<span class="SFPTagline"> From SCIFIPEDIA </span>

Forrest J Ackerman (AKA FJA) (b. November 24, 1916) American fan, creative editor-writer of the seminal and influential Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine, and creator (1954) of the word "sci-fi." Although his legal middle name is James, he designates only the letter J, without a period.

He saw his first "imagi-movie" (also his coinage), The Lost World, in 1925, followed two years later by Fritz Lang's vision of one hundred years hence, Metropolis, which he has now seen well over 100 times. He started the first science fiction club for juveniles in 1929, compiled the first list of "scientifilms" in 1932, attended the First World Science Fiction Convention in 1939, appeared on television for the first time in 1947, created the Ackerman Science Fiction Agency in 1948, received the world's first Hugo Award for a fan in 1953, and created the comic book character Vampirella. The author and editor of numerous books and magazines, he has appeared in more than fifty motion picture cameos.

Until recently, he lived in an eighteen-room Hollywood mansion (the former home of actor Jon Hall), called the "Ackermansion," filled with 300,000 pieces of memorabilia from movies, books, magazines, fanzines, and other sci-fi objets de fun acquired since he was nine years old, and held Open Houses approximately forty times a year since 1951. He was forced to sell his house and much of his collection to pay for legal fees incurred despite winning a breach-of-contract suit against Ray Ferry (who has yet to pay the $700,000-plus judgment against him), and medical expenses following a stroke and subsequent near-fatal illness incurred while in the hospital recovering from the stroke.

Fully recovered, the almost-nonogenarian fan and expert on sci-fi and its fandom, continues to attend national and world science fiction, horror, fantasy and film conventions and receive visitors, when he's in town, at his smaller "Acker-mini-mansion" in Hollywood.

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