PP: We’re talking about the people that you know and people you’ve had the opportunity to work with and become friends with, and many of them are giants of Horror and Sci-Fi. I’d just like to throw out a few names and have you talk about your connection to them or their work.
FJA: Sure, I'd be glad to.
PP: OK, let’s start with Boris Karloff.
FJA: Well, Karloff was making his final four films in five weeks in a little hellhole here in Hollywood, I don’t know whether they got the nerve to call it a studio, and there were four young children in the family who were all eager to accompany me and meet Mr. Karloff. But Mom and Pop, and rightly so, thought that four kids would be about three too many underfoot, so the lucky one selected to represent the quartet was little nine-year-old Ricky. He was a little Korean war orphan who had been abandoned by his GI father and adopted by my friends.
The magic moment came for him to meet Boris Karloff and I took him by the hand. He was trembling but he came forward stammering, and said. "Oh Mr. Karloff, I’ve waited for this moment all my life." (Laughs)
PP: How about Bela Lugosi?
FJA: I was with Bela Lugosi just two weeks before he died at the premiere of his final film "The Black Sleep." We sat up in the mezzanine, and coming down he was very vain. He would not be seen wearing glasses in public. So the lobby down below was just a big blur to him; but I could see they were all set up with cameras to interview him on television. He got to the bottom of the stairs and I said "They want you there, Bela." And he said "Point me in the right direction." So I got him squared around and I said, "Now just move about six feet forward and you’ll be right there."
This was a minor miracle to behold. There was this dear old desiccated gentleman, just fourteen days away from his deathbed, but the world wanted him one more time. So, he straightened up and filled out and became the tall proud figure of Count Dracula as he strode toward the waiting TV eyes.
PP: John Carradine, now I know he was a friend of yours for some time.
FJA: I’ll never forget Carradine because at a banquet of the Count Dracula Society he said, "When I was on the stage in Dracula, and I came to make my curtain speech afterwards I said, ‘How is it, if I’m supposed to be dead, that I have to take a pee?’" (Laughs)
PP: How about John Agar? Did you spend much time with him?
FJA: Oh, yes, I gave John Agar a premature burial. I had been told in all confidence that he had died, and I wrote an obituary for him. Then, I was at a convention and somebody came and said, "Oh, John Agar has just arrived!"
And I thought, "John Agar? That’s impossible! He’s dead!" But I went out, and lo and behold, he was quite alive. I guess I really did him a favor. It’s not often that one gets to read their own obituary. He was called on it on television. I acted with him in his last film called "The Vampire Hunters’ Club."
PP: Wow, shades of Twain there. "The rumors of my death" and so on. Did you actually publish that obituary? Had he seen it?
FJA: (Laughs) Yes, he had. It was very full and flattering, so I don’t think he minded it too much.
PP: Well, at least it was a complimentary sendoff that you gave him. (Forry laughs) How about George Pal?
FJA: Oh, yes, dear George and I were in Rio de Janeiro for a week-long fantasy film festival. We went strolling arm-in-arm along the seashore, when two young ladies sidled up to us. It was obvious to me what their intentions were. They said, "Oh, do you boys have the time?" I don’t know whether George was naive or putting them on but he looked at his wrist and said, "I’m sorry dear, I never wear a watch." (Chuckles) The next day, he and I went out to have lunch, and the only thing offered on the menu was Rattled-Out Turkey Cock. Now if it hadn’t of been rattled out, we might have taken a chance on it, but we passed that up.
I was very flattered that I was asked by his widow to give the eulogy at his funeral. Recently, 29 years later, I went out to his gravesite. I took the Martian Machine and laid it beside him and a chap with a video camera photographed me as I was kind of talking to George and reminding him of many happy times we’d had together. He had me in a cameo in his last film, but both he and I were cut out. We wound up together on the cutting room floor. (Laughs)
PP: Some people's entire careers end up there. (Laughs) Can you tell me about your relationship with Ray Bradbury?
FJA: Well, Ray and I are only about four years apart in age, and we’ve known each other since our teens. In 1938, I sold his first story "Hollerbochen's Dilemma." Back in the day when a movie cost 21 cents, a ride downtown to the movie palace was a dime, and a nickel bought a bottomless bag of popcorn, I used to pay him a respectable fee of "a buck a book" He’d bring his book to me and I’d finance his dates. (Laughs) Well, one time, I guess he must have had a really big date because he wanted two bucks. I guess he felt he had to come up with something extra to merit the increase in pay so he brought me a copy of the script for "King Kong", autographed by none other than the great Edgar Wallace. I must have been pretty naive not to have asked myself how a young fella here in L.A. could have gotten his hands on an autographed copy of this book from a chap over in London, but I didn’t, and I kept it and displayed it proudly.
Well, some years later, I was living in a house that could only hold about 65 people, so in order to invite all the guests I wanted, I had a birthday party with five performances; one on Friday night, a Saturday matinee, Saturday evening, Sunday matinee and Sunday evening. On Sunday evening, Ray was there, and he saw the manuscript on display. He came over to me and whispered, "Oh, Forry. I have something terrible to tell you. I wrote Edgar Wallace’s name on that manuscript!" To which I said, "You shameless scoundrel! Give me back my dollar!" We both had a good laugh, but I could tell that he regretted having parted with the book, and even though it was an expensive collector’s item, I acquired a copy for him, and autographed it myself saying, "To Ray Bradbury, from the REAL Edgar Wallace!" (Laughs)
