Sci-fi legend won't go quietly

LOS ANGELES — Just like the vampires in the Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine he edited for 25 years, Forrest J. Ackerman isn't planning on leaving this world until somebody drives a stake through his heart.

"Oh, I'm not going if I can't take it with me," Ackerman jokes as he gestures toward the thousands of pieces of science-fiction and horror movie memorabilia that fill his Los Angeles home.

"That's one of my favorites," he says, pointing to a black vampire cape worn by Bela Lugosi in the 1931 film "Dracula." It now hangs on a mannequin in Ackerman's living room, just above a coffin that he jokes doubles as a day bed.

After leading a tour of the "Acker Mini-Mansion," a bright yellow bungalow nestled at the edge of the Hollywood Hills, the genial grandfather of science fiction settles into an overstuffed easy chair.

Standing guard nearby is one of the life-size "Cylon" robots from the old "Battlestar Gallactica" TV series. Guarding the kitchen is a replica of the Robotrix from Fritz Lang's classic 1926 futuristic film, "Metropolis."

Ackerman, who turned 89 on Thanksgiving Day, moves somewhat slowly these days and strains to hear. But the years have dimmed neither his memory nor his affection for monster movies and science fiction. Although he is widely credited with coining the term sci-fi, Ackerman's greatest contribution to the genre may have been discovering Ray Bradbury when the now 85-year-old "Martian Chronicles" author was just 17.

"He saw that I was a lousy writer and had no future — that's what he saw in me," Bradbury, laughing loudly, recalled recently. "But he encouraged me anyway. He lent me the money when I was 19 so I could go to New York and meet all the famous authors. I hadn't published yet, and I met a lot of these people there who encouraged me and helped me get my career started. And all that was because of Forry Ackerman."

Although he made his living most of his life as a literary agent, representing at various times Bradbury, Isaac Asimov and almost every other major name of the mid-20th-century's Golden Age of science fiction, Ackerman is likely best remembered by baby boomers as "Dr Acula," the pen name he used as the founding editor of Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine.

Never known for great writing, it did contain photos of almost every famous monster who ever terrorized a Saturday matinee movie audience.

"I started reading his magazine from Issue No. 2 and I just had to meet him," recalls Dennis Billows, who showed up at Ackerman's door one day in the 1970s, worked for him as his secretary for a few years and remained a friend.