Richard and I traded anecdotes and reminiscences of Frank and our long friendship with him. Frank was too weak to talk, but when Richard and I left we each took his hand, and I was amazed that even now, Frank gave my hand a powerful squeeze.
During the decades that Frank lived in San Francisco and Pat and I lived in Berkeley, we exchanged many visits. Among Frank’s lesser known talents was considerable culinary skill. He made spectacular fried chicken dinners, topped off with home-baked lemon pies.
When Frank visited us, we would often chat for an hour or so. He would tell me about his current writing project and I would tell him about mine. Sometimes he would lend me a manuscript and ask for comments. I don’t think that I acted as an editor so much as a sounding board. Frank’s most successful commercial novels were those that he wrote with Tom Scortia, and when Scortia died in the midst of their final project, Frank used my services in putting the book together.
I won’t pretend that I was a ghost or silent collaborator on any of Frank’s books, but he would telephone me often when he needed a particular word. He had a distinctive, booming voice. My phone would ring and I’d hear, LUPOFF! And after a brief pause, ROBINSON! And then he’d ask me, ‘‘What do you call those things that you unscrew when you need to change a tire? No, not a hubcap. After you’ve got the hubcap off.’’
We’d wrestle with the problem for a while and finally get the right word, ‘‘lugnuts.’’
Or he’d ask, ‘‘Who was Nixon’s vice president after Agnew resigned?’’
And I’d say, ‘‘Nelson Rockefeller.’’
Most of Frank’s books – certainly the most successful, like The Glass Inferno and The Gold Crew – were high-tech thrillers. But he was also a first-rate science fiction writer. His late novel The Dark Beyond the Stars won the Lambda Award. His short fiction was more than worthwhile, and stories like ‘‘East Wind, West Wind’’ and ‘‘The Hunting Season’’ could be overwhelmingly powerful.
He created a world-class pulp collection, and used this as the basis for two major coffee table books, Pulp Culture and Science Fiction of the Twentieth Century. He told me that he’d started that collection when he was an office boy at Ziff-Davis in Chicago, pirating office copies home by hiding them inside his coat.
Despite his achievements in many fields, he was a remarkably modest man. When he received the Emperor Norton Award a few years ago I was detailed to hoodwink him into attending the presentation ceremony. When the moment came and he received the trophy (a bust of the Emperor Joshua Norton) he held it up, looked at it with a quizzical expression on his face, and said, ‘‘I thought you’d give this to somebody who actually deserved it.’’
Believe me, he deserved it.
A few weeks before his death he completed his autobiography. Publishing plans are as yet unannounced.
–Richard A. Lupoff
FRANK by Mike Resnick
My dear friend Frank Robinson died today, in the early morning of June 30, 2014. His career goes back to the early 1950s. He was the author of The Power, which became a major motion picture, and co-author with Tom Scortia of a pair of runaway bestsellers, one of which (The Glass Inferno) became the megahit movie The Towering Inferno.
Frank was just a bit ahead of me in Chicago, editing men’s magazines about eight years before I did. We met at some con in the 1960s, hit it off immediately, always had a meal together when we were at the same con, and gave each other cover quotes. When he was unable to get away from his scriptwriting and acting job in Milk, I picked up an award for him at the Denver Worldcon. I also got him back to writing short stories, commissioning a number for various of my anthologies.
In an era where the word ‘‘awesome’’ is far overused, Frank possessed a truly awesome collection of pulp magazines. He had been known to fly from his house in San Francisco to conventions east of the Mississippi just because he’d heard that some dealer had a copy of an exceedingly rare pulp that was in better condition than his own copy. Frank lived in an old Victorian house, and every room was like a pristine library. In fact, among collectors, you graded a magazine’s condition as follows: Poor, Fair, Good, Very Good, Fine, Very Fine, Mint, and Frank Robinson.
He was a sweet and decent man, and a truly fine writer, and the field will miss him almost as much as I will.
–Mike Resnick
FRANK’S LEAD by Allen M. Steele
When I think of Frank Robinson, I think of mint juleps.
Somewhere in the world, there’s an old photo of the two of us, taken during the 1980 North American Science Fiction Convention in Louisville KY. The final night of the convention, everyone who was there piled aboard the riverboat Belle of Louisville for an evening cruise down the Ohio River, and Frank and I made the trip together. So the photo – snapped candidly by a fan, I’ve seen it only once, many years later – shows us sitting side by side in deck chairs, feet propped up on the side rail; Frank is talking, I’m listening. The seasoned old pro and the unpublished young novice. And there’s mint juleps in our hands.
If a tape recorder had been present as well, it would have caught Frank giving me advice on how to survive as a writer. Invaluable advice. I was in my early twenties, still in college, struggling with a novel which – like many first novels – would go unpublished but for which I had unrealistically high expectations, and otherwise trying to figure out how to break into publishing. Frank, of course, was the man who’d been everywhere and done everything: short story writer, novelist, former Playboy fiction editor, one-time political speech writer, now a collaborator on several bestselling novels, one of which had lately been made into a lines-around-the-block hit movie. So he had much to tell me, and I was only too willing to listen.
Several established writers gave me advice when I was getting started and I’m grateful to them all, but Frank was exceptional. For several years from the late ’70s into early ’80s, he and I regularly traded letters that amounted to a long conversation about writing, movies, politics, art, and – of course – science fiction. I’ve forgotten the specific details, but his advice was absorbed as gospel, and was more useful than some I received. It’s not an exaggeration to say that I wouldn’t have become a professional writer if not for Frank’s wisdom and encouragement. Even after I became a working writer, he was there to help me, and therein lies the tale:
Several years after that riverboat cruise, I was a staff reporter on a weekly alternative newspaper in Worcester MA, when my editor received a red-hot tip: the San Francisco Chronicle was buying the local morning paper, the Worcester Telegram & Gazette, from the family who’d owned it since the Stone Age. Major news, and the T&G – our competitor – hadn’t announced it yet. If we moved fast, we might scoop our unfriendly rival at their own story. Sweet.
Another reporter and I got the assignment, with a 48-hour window before the next issue went to press, a very tight deadline in those pre-digital media days. But my editor, who alternated brilliance and idiocy on an hourly basis, got the stupid idea to put me on a plane and send me to San Francisco, so I could stand outside the Chronicle building and accost employees to ask them how they liked working there. I realized at once that this would be a snark hunt; even worse, the story would be crippled if I was yanked away from my desk and sent all the way across the country. So I had to avoid getting on that plane while still getting an inside view of the Chronicle.
I had Frank’s number in my Rolodex, and even though it was about 6 a.m. in California and we hadn’t spoken in quite a while, I called him. Yes, this was a bit rude, but I was desperate and the clock was ticking. I could practically hear him prying his eyelids open, but he stopped grumbling when I told him what was going on and what I needed: a reliable source at the Chronicle who’d speak off the record about the management. Frank opened his own Rolodex, found the number of a friend who was a reporter there, and told me to tell that guy that he’d referred me to him.
I called the Chronicle reporter and got him out of bed, too. He heard me out, ask
ed me to call back in fifteen minutes, and then called Frank to make sure that I was on the level and could be trusted. Frank vouched for me, and when I called him again, he gave me a deep-source interview that would have blistered the ears of the Chronicle’s owners. It became the centerpiece of my paper’s story about the buyout. Even the T&G’s own staff didn’t know much of what we told them about the people who’d soon be signing their paychecks.
Now that both men are gone, my source can be revealed: the Chronicle reporter was Randy Shilts, who later won the Pulitzer Prize for his book about the AIDS epidemic, And The Band Played On. Doubtless another young writer – one of many – whom Frank assisted over the years.
A few years after that, I left journalism to begin a new career as a science fiction writer, my primary objective all along. Shortly after my first couple of novels were published, Frank and I met up again at a Worldcon in Chicago. He was proud of me for having achieved my ambitions, and I was proud to make him proud. We were waiting in line for an elevator when a young fan spotted my name badge. He spent the next several minutes raving about my work, something to which I hadn’t yet become accustomed, and didn’t let me go until the elevator doors opened. Frank and I slipped inside, and as the doors shut between us and the fan, he gave me a little nudge.
‘‘So… how’s it feel to be a hero?’’ he whispered.
I didn’t reply. Didn’t need to. He already knew the answer to his own question.
–Allen M. Steele
Frank M. Robinson shows off his pulp collection (1998)
FRANK ROBINSON by Tom Whitmore
Years ago, when Locus was still collated and prepared for mailing in San Francisco with little stick-on labels, we got silly one month and wrote on a lot of the labels (for people we knew) ‘‘Frank Robinson is a nicer guy than you are.’’ It was true then, and it remained true over the years. We’ll miss you, Frank.
–Tom Whitmore
FRANK by Derryl Murphy
I was a callow youth of 16 when I first met Frank, at NonCon in Edmonton. He’d impressed me while on a panel, and after finally working up the nerve to talk to him later, I almost blew it: ‘‘You’re an author?’’ I asked. ‘‘I am,’’ he said, drawing himself up tall. ‘‘So how come I’ve never heard of you?’’ was my question, which elicited much laughter on his part. Years later, Frank told me this had reminded him of when a young Harlan Ellison had approached him at a con with some criticisms of one of his stories, popping the momentary ego balloon he had at the time, something he remembered with fondness.
These were the days before e-mail and Facebook, of course (the last time he and I talked on the phone I reminded him that I am almost the age he was when we first met, a fact that seemed to temporarily set us both back on our heels), but we became good friends. He came back to NonCon a couple of times, and my family had him over for dinner once, a dinner at which he even removed his hat. Later, at 19, I went on an extended backpacking trip through Australasia, stopping at his invitation in San Francisco for a few days beforehand. Years later he denied saying it, but when he greeted me at the airport, hat on his head, trench coat on to protect against the rain, and newspaper tucked under one arm, he shook my hand, gave me a hug, and said, ‘‘Welcome to Sin City, baby.’’ I know I’m right, though, because it’s in the diary I kept of that trip.
We saw each other a few times over the ensuing years, although he certainly didn’t travel as much and I rarely made it his way. We would talk once in awhile by phone, and I remember with delight the immense pride he took in his part in the movie Milk. That was the longest talk we’d had in years, in fact; any time he or I would make noises about saying goodbye another great story would come to mind, and off he would go in another marvelous conversational direction.
All of this without once mentioning the pulps (such an amazing collection!), the toothpicks (a bowl for every room!), the books, the movies, his amazing place in science fiction, in the gay community, and the web that reached out from him to so many people. But in the end, the stories are what I’m going to remember best about Frank. Not just the stories on paper, but the stories he would regale any captive audience with. He was a masterful storyteller, a delight to listen to and to laugh with. My sorrow at his loss is only matched by the joy of having been his friend.
–Derryl Murphy
Return to In This Issue listing.
OTHER OBITUARIES
YA and children’s author WALTER DEAN MYERS, 76, died July 1, 2014. Myers wrote mostly mainstream YA, often set in Harlem, where he grew up, but he wrote some work of genre interest, including ghost story ‘‘Things That Go Gleep in the Night’’ (1993) and YA fantasies Shadow of the Red Moon (1995, illustrated by his son Christopher Meyers) and Dope Sick (2009).
Myers is perhaps best known for Fallen Angels (1988), a YA controversial for its depiction of the Vietnam War and its adult language, and for Monster (1999), which won the first ever Michael L. Printz Award for the best book of the year for teens. He published more than 100 titles, including YA novels, picture books, and nonfiction, notably memoir Bad Boy (2002). Many of his books received citations and awards from the American Library Association. In 1994 he won the Margaret Edwards Award for his teen writing, and in January 2012 he was named the National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature by the Library of Congress.
Walter Dean Myers (2000s)
Walter Milton Myers was born August 12, 1937 in Martinsburg WV. His mother died in 1940, and he moved with the Dean family to New York, later taking their surname as his middle name in recognition of their care for him. He served in the US Army from 1955-58, and later studied at Empire State College in New York, graduating with a BA in 1984. He worked as a mail clerk, as an employee supervisor for the New York State Department of Labor from 1966-69, as an editor from 1970-77, and taught creative writing and black history from 1974-75, before becoming a full-time writer in 1977.
Myers was married twice, to Joyce Smith in 1960 (divorced 1970), and to Constance Brendel in 1973. She survives him, as do two children from his first marriage, and his son author/illustrator Christopher Meyers, from his second.
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Nobel Prize-winning South African author NADINE GORDIMER, 90, died July 13, 2014 in Johannesburg. Gordimer was famed for her ambitious fiction that illuminated South African society, particularly the horrors of apartheid. She wrote one novel of SF interest, July’s People (1981), set in a near-future South Africa. She also wrote some genre short fiction, including ‘‘The Conservationist’’ (1973) and ‘‘Letter from his Father’’ (1984).
Gordimer was born November 20, 1923 in the South African mining town of Springs. She attended the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg beginning in 1945. She married Gerald Gavron in 1949, divorcing in 1952. In 1954 she married Reinhold H. Cassirer, who died in 2001. Her debut book was collection Face to Face (1949), and first novel The Lying Days appeared in 1953. Several of her books were banned in South Africa because of their depiction of life under apartheid, including A World of Strangers (1958), The Late Bourgeois World (1966), Burger’s Daughter (1979), and the aforementioned July’s People. She won many awards in addition to the Nobel Prize, including a Booker for The Conservationist (1974).
Nadine Gordimer (2010)
Gordimer is survived by a daughter from her first marriage and a son from her second.
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Composer and author MARY RODGERS, 83, died June 26, 2014. She composed the music for classic musical Once Upon a Mattress (1959), based on the Hans Christian Andersen story “The Princess and the Pea”, and her novels include the bestselling body-switching tale Freaky Friday (1972), adapted as a feature film twice, in 1976 and 2003.
Mary Rodgers was born January 11, 1931 in Manhattan, attended Brearley school, and studied music at Wellesly College. Her father was composer Richard Rodgers, of Rodgers and Hammerstein fame. She co-wrote many songs with Steven Sondheim before switching her focus to children’s bo
oks, including more body-switching novels, A Billion for Boris (1974) and Summer Switch (1982). She wrote the screenplay for deal-with-the-devil movie The Devil and Max Devlin (1981).
Rodgers is survived by three children from her first marriage to Julian Beaty (divorced 1957) and two sons from her second to Henry Guettel (who predeceased her in 2013), and seven grandchildren.
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Writer NANCY GARDEN, 76, died June 23, 2014 at home in Carlisle MA of an apparent heart attack. Garden is best known for her groundbreaking YA novel Annie on My Mind (1981), one of the first books for teens to depict a lesbian relationship. She also wrote fantasy novels for children and teens, including Prisoner of Vampires (1984), the Fours Crossing series beginning with Fours Crossing (1981), and the Monster Hunters series beginning with Mystery of the Night Raiders (1987). Her nonfiction for young readers includes many books on the supernatural, including Vampires (1973), Werewolves (1973), Witches (1975), and Devils and Demons (1976).
Antoinette Elisabeth Garden was born May 15, 1938 in Boston (she later legally changed her name to Nancy). She attended Columbia University, earning a BFA in 1961 and MA in 1962. She worked as an actress and lighting designer, as an editor in the early ’70s, and as a teacher and freelance writer from 1976 onward. She received a Margaret E. Edwards Award for her contributions to children’s literature in 2003. She is survived by her wife Sandra Scott, married in 2004 but her partner for over 40 years.
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Author C.J. HENDERSON, 62, died July 4, 2014 after a struggle with cancer. Henderson wrote fantasy and crime novels and comics, publishing his first short stories in the late ’70s and early ’80s. He was best known for his Teddy London supernatural crime series beginning with The Things That Are Not There (1992), written as Robert Morgan. Under his own name, he wrote the Inspector Legrasse series beginning with Patiently Waiting (1996) and the Piers Knight series begun with Brooklyn Knight (2010). Standalone novels include Guts (1979, with Byron Preiss), The Reign of the Dragon Lord (2010), and A Rattling of Bones (2011).
Locus, August 2014 Page 19
