Today is the birthday of one of the most influential people in my life. In fact, pretty much everyone who was born between the years 1950 and 1972, who works in the horror, fantasy, or science fiction field would probably say they owe their careers to this man.
Forrest J Ackerman, who turns 90 today, is a lifelong fan of the genre who passed on his love via the magazine he created with publisher, Jim Warren; "Famous Monsters of Filmland."
Forry is an extremely kind and generous man who not only opens his home every weekend to visitors from every corner of the world, so that he can show off his remarkable collection of movie memorabilia, but he also tolerated my frequent, and most likely inane, Friday night phone calls I used to make to him when I was a wee lad. He patiently answered all my questions, and seemed happy to do so.
I finally got to pay back his generosity by making him a character in "Midnight, Mass." where he appeared in a thinly disguised version of himself under the name J. Forrester Eckman, an alias that I'm sure the man of a thousand aliases would have approved of.
Happy Birthday, 4SJ!
Forry is the beast, uh I mean best!
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