Tag Archives: Bill Warren

Ackerman Tributes All Over the Net

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Forry Ackerman touched the lives of hundreds of fans, writers and filmmakers, and many are saluting his memory by telling their favorite stories about him.

bobgable’s posterous retells Walt Willis’ really funny story about a cross-country trip with Forry Ackerman

Robert J. Sawyer shares warm memories of meeting Forry, and a cherished visit to the Ackermansion:

I remember Forry’s wonderful kindness to a young writer he’d never met before. And I remember, all over his mansion, portraits of his deceased wife Wendayne, and how he spoke repeatedly about her with so much love.

First Fandom president Joan Marie Knappenberger’s obit on the SFWA News site incorporates several classic Ackerman chestnuts:

His stories of his life’s adventures were legendary, and his puns were fabulous. He once told me that he had read every last word in every book in his collection. When he got a new book for his collection, he would open it to the last page, and read the last word.

Forry’s passing has been noted on lots of major media sites, not the least of them Time Magazine, whose research revealed what we all know ain’t so, about who originated “sci-fi”:

If he didn’t coin the term “sci-fi” — Robert Heinlein used it first — then by using the phrase in public in 1954 he instantly popularized it (to the lasting chagrin of purists, who preferred “SF”).

Update: Bill Warren adds, “There’s an interesting tribute to Forry on the Ain’t It Cool News website, including Forry’s comments on his own death. The Classic Horror Film Board has a topic devoted to Forry’s demise.”

This Week in Words: Fandom’s Silent H

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Bill Warren sent me a great fannish trivia question:

Whence and when came the fannish fad of tossing a silent H into words ordinarily without it, like ‘bheer,’ ‘Ghod,’ etc.  I know that it was most prevalent in the late 50s, well after Ghu, but may relate to that august deity somehow.  But someone else says it began when Bob Stewart typoed his name as ‘Bhob Stewart’ and then kept using that spelling (he still does, in fact).

There’s probably a real answer, but even such an authority as Harry Warner Jr. wasn’t able to track it down when he wrote his first great volume of fanhistory:

Other manifestations of fanspeak are less confined to newly created words. As if by instinct, fans have inserted from time immemorial the letter h as the second letter in many words that begin with a consonant. Donald A. Wollheim attributed it to the all-powerful influence of GhuGhuism. It is equally possible that there is a rational explanation: Mencken’s fondness for ‘bhoys,’ perhaps, or the frequency in fantasy fiction of ghost and ghoul. [All Our Yesterdays, p. 41]

Neither does Jack Speer identify anyone as the originator of the fannish h in his early fanhistory Up To Now, but on page 19 he gives many more examples of the extra h being added to words appropriated for GhuGhuistic parodies:

ghughu was a burlesque on religion, the combination ‘gh’ being frequently applied in such words as ghod and demighod, gholy ghrail, etc, the cult worships ghughu, who, they claim, is wollheim.

Knowing what influence New York fans had on early fanspeak, it’s worth noting that the 19th century New York gang called the ‘Bowery Boys’ dates to the time when “b’hoy” was local slang:

B’hoy and g’hal (meant to evoke an Irish pronunciation of boy and gal, respectively) were the prevailing slang words used to describe the young men and women of the rough-and-tumble working class culture of Lower Manhattan in the late 1840s and into the period of the American Civil War. They spoke a unique slang, with phrases such as ‘Hi-hi,’ ‘Lam him’ and ‘Cheese it’.

Footnote on Morojo

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Bill Warren writes:

The Classic Horror Film Board is just what its name suggests: a message board for those who like horror movies, particularly the older ones–as well as related stuff. So it’s hardly surprising that Forry Ackerman has often been a subject of discussion there.

Someone started a topic on Forry’s current and probably terminal decline. Lee Harris…says he recently found that Forry’s old girlfriend (circa 1938-1941) was living a block or so away from Bob Burns.

I asked if that was Morojo, Myrtle Douglas, very active in LASFS in the early 1940s, maybe the late 1930s.

To my great surprise, someone replied saying they were Morojo’s niece, and that she died in 1964. This person had never posted on the CHFB before–I wonder how the heck she found us?

Forry’s Condition Very Serious

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Bill and Beverly Warren visited Forry on November 1. Here is Bill’s report:

Beverly and I went by Forry’s today. He was alert and responsive but didn’t say much. Joe Moe told us privately that the house is now in a “hospice situation,” which I assume means a death watch. He also said that Forry is quite aware of this, and okay with it–he feels he’s lived a long, productive and happy life, and is facing death without any fears. We stayed a while; Forry’s lawyer took care of some papers with him privately while we chatted on the patio in back. (I didn’t know there WAS a patio in back.) Before we left, I was able to say a few things to Forry that I’ve held back (good things), on the assumption we may not meet again. However, Beverly and I do plan to go back there tomorrow and maybe the next day as well.

Update 11/3/2008: Dave Langford adds, “Earl Kemp’s version of Forry Ackerman’s sad condition, as circulated to several mailing lists on Saturday, went: ‘I have just been informed that 4sj has had a serious heart attack and is not expected to survive it.'”

Keep Watching for
Keep Watching the Skies

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A new edition of Bill Warren’s Keep Watching the Skies, the definitive book about science fiction movies made in the 1950s, will soon be on the way. Just before last weekend Bill mailed off the 750,000-word manuscript, along with seven pounds of photos, and illustrations by Frank Dietz. Howard Waldrop wrote the introduction. Bill explains how they became acquainted:

I’ve never met Howard, and only talked to him on the phone twice (once the day before his surgery), but years back he wrote me a fan letter regarding Keep Watching the Skies. This was about the time I heard of his Howard Waldrop’s Condensed Cream of 1950s Science Fiction Movies presentation at a convention in, I think, Denver. He acted out key scenes from a lot of the movies. For 3-D movies, he hid under the table and threw wadded-up paper at the audience. That guy I decided I just had to know. So we started exchanging letters, beginning when he was in Texas, continuing on through his fly-fishing sojourn in Washington (state), then when he returned to Texas.

He wrote a story about the kids from 1950s SF movies — the boy befriended by Klaatu, the kid menaced by Martians in Invaders From mars, Tobor the Great’s pal Gadge, etc. — and dedicated it to William Schallert, Joe Dante and me.

Clarke Okay in Sri Lanka

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Arthur C. Clarke resides in Sri Lanka, and many have expressed concern about his safety following the regional disaster. Friends of Tim Lucas (Video Watchdog) are in contact with Clarke and obtained the following statement as well as permission to circulate it to anyone interested. (Los Angeles fan
Bill Warren was the source of this copy.) Clarke writes:

Thank you for your concern about my safety in the wake of Sunday’s devastating tidal wave.

I am enormously relieved that my family and household have escaped the ravages of the sea that suddenly invaded most parts of coastal Sri Lanka, leaving a trail of destruction.

But many others were not so fortunate. For hundreds of thousands of Sri Lankans and an unknown number of foreign tourists, the day after Christmas turned out to be a living nightmare reminiscent of The Day After Tomorrow.

Among those affected are my staff based at our diving station in Hikkaduwa and holiday bungalow in Kahawa – both beachfront properties located in areas worst hit. We still don’t know the full extent of damage as both roads and phones have been damaged. Early reports indicate that we have lost most of our diving equipment and boats. Not all our staff members are accounted for – yet.

This is indeed a disaster of unprecedented magnitude for Sri Lanka which lacks the resources and capacity to cope with the aftermath. We are all trying to contribute to the relief efforts. We shall keep you informed as we learn more about what happened.

Curiously enough, in my first book on Sri Lanka, I had written about another tidal wave reaching the Galle harbour (see Chapter 8 in The Reefs of Taprobane, 1957). That happened in August 1883, following the eruption of Krakatoa in roughly the same part of the Indian Ocean.

Arthur Clarke, 27 December 2004