Post by David Sechrest on May 3, 2009 3:49:25 GMT -5
In the spring of 1964, a twelve year old me discovered Famous Monsters magazine inside Cummins Bookstore. The big old wooden door was propped open and the screen door let in a hint of summer to come, but I wasn't paying any attention to that or much of anything else that was happening all up and down Washington Street. I was absorbed in looking at the rack of paperbacks. The "rack" sat in the middle of the floor, right when you walked in. To your right was a wall of newspapers and magazines. I stood facing the wall of magazines but I was looking at some Frank Frazetta, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Tarzan paperback covers. There were other paperbacks too, like Frank Edwards Strangest Of All and Stranger Than Science. Frank Edwards hosted a news program on WTTV, Channel 4 in the early 1960's. While I continued to glance over other covers, something on the magazine rack caught my eye. The magazine cover had a yellow background. There was a portrait of Bela Lugosi as the wolf-like creature from the 1932 movie Island Of Lost Souls, starring (other than Lugosi) Charles Laughton and Richard Arlen. I knew nothing of the movie, but the artwork on that cover of Famous Monsters Of Filmland #28 made me think of nothing else but walk over to it, pick it up, pluck down two quarters and it was mine. All mine.
It was Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein that really started all of this. I had the croup. Doctor Davis' orders? Stay home from school, of which I was more than happy to comply.
It came on the 9am, WFBM, Channel 6 morning movie. I sat on the floor in front of our old black and white and loved every minute of it.
But--that was 1959: second grade at State Street School: Miss Thompson my teacher. I went to school in the new building (the one that somehow by the grace of God still stands today). I was seven years old and too young to stay up late on Friday nights and watch Selwin on WISH, Channel 8. Selwin (Ray Sparenberg) was the first horror host in the Indianapolis, central Indiana region. In 1958, Channel 8 picked up something new that began circulating across the country: The Shock Package, which consisted of Universal Studios horror and science fiction films from the 1930's and 1940's. The show, and of course Selwin, became so popular that Selwin even participated in the old parades that used to be held in the fall in downtown Columbus. Cripes did I think he looked scary! Especially in the dark (the parades were always held at night). Dad worked at the shirt factory and just to give you an idea of where the parade started back then, the parade route began somewhere around 15th or 16th and Washington, ran clear through the downtown and back up Jackson (maybe it ended on Jackson (?).
In the fall of 1961 at the age of 9, I was finally given permission to stay up late on Friday nights and watch Selwin. He no longer hosted the Shock package. Instead, Channel 8 picked up a package of Tarzan movies. Selwin traded his cowl and that strange hat he wore for a jungle jim type outfit and a pith helmet. He kept that ghoulish makeup however. Those Johnny Weissmuller Tarzan movies had elements of horror in many of them. Tarzan & His Mate (my personal favorite) had the elephant graveyard and gruesome scenes of torture and death. Tarzan's Desert Mystery contained a giant spider that ate the bad Nazi officer at the end.
I love those Tarzan movies...
Then, around 1962, Channel 8 picked up a science fiction package and Selwin changed again. He wore an astronaut uniform and helmet and it was on those Friday nights when I first saw THEM!, Godzilla, Kronos, and so many others.
And I wasn't alone. A monster craze like never before swept the country. There were monster models, monster trading cards, monster Halloween masks, monster tv shows, monster toys and the magazine Famous Monsters Of Filmland.
Forrest J Ackerman was the Editor of Famous Monsters. His collection of horror, science fiction, and fantasy movie memorabilia was second to no one throughout the world. He had recently purchased the home of actor Jon Hall, an eighteen room mansion that sat up in the hills of Hollywood. The entire downstairs was devoted to his collection. He opened up his home on weekends and people came to look at his collection. Original props from the 1931 King Kong. Original props from Earth Vs. The Flying Saucers. The outfit of the Creature from The Creature From The Black Lagoon which he had purchased from a guy who found the suit in the dumpster in the back of Universal Studios. Lon Chaney Sr.'s makeup kit. And so so much much more...
That first issue of Famous Monsters that I bought inside Cummins Bookstore is sitting just above my keyboard (no, it's not the one I had way back when. Mom threw all my "junk" out at some point or other). I remember the feeling I got when I first read through it. All those wonderful stills from some of the greatest horror/sci fi movies (many of which I would not get the opportunity to see until many years later). I started a running list of all the horror movies I'd seen. And while the pictures were great, the part of Famous Monsters that I liked most of all was the ad section. Each issue had somewhere around 25-30 pages devoted to ads. Items that you could buy from Captain Company (where Selwin got his astronaut outfit), a Famous Monsters distributor business that sold everything from 8 millimeter horror and sci-fi movies to projectors to show them on, horror albums, those wonderful Aurora monster model kits, Frankenstein belt buckles and even live monkeys. I wanted to buy a projector so bad, but on an allowance of 25 cents a week...well, let's just say I didn't have the willpower to save for one (it would have taken me 42 weeks).
Once I discovered Famous Monsters, Monster World followed, then Creepy, then Eerie. I bought the Aurora kits Frankenstein, Dracula, the Wolf Man, the Mummy, Phantom Of The Opera, the Hunchback of Notre Dame, and the Creature across the street from Cummins Bookstore inside the old G. C. Murphy five and dime. Downstairs. In the basement. Toyland! By this time, we had moved out to Rosstown and for a short while, I watched Selwin on Friday nights and Sammy Terry Saturday night. Both Selwin and Sammy Terry offered double features with lots of Earl Scheib and Wolf Auto commercials and after the last movie, there was usually a short program like 5 minutes of devotion, and the channel sign off. After the sign off, the stations played the Star Spangled Banner, then nothing but a snowy picture until they signed back on the air later that morning.
I bought Frankenstein Costumes for Halloween but when it came to Christmas, all I ever wanted was a Lionel train set. Sears, around 7th and Washington, could always be counted on to have the nicest train display all set up on a plywood base and decorated to the hilt with buildings and Lionel accessories. Sheesh--how could any 12 year old boy resist something like this??? And for Christmas, 1964, Santa brought my most favorite Lionel engine: a blue and yellow Chesapeake and Ohio, #2365, along with accessories for my existing layout. I laid the track out on the floor in my bedroom and while I watched it roll around in a figure 8, my Aurora monster models sat on my desk, looking over everything. My green plastic army men couldn't be left out, so they were deployed along the train route. And sometimes while I sat and controlled the engine with the transformer, Famous Monsters lay by my side, me thumbing though the pages, hoping either Selwin or Sammy Terry would show the movies contained in the magazine.
Time passed and I gave not a care about it. That spring turned into a couple of summers, then winter, and by the time January, 1966 rolled around, my trips to Cummins to buy Famous Monsters quit entirely. I'd discovered something I loved as much as those old monster movies: music. More and more of my allowance went towards buying records at G. C. Murphy's. I forgot all about Famous Monsters magazine altogether.
Flip forward some 22 years later just outside Cincinnati Ohio and a visit to a comic book shop in a Hamilton suburb. Me, standing in front of a white magazine box, flipping though issues of Famous Monsters and somewhere toward the middle, there it was. Issue #28. The one that had started it all for me. I slipped it out of its plastic protective sleeve and thumbed through the pages. This time, things were different. I saw the pictures I'd looked at so many years back, but this time, my mind's eye was filled with the people and places of my youth. The house out at Rosstown. Wayne Township School. State Street School. Miss Fulp, my 3rd and 5th grade teacher. The house on Center Street. Walking to the Crump on hot summer Thursday mornings, getting there by walking the railroad tracks. The railroad tracks. Now there lies so many memories. The old Army Surplus Store on State Street. Coffman Drugs. Jimmy Fields. Billy Bozwell. Dallas Grimes. I hope that you, in your own way, have experienced the same. The feelings standing inside that comic book shop that morning turned out to be the best birthday present I could have received and needless to say...I bought the copy.
It was then that I first thought of contacting Forry Ackerman. THE Editor of THE magazine that was my own personal time machine. I wanted to call him on the phone and thank him for making my childhood a special one. I can't remember how I got his address anymore, but somehow I did and I wrote to Mr. Forrest J Ackerman and told him how much the magazine meant to me. Sincerely David Sechrest and my phone number.
He called me. He surprised the crap out of me to say the least. I was pretty much speechless during that first phone conversation. Which led to more writing, more phone calls, this time with me calling Forry too, and sometime in 1988, the packages began to pour in. For a period of about 6 months, Forry sent boxes and boxes and boxes of anything and everything related to the horror/sci fi genre. I got to know Forry and we became friends.
In 1989, I had to travel to San Diego for a week enduring sales training. I called Forry and asked him if it would be ok if I spent the weekend at his house once the sales training was completed. He was delighted I was coming out. That was a real tough week to get through. Sales training is boring enough at times, but to have a 3 day visit to the "Ackermansion" dangling in front of my nose all week, by the time Friday rolled around, I intentionally missed the class and headed straight to Hollywood.
When I visited Forry that July, 1989, he housed the largest collection of horror/sci fi/fantasy items in the world. When I arrived, Forry was finishing up lunch with his wife, Wendayne. To get inside the Ackermansion, one had to push the button on an intercom at the top of the road. Forry's voice then comes on: "Who dares trespass on the Ackermansion?" You formally announce yourself and are buzzed through the iron gate to the depths below.
I only went one place the entire 3 days I spent with Forry. There was so much to look at inside his house, it was mind boggling. I took as many pictures as I could, but the hallways were so tight, it was difficult to get any kind of a good shot at all. I spent one night just reading though the guest books of all the people that had taken the tour of the Ackermansion. Steven Spielberg. Ray Bradbury. Volumes and volumes of guest registers, spanning a period of at least twenty years.
It was during the visit to Forry's that I came up with the idea of doing a fanzine in tribute to him. I got home from California and started to work on the fanzine. It was to be called Wonderama, in honor of a title Forry had always wanted to create. Forry wrote an article for it and supplied stills. I filled out the fanzine with the rest of the material. I wrote a short story about Cummins Bookstore and its sign. I wrote about rediscovering Famous Monsters at the age of 37. Forry sent me a list of people to send it to. I heard back from some wonderful people, including my favorite sci fi author, Ray Bradbury. It was through Forry that I got a chance to meet Ray. I met Ray Harryhausen and his wife Diana through Forry. I met Anne Robinson (War Of The Worlds).
Forry Ackerman had hoped to reach the age of 100. He almost made it. Forry died last December at the age of 92. I will miss him.
So--what does all this rambling have to do with the creation of this new Thread?
In each issue of Famous Monsters magazine, they had something called the Mystery Photo. It was a picture of something or someone from a movie and the readers had to guess what movie it was from.
To honor my friend, Forrest J Ackerman, I create this Columbus Indiana Mystery Photo Department. The thought is that pictures of people and places from Columbus Indiana Past can be deposited here. Maybe the members and lurkers hereabouts can help identify.
And, with that said, I will proceed to list the first official Mystery Photo...
It was Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein that really started all of this. I had the croup. Doctor Davis' orders? Stay home from school, of which I was more than happy to comply.
It came on the 9am, WFBM, Channel 6 morning movie. I sat on the floor in front of our old black and white and loved every minute of it.
But--that was 1959: second grade at State Street School: Miss Thompson my teacher. I went to school in the new building (the one that somehow by the grace of God still stands today). I was seven years old and too young to stay up late on Friday nights and watch Selwin on WISH, Channel 8. Selwin (Ray Sparenberg) was the first horror host in the Indianapolis, central Indiana region. In 1958, Channel 8 picked up something new that began circulating across the country: The Shock Package, which consisted of Universal Studios horror and science fiction films from the 1930's and 1940's. The show, and of course Selwin, became so popular that Selwin even participated in the old parades that used to be held in the fall in downtown Columbus. Cripes did I think he looked scary! Especially in the dark (the parades were always held at night). Dad worked at the shirt factory and just to give you an idea of where the parade started back then, the parade route began somewhere around 15th or 16th and Washington, ran clear through the downtown and back up Jackson (maybe it ended on Jackson (?).
In the fall of 1961 at the age of 9, I was finally given permission to stay up late on Friday nights and watch Selwin. He no longer hosted the Shock package. Instead, Channel 8 picked up a package of Tarzan movies. Selwin traded his cowl and that strange hat he wore for a jungle jim type outfit and a pith helmet. He kept that ghoulish makeup however. Those Johnny Weissmuller Tarzan movies had elements of horror in many of them. Tarzan & His Mate (my personal favorite) had the elephant graveyard and gruesome scenes of torture and death. Tarzan's Desert Mystery contained a giant spider that ate the bad Nazi officer at the end.
I love those Tarzan movies...
Then, around 1962, Channel 8 picked up a science fiction package and Selwin changed again. He wore an astronaut uniform and helmet and it was on those Friday nights when I first saw THEM!, Godzilla, Kronos, and so many others.
And I wasn't alone. A monster craze like never before swept the country. There were monster models, monster trading cards, monster Halloween masks, monster tv shows, monster toys and the magazine Famous Monsters Of Filmland.
Forrest J Ackerman was the Editor of Famous Monsters. His collection of horror, science fiction, and fantasy movie memorabilia was second to no one throughout the world. He had recently purchased the home of actor Jon Hall, an eighteen room mansion that sat up in the hills of Hollywood. The entire downstairs was devoted to his collection. He opened up his home on weekends and people came to look at his collection. Original props from the 1931 King Kong. Original props from Earth Vs. The Flying Saucers. The outfit of the Creature from The Creature From The Black Lagoon which he had purchased from a guy who found the suit in the dumpster in the back of Universal Studios. Lon Chaney Sr.'s makeup kit. And so so much much more...
That first issue of Famous Monsters that I bought inside Cummins Bookstore is sitting just above my keyboard (no, it's not the one I had way back when. Mom threw all my "junk" out at some point or other). I remember the feeling I got when I first read through it. All those wonderful stills from some of the greatest horror/sci fi movies (many of which I would not get the opportunity to see until many years later). I started a running list of all the horror movies I'd seen. And while the pictures were great, the part of Famous Monsters that I liked most of all was the ad section. Each issue had somewhere around 25-30 pages devoted to ads. Items that you could buy from Captain Company (where Selwin got his astronaut outfit), a Famous Monsters distributor business that sold everything from 8 millimeter horror and sci-fi movies to projectors to show them on, horror albums, those wonderful Aurora monster model kits, Frankenstein belt buckles and even live monkeys. I wanted to buy a projector so bad, but on an allowance of 25 cents a week...well, let's just say I didn't have the willpower to save for one (it would have taken me 42 weeks).
Once I discovered Famous Monsters, Monster World followed, then Creepy, then Eerie. I bought the Aurora kits Frankenstein, Dracula, the Wolf Man, the Mummy, Phantom Of The Opera, the Hunchback of Notre Dame, and the Creature across the street from Cummins Bookstore inside the old G. C. Murphy five and dime. Downstairs. In the basement. Toyland! By this time, we had moved out to Rosstown and for a short while, I watched Selwin on Friday nights and Sammy Terry Saturday night. Both Selwin and Sammy Terry offered double features with lots of Earl Scheib and Wolf Auto commercials and after the last movie, there was usually a short program like 5 minutes of devotion, and the channel sign off. After the sign off, the stations played the Star Spangled Banner, then nothing but a snowy picture until they signed back on the air later that morning.
I bought Frankenstein Costumes for Halloween but when it came to Christmas, all I ever wanted was a Lionel train set. Sears, around 7th and Washington, could always be counted on to have the nicest train display all set up on a plywood base and decorated to the hilt with buildings and Lionel accessories. Sheesh--how could any 12 year old boy resist something like this??? And for Christmas, 1964, Santa brought my most favorite Lionel engine: a blue and yellow Chesapeake and Ohio, #2365, along with accessories for my existing layout. I laid the track out on the floor in my bedroom and while I watched it roll around in a figure 8, my Aurora monster models sat on my desk, looking over everything. My green plastic army men couldn't be left out, so they were deployed along the train route. And sometimes while I sat and controlled the engine with the transformer, Famous Monsters lay by my side, me thumbing though the pages, hoping either Selwin or Sammy Terry would show the movies contained in the magazine.
Time passed and I gave not a care about it. That spring turned into a couple of summers, then winter, and by the time January, 1966 rolled around, my trips to Cummins to buy Famous Monsters quit entirely. I'd discovered something I loved as much as those old monster movies: music. More and more of my allowance went towards buying records at G. C. Murphy's. I forgot all about Famous Monsters magazine altogether.
Flip forward some 22 years later just outside Cincinnati Ohio and a visit to a comic book shop in a Hamilton suburb. Me, standing in front of a white magazine box, flipping though issues of Famous Monsters and somewhere toward the middle, there it was. Issue #28. The one that had started it all for me. I slipped it out of its plastic protective sleeve and thumbed through the pages. This time, things were different. I saw the pictures I'd looked at so many years back, but this time, my mind's eye was filled with the people and places of my youth. The house out at Rosstown. Wayne Township School. State Street School. Miss Fulp, my 3rd and 5th grade teacher. The house on Center Street. Walking to the Crump on hot summer Thursday mornings, getting there by walking the railroad tracks. The railroad tracks. Now there lies so many memories. The old Army Surplus Store on State Street. Coffman Drugs. Jimmy Fields. Billy Bozwell. Dallas Grimes. I hope that you, in your own way, have experienced the same. The feelings standing inside that comic book shop that morning turned out to be the best birthday present I could have received and needless to say...I bought the copy.
It was then that I first thought of contacting Forry Ackerman. THE Editor of THE magazine that was my own personal time machine. I wanted to call him on the phone and thank him for making my childhood a special one. I can't remember how I got his address anymore, but somehow I did and I wrote to Mr. Forrest J Ackerman and told him how much the magazine meant to me. Sincerely David Sechrest and my phone number.
He called me. He surprised the crap out of me to say the least. I was pretty much speechless during that first phone conversation. Which led to more writing, more phone calls, this time with me calling Forry too, and sometime in 1988, the packages began to pour in. For a period of about 6 months, Forry sent boxes and boxes and boxes of anything and everything related to the horror/sci fi genre. I got to know Forry and we became friends.
In 1989, I had to travel to San Diego for a week enduring sales training. I called Forry and asked him if it would be ok if I spent the weekend at his house once the sales training was completed. He was delighted I was coming out. That was a real tough week to get through. Sales training is boring enough at times, but to have a 3 day visit to the "Ackermansion" dangling in front of my nose all week, by the time Friday rolled around, I intentionally missed the class and headed straight to Hollywood.
When I visited Forry that July, 1989, he housed the largest collection of horror/sci fi/fantasy items in the world. When I arrived, Forry was finishing up lunch with his wife, Wendayne. To get inside the Ackermansion, one had to push the button on an intercom at the top of the road. Forry's voice then comes on: "Who dares trespass on the Ackermansion?" You formally announce yourself and are buzzed through the iron gate to the depths below.
I only went one place the entire 3 days I spent with Forry. There was so much to look at inside his house, it was mind boggling. I took as many pictures as I could, but the hallways were so tight, it was difficult to get any kind of a good shot at all. I spent one night just reading though the guest books of all the people that had taken the tour of the Ackermansion. Steven Spielberg. Ray Bradbury. Volumes and volumes of guest registers, spanning a period of at least twenty years.
It was during the visit to Forry's that I came up with the idea of doing a fanzine in tribute to him. I got home from California and started to work on the fanzine. It was to be called Wonderama, in honor of a title Forry had always wanted to create. Forry wrote an article for it and supplied stills. I filled out the fanzine with the rest of the material. I wrote a short story about Cummins Bookstore and its sign. I wrote about rediscovering Famous Monsters at the age of 37. Forry sent me a list of people to send it to. I heard back from some wonderful people, including my favorite sci fi author, Ray Bradbury. It was through Forry that I got a chance to meet Ray. I met Ray Harryhausen and his wife Diana through Forry. I met Anne Robinson (War Of The Worlds).
Forry Ackerman had hoped to reach the age of 100. He almost made it. Forry died last December at the age of 92. I will miss him.
So--what does all this rambling have to do with the creation of this new Thread?
In each issue of Famous Monsters magazine, they had something called the Mystery Photo. It was a picture of something or someone from a movie and the readers had to guess what movie it was from.
To honor my friend, Forrest J Ackerman, I create this Columbus Indiana Mystery Photo Department. The thought is that pictures of people and places from Columbus Indiana Past can be deposited here. Maybe the members and lurkers hereabouts can help identify.
And, with that said, I will proceed to list the first official Mystery Photo...
Notice Level of Water
