The year started with a trip to Tucson for Desert Con 1 in January of '73. Jim Mathenia, Jerry and I set out across the desert in Jim's cramped Volkswagen Bug with a carload of posters and a six pack of beer. We arrived in the middle of the night exhausted and dusty with no beer.
Over the next few days I spent much the time at my dealers table or watching movies, but come evening, I hung out with maestro ; quite the film aficionado (as well as a cut-up and general hoot).
Check out the poster for the Legendary Super Sunday Con in Hollywood presenting Shel Dorf .
The Academy's First Award Ceremony
Our first awards ceremony was held at Tommy Cooper's Tiffany Theatre on Sunset Blvd. After a few announcements, I presented William Marshall as our first host and the rest is history. Best Horror film was Blacula and Best Science Film was given to Slaughterhouse Five. Admittedly, Blacula received the award solely based on Marshall's willingness to attend. Over the next few years, the Dracula Society would fall by the wayside and the Academy would be a force to reckon with; and the Tiffany would become a hotbed of "Rocky Horror enthusiasm!
Note: Don was still wavering on the title of the Academy and the program read: "The Academy of Horror Films and Science Fiction Films" Yes, he was trying to add multiple "Films" again and blow off "Fantasy" entirely. BoxOffice Magazine Blurb . EQUICON 73
Whatever success Bjo was having with FilmCon, would be even more spectacular devoting a convention entirely to Star Trek and who was more qualified to pull it off than Bjo? Equicon was responsible for luring thousands of youngsters into fandom who really had neither idea of "Science Fiction" or "Fandom" thus terraforming conventions forever. Suddenly there were restrictions for costumes, parties and fandom as we knew it.
That irrepressible Bongo Wolf showing off his neckwear
Tattoo man on the bridge
? & ?
DRACULA SAY'S "HI"
Next we meld into the 7th of April for the 11th Count Dracula Society Mrs. Ann Radcliffe Award ceremony at the historic Alexandria Hotel. Lots of info in the Times article .
This was the ceremony attended by Rock Hudson who received a Lifetime Career award and particularly for his film Seconds he did back in '66 . Hmmm, why didn't I take a pic of Rock? Damn!
Don got wind of another film club in town "Cinema Buffs", sponsored in part by the city of Los Angeles. He thought he could take over and pull the members into his new Academy. Don did his best as president; I did a couple issues of the newsletter called "Focus", but in the end, these members were more mainstream than fannish and bore no homage to Don and his cape. It was an immediate clash of egos lasting no more than a couple months. My official certificate is .
Almost everybody loves a convention and certainly the decade of conventions was upon us. They would now be coming fast and furious. At least in the L.A. area, there were sometimes up to 3 events on any given weekend. WESTERCON 26
The fabulous St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco hosted the Westercon from June 30 through July 4.
"Planet of the Apes" was a hot property at the time and Ricky Schwartz had been working with John Chambers on one of the movies. Ricky borrowed the original make-up and costumes, so it seemed the Westercon costume show was a good time to try them on for size. Ricky gave me the works and for only the second time, I went on stage in costume. Nope, we didn't win anything, but it was fun.
It worked for Burt Reynolds
Ricky apes me up
After the masquerade, we rode up and down on the trolley, annoyed people in ice cream parlors and generally went ape-shit in San Francisco.
Finally, got back to the room, changed into human garb and hit some parties. We would be returning home Sunday and couldn't wait to get a good night sleep; it was already after midnight when alas, returning to the room we found the ape suit and other goodies had been stolen! Yeh, we knew who the culprit was but getting the stuff back would be a chore. After-all, the stuff had to get back to the studio by Monday morning.
We had his home address and drove out to Palo Alto by 3 am, getting the poor mother out of bed to find he was not there. All things considered, she was quite gracious, calling and convincing him to give up the goods. So back in the car, we were off again to another damn side of town to pick up the costume. Returning, exhausted to our room, we discover other stuff was still missing - and here we go again, back to Palo Alto, too tired to give this guy the beating he so richly deserved.
Fortunately, he gave the rest of the stuff up without argument as we were in no shape for scuffling.
We returned to the hotel as the sun was rising.
It was a long, dreary drive back to L.A., stopping every few hours to try and sleep without success. I just can't imagine how we made it back alive.
A QUICK ONE FOR DON
