4e
Forrest J. Ackerman died last week at the age of 92. Heidi has a collection of remembrances here.
Out of all the famous and semi-famous and not-even-close-to-famous people I’ve met over this thing, the one that really made me stare at my screen and blink was the day I got an e-mail from Forry Ackerman. I had written to him as a complete longshot and knew he was sick so I wasn’t expecting anything. But he wrote back, with a nice note and he even helped me a little with my bad attempt at Esperanto. He also answered an important question that has been haunting (I mean this in a literal sense) all of the stories of Superman’s origins. I left it out of the movie in favor of the book because it takes a big roadmap to get there. But it is there. Forry was not only one of the few subscribers and contributors to Siegel and Shuster’s first fanzine Science Fiction, but he also helped contribute something significant to the character of Superman. In the family tree of who created the character, Forry (or 4SJ), is one branch below Jerry and Joe.
But for me, who grew up on bad monster and sci-fi movies on Superhost as a kid, talking to the man who literally invented the term was just crazy. Though his famed Ackermansion of strange Hollywood and sci-fi memorabilia had closed by the time we talked, he still made it a point, at 90+ or so and in fragile health, to invite me to come visit his home the next time I was in L.A. I never made it, but that invite, to a stranger, speaks volumes of the man.