(That's Forrest Ackerman on the left, Alan on the right.)
Alan Light's photo album of the 1982 San Diego Con has been a hit on the web with tens of thousands of hits. Here's a link to another, shorter album of pics he took in 1990 at Forrest J Ackerman's Ackermansion in Los Feliz.
For those who don't know who or what this is: Forry Ackerman is a noted personality in the worlds of science-fiction and horror movies. He was a fan, an agent, a writer, an editor, a historian and a rabid collector. He edited the magazine Famous Monsters of Filmland and is also generally credited with coining the phrase, "sci-fi." That's him on the left in the photo above, posing with Alan.
Until a few years ago when he sold off his collection and moved into smaller digs, Ackerman housed an incredible collection of s-f and horror books and artifacts in a home he nicknamed "The Ackermansion." Actually, it was two homes. The first, which I visited first in 1968, was on Sherbourne Drive in Beverly Hills. A few years later, he moved — and what a move it must have been — into a larger home on Glendower Avenue in Los Feliz.
He often welcomed fans, tourists, celebrities, strangers, werewolves and just about anybody into his home, which was kind of a museum of its subject matter. I found the place somewhat creepy in a couple of ways above and beyond the subject matter…but then, I was never as much a fan of horror movies as some of my friends. It sure made them happy to be there.
As I said, Ackerman no longer lives in such a manner. In recent years, he's alternated between a more modest bungalow and an array of nursing homes and hospital rooms. He'll turn 91 later this year and for much of the last decade, rumors have swirled that Forry is only weeks from hanging out with Bela and Boris. The rumors will eventually be true but I long ago stopped giving them any credence.