Larry Tucker, the long-time Michigan fan who has been in a nursing home since he suffered a serious stroke two years ago, was hospitalized at the beginning of April for colon surgery. Reports immediately after the surgery were favorable. He was expected to be returned to his nursing home after a week recovering in the hospital.

Tucker chaired the 1978-1980 ConFusions in Ann Arbor. He is best known for creating Uncle Albert’s Electric Talking Fanzine (on cassette) and a similarly named video edition. He was a fannish video pioneer, as Leah Zeldes explained to readers of “The Clubhouse” on the Amazing Stories blog  —

Larry, an avid and talented video buff at a time when video meant U-matic tape, chronicled most of the early cons, as well as making a variety of other fannish videos, notably “Big Bird Eats Moon,” which chronicled a Stilyagi lunar eclipse party as told by a cultural anthropologist; “The Thing That Ate Gorgonzola State University,” real-life interviews with students about the news that the earth was being eaten by a black hole; and the full-length feature “FAANs,” starring just about every well-known Midwestern fan of the period: the ultimate sf con as a parody of “Jaws.”

These days Katherine Becker of Ann Arbor’s Stilyagi Air Corps visits Tucker and keeps up his connection with fandom. She relayed news of his surgery to Leah Zeldes, who in turn would like to encourage people to drop Larry a line at his permanent address:

Regency at Whitmore Lake
8633 North Main St
Whitmore Lake, MI 48189

Leah says –

I don’t think he can read — the stroke he had two years ago was pretty devastating — but Katherine will read the mail to him when she visits, and post them on his wall. It would be nice if he got a bunch of cards and letters, not just now but on an ongoing basis.

Leah would also like to locate more copies of Larry’s videos so they can be digitized and preserved. She obtained a copy of “FAANs” and has someone working on it, but says his other tapes are in an unknown state. If anyone has copies of “The Thing That Ate Gargonzola State University,” “Big Bird Eats Moon,” “Uncle Albert’s Electric Talking Fanzine” (audio tape) or “Uncle Albert’s Video Fanzine,” send a note to File 770 – mikeglyer [at] cs [dot] com – and I will put you in touch with her.