and wanted to attend one of his “open Houses,” which took place on Saturdays. We all knew what his place looked like, having seen pictures of every room in the pages of FAMOUS MONSTERS which, by this time, was simply referred to as “FM”.

This was the best of times for monster fans, remembered in the pages of Famous Monsters as “the Ghoul-don years,” and Forry more than lived up to the image we all had of him as the “PIED PIPER OF Horrordom” with a magic monster magazine that endorsed all of us who worshipped at the altar of Karloff and Lugosi and read EC comics instead of doing our homework. He even published an article entitled “Monsters are good for my children” just in case anybody should miss the point. All of this was perfect for that era where drive-ins were the teenage alterative to staying at home ignoring their hormones. At this point, up and coming studios like American International were grinding out Beach Party flicks as well as juvenile adaptations of Edgar Allan Poe, all of which premiered at the drive-in.

Throughout the late fifties and sixties, Ackerman maintained the hugely popular magazine without any reference to the reality of growing up in these turbulent times, yet the readership remained loyal as these monster kids would be among the last to tune in and trip out when the summer of love loomed over the horizon. By this time other monster magazines were beginning to show up on the newsstands, with one in particular standing out as superior in style and content, CASTLE OF FRANKENSTEIN; yet even as adult an approach as CASTLE was, it still owed its existence to the source of it all FAMOUS MONTERS OF FILMLAND.

By 1962 I was traveling with some regularity from Sacramento to Los Angeles in time to catch Forry at the original home he had during the magazine’s heyday. This address was located in the outskirts of Beverly Hills on Sherborne Drive. The Forrest Ackerman of those days is the way I will always remember him best. Forry dressed in business suits with silk ties as if he had a nine-to-five, and he was never without something under his arm, usually press materials from some new horror film, and dozens of genre magazines. He loved what he was doing, and why not? His work was his passion, the never-ending pursuit of all things fantastic in the visual medium.

He idolized PLAYBOY and the lifestyle of its editor, the legendary Hugh Hefner who, like Ackerman, started a magazine from nothing and created a publishing empire beyond anyone’s wildest dreams. At this time I think both Jim Warren, FM’s publisher, and Forry still had hopes of creating a little empire of their own with spin-off magazines like SPACEMEN and WILDEST WESTERNS. However, as influential as FAMOUS MONSTERS was for the baby-boomers of 1958, the kind of success and fame Hefner would enjoy with PLAYBOY was always well out of reach for Warren and his editor. Ironically, years later, Warren would strike it rich with horror comics like CREEPY, ERRIE and VAMPIRELLA.

The first afternoon I spent at the old address was something a 12-year-old would never forget, walking into a house filled with paintings and posters of fantasy and science fiction, the walls lined with bookcases filled with first editions of rare science fiction, weird fiction and pulp magazines with covers of great beauty and imagination. Forry kept a section of his living room for displaying material that was placed there especially for trading to fans like me. Advance copies of FAMOUS MONSTERS, foreign horror magazines filled with rare stills of films I was yet to discover. It was Ali Baba’s cave in the eyes of even a seasoned collector of such material. I still have the hard cover French film book he gave me that afternoon, which is now in shrink-wrap to keep the pages from falling out. He also collected people like Tor Johnson, who appeared in Ed Wood’s essential PLAN NINE, and my favorite, BRIDE OF THE MONSTER. To Tor and other exotic types, whose only claim to fame were their appearances in grade-Z horror films, Forry must have seemed like an oasis in the desert after being ignored by mainstream show business. Thanks to him, they all became part of our collective consciousness.

This youthful Forrest J. Ackerman was a wonder to behold, as he gave of his time to make sure others would follow in his example–that is, to always find a place for fantasy and imagination in your life. He loved to play music for his guests, and I remember hearing Marlene Dietrich for the first time singing “Falling in Love Again” in Ackerman’s living room while he sang along; absolutely unforgettable.

I began to collect in earnest after that, adding movie posters and stills whenever I could, and of course having every issue of FAMOUS MONSTERS was a given. Forry encouraged me to collect ALL monster magazines as they popped up, and in those days imitation was the highest form of flattery: Forry never felt threatened by any of them. What is amazing to remember is how nothing we collected was of any monetary value at that time. I hate to tell you what we would have in today’s market if the twelve-year-olds of 1962 had kept everything they collected.

I saw Forry whenever I could get down to Los Angeles. As time wore on, high school began, and soon other interests would take hold, yet my devotion to the Horror genre was now part of my imagination and would never leave me completely. After high school I moved to San Francisco and started college; it was during this period that I would see Forry at Science Fiction conventions in Oakland and San Jose.

Whenever I found something from METROPOLIS (which was, by the way, his favorite film), it never occurred to me to keep it; this was an item for Uncle Forry and I would make sure he got it if possible. Forry was forever buying books and movie material from dealers and fans alike. His collection was a work in progress.

Looking back at those conventions of the mid-seventies, Forry was not the Sci-Fi icon he is today, as we were still more or less a decade away from a major critical re-evaluation of these films, or from universities creating classes examining the films of the science fiction and horror genres. Forry had a reputation for being Sci-Fi’s first fan during the early days of pulp fiction in the twenties where he corresponded with Robert Bloch and the master H.P. Lovecraft, who failed to appreciate Forry’s enthusiasm and told him so in a famous letter to the young Ackerman. Robert Bloch on the other hand became a lifelong friend.

During the brightest period in the magazine’s run, Forry was a welcomed guest on film sets and had the opportunity to interview actors no one else would have thought to question. This habit also gave Forry another career, that of the cameo player in such films as Curtis Harrington’s QUEEN OF BLOOD and THE TIME TRAVELERS with Preston Foster. Forry enjoyed himself hugely on these projects and has since appeared in dozens of films including a moment in Michael Jackson’s THRILLER music video. You can spot Forry seated behind Jackson in the theater as they watch–what else?–a horror film.

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