A meeting of minds
Be there when Ackerman, Bradbury and Harryhausen get together in Glendale
By Atina Hartunian , Joe Piasecki 02/21/2008
Meeting all three at once - well, that's an extravaganza.
On Monday, these legends of sci-fi are getting together at the Mystery & Imagination Bookstore in Glendale for a public discussion of their lives, careers and current projects and to talk to their fans.
But the three have already been good friends for decades, making for an extra-special occurrence, explained bookstore owner Christine Bell. A very long time ago in Los Angeles, these icons of storytelling were just a group of friends full of ideas. "Now, each one has an iconic immortality," said Bell.
"It's hard to believe how long we've known each other," said Ackerman, 91, a writer and editor who started the magazine Famous Monsters of Filmland and fostered many fan-zines and literary careers.
In 1938, Bradbury was a recent high-school graduate when he met Harryhausen, the prolific novelist and playwright recalled in an article for London's The Independent. Harryhausen soon showed Bradbury his private collection of dinosaurs which he had created for amateur movies made with stop-motion photography, a technique Harryhausen would perfect in later films such as "The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad" (1958) and "Jason and the Argonauts" (1963).
On Saturday, Harryhausen received the Art Directors Guild's Outstanding Contribution to Cinematic Imagery Award during a ceremony at the Beverly Hilton Hotel.
"I'm so grateful these pictures have lasted. I think they're more appreciated today than when we first released them," said Harryhausen, who at 87 is still working, most recently helping to colorize some of his early films.
Back in the '30s, Harryhausen and Bradbury found common ground with their love of films like "The Lost World" and "King Kong." But it was Ackerman who is credited with jump-starting Bradbury's celebrated writing career.
"In 1939, the world's first science fiction convention was held in New York. Ray was very enthusiastic about attending it. I volunteered the $50 it would take to get him there on the Greyhound. It really changed his life. It charged him up to be a writer," said Ackerman.
The three joined a science fiction club that met every Thursday at Clifton's Cafeteria in downtown Los Angeles and started an amateur magazine for it. It was in that magazine that Bradbury had his very first published story, "Hollerbochen's Dilemma."
"We were looked upon by the outside world as a little peculiar, talking about space platforms and dinosaurs - stuff the average person wasn't thinking about," recalled Harryhausen.
Before starting the club, Harryhausen and Ackerman had met during a 10-cent revival screening of "King Kong" in Hawthorne. An avid collector of movie memorabilia, Ackerman had loaned some original "King Kong" promotional material to the theater, and the young Harryhausen had asked the owners of the theater if he could take one of the posters home.
"I treasured these things. I wasn't about to let him just have it. But we became acquainted immediately, and he too started coming to the science fiction club, and I believe he drew at least one cover for the club magazine," said Ackerman.
The event begins at 7 p.m. Monday at the Mystery & Imagination Bookstore, 238 N. Brand Blvd., Glendale. For more information, call (818) 545-0206.
DIGG | del.icio.us | REDDIT