As in any year, 1991 robbed us of a number of people whose talents brought us great edification and pleasure in the fields of fantasy and horror. Perhaps the most important figure to die last year was Theodor Seuss Geisel, 87, better known to children of all ages as Dr. Seuss. His whimsical and charming books were enormous best-sellers all around the world, and he taught generations of people how to have fun while learning important lessons of morality and ethics. His best-known works included The Cat in the Hat, Green Eggs and Ham and How the Grinch Stole Christmas. He worked as an illustrator before becoming a best-selling author, and he also wrote a novel for adults, The Seven Lady Godivas (1937), but it wasn’t terribly successful. He wrote another book for adults, You re Only Old Once, in 1987, and it was understandably much more successful than his previous effort. He also made films, including the cartoon Gerald McBoing-Boing.
Frank Capra, 94, was a major motion-picture director, counting among his successes the now-beloved but initially neglected fantasy It’s a Wonderful Life, along with Lost Horizon and a number of other fine films, most notably It Happened One Night, a romantic comedy that nearly killed the men’s undershirt business when Clark Gable took his off. Also lost from the world of film was a much younger, but equally creative man, Howard Ashman, 40, who wrote the screenplay and lyrics for the musical adaptation of Roger Corman’s horror film, Little Shop of Horrors. First a play and then a film, it took Ashman to Hollywood where he then proceeded to produce Disney’s The Little Mermaid, and to write lyrics for the film’s songs, one of which won him a Best Song Oscar for “Under the Sea.” He and his collaborator Alan Mencken then wrote songs for another successful animated feature, Beauty and the Beast. Ashman was a playwright first, and had some of his plays, including The Confirmation and Dreamstuff (the latter an adaptation of Shakespeare’s The Tempest) produced before his screen successes. His one Broadway show, Smile, for which Marvin Hamlisch wrote the music, closed quickly despite a talented cast and strong production values. Ashman was a singular talent, and his combination of wit and sensitivity brought new life to Disney’s animated productions.
Several major literary authors whose work touched on the field died last year. Graham Greene, 86, was best known for his thrillers, including The Third Man, for which he also wrote the screenplay, and The Honorary Consul. Isaac Bashevis Singer, 87, winner of the Nobel Prize for literature, wrote stories that touched on moral and emotional issues of broad universality, in a style and context that were his own unique brand of philosophical fantasy. Jerzy Kosinski, 57, best known for The Painted Bird, was a concentration camp victim during World War II. His work dealt with the survivor's experience in a uniquely charged way.
Authors firmly within the genre who died last year included Thomas Tryon, 65, an actor for many years who successfully began a career writing horror fiction later in life. His novel The Other put him on the map; Harvest Home was also successful. Both were filmed. Chester Anderson, 58, was a free spirit, best known for his fantasy novel of Greenwhich Village, The Butterfly Kid. He also collaborated with Michael Kurland on Ten Years to Doomsday, and wrote other fiction as well. Anderson was a figure of some cult interest because of his involvement with the beat life. He expanded the scope of Crawdaddy when he was the editor of that magazine. A mainstream novel, also about Greenwhich Village, Fox and Hare, was published in 1980. Joyce Ballou Gregorian, 44, was the author of the Tredana trilogy that consisted of The Broken Citadel, Castledown, and The Great Wheel. Sharon Baker, 53, was the author of Quarreling, They Met the Dragon, set on an exotic, richly detailed world, Naphar, on which her novels Journey to Membliar and Burning Tears ofSassurum were also set. Married and the mother of four children, she was a person who reached out to those around her, providing a home to exchange students and working with runaways in Seattle, where she and her family lived. Her deep social concerns were mirrored in all her work, enriching it considerably. In addition to other interests, she was active in academic circles within the field. Jonathan Etra, 38, was the author of the children’s book A liens for Breakfast and other fantastical works, including the outrageous trade paperback collaborative extravaganza Junk Food.
We lost editors as well. Eleanor Sullivan, 62, was an editor at Ellery Queens Mystery Magazine for many years, serving as Managing Editor from 1970 to 1982, then as Editor-in-Chief. She was also Editor-in-Chief of Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, from 1976 to 1982. Before her years with the mystery magazines where she became famous, she worked at Pocket Books and then Charles Scribner’s Sons. She edited a number of anthologies as well, and wrote Whodunit (1984), a memoir about Frederick Dannay, one of the two cousins who together wrote as Ellery Queen, and who was Editor-in-Chief of the magazine of the same name until his death in 1982. She also wrote fiction herself, and was nominated for an Edgar Award in 1989 for her story, “Ted Bundy’s Father.’’ In 1987 she was honored with the Mystery Writers of America’s Ellery Queen Award for Excellence.
Thaddeus (Ted) Dikty, 71, was an editor and publisher of many small-press books, both academic and fiction. He was the cofounder of Shasta, one of the first hardcover publishers of science fiction and fantasy; he also edited a number of anthologies over the years. Years after the demise of Shasta, he cofounded Fax Collectors Editions, and after that, Starmont House. Dikty was married to author Julian May, and they worked together on many projects. Clarence Paget, 82, was first an agent, then an editor and publisher. He was Editor-in-Chief of Pan Books and founded their long-running series, The Pan Book of Horror Stories, edited by Herbert Van Thai for many years. After Van Thai’s death, Paget edited the series alone for several years.
George T. Delacorte, 97, was a major publisher, founding Dell Books and Delacorte Press. Before publishing books, he distributed and published magazines. He was active in the company until its sale in 1976 to Doubleday. From the start, he was aided by the presence of Helen Meyer who, starting as his secretary, became the person most responsible for Dell’s success for over a half century until her departure a year after Doubleday’s acquisition. W. Howard Baker, 65, was a British publisher, writer and editor. He edited the Sexton Blake Library, directing the series of detective novels and writing some of them himself as Peter Saxon and others as William Arthur. He also edited and wrote a number of other books, principally horror and mystery novels, including The Darkest Night (1966) and Drums of the Dark Gods, the latter written as W. A. Ballinger. Harry Shorten, 76, was a publisher. He founded Tower Publications, a low-end publisher of magazines and mass-market paperbacks. Shorten also gained some fame for his syndicated newspaper feature, There Oughta Be a Law. Henry Steeger III, 87, was another pulp publisher, founding and running Popular Publications from its inception in 1930 until he sold it in 1970. Included in Popular’s stable of pulp magazines in the thirties and forties were a number of SF and Fantasy titles.
