Last night I dusted off an old DVD of mine called Death Scenes. This documentary explored the photo scrapbook (“a catalog of horrid indiscretions”) of a police officer who pounded the beat of Depression-era Los Angeles. The grisly slideshow of crime scenes unfolds under the baleful narration of one Anton Szandor LaVey (1930-1997), head of the Church of Satan and, as it happened, close pal of Forry Ackerman.
LaVey was one of the subjects Forry and I discussed when we first met in Pennsylvania. The two men, more alike than it would at first seem, fostered a relationship of mutual respect. As Forry himself put it in his dictation to me:
“Although Anton Szandor LaVey by his own declaration was something like a Son of Satan and was known to hold Black Masses, when my wife and I knew him we didn’t find a mean bone in his body. He just seemed to rejoice in being associated with Satan and he won a very sexy movie star named Jayne Mansfield over to his belief. I believe at one time Robert Heinlein and perhaps Jack Williamson and a couple of other local science fiction authors attended some of magic affair of his in Glendale, in a home where L. Ron Hubbard was living, but they reported that they were very disappointed that nothing ‘occult’ happened.”
Both Forry and LaVey, like Walt Disney before them, inhabited worlds of their own making; Forry of course had his Ackermansion, overflowing with all manner of imagi-movie memorabilia, LaVey his Black House in San Francisco, wherein he installed a pipe organ, converted the mantle into a Satanic altar and created a personal “Den of Iniquity” with mannequins arranged in various sordid positions. Both men also shared the disquieting trait of utilizing actual funerary equipment as refurbished coffee tables in their living (or should that be dying?) rooms. For LaVey this took the form of a moldering tombstone on legs, for Forry a coffin presented to him by friend Nivek Ogre.
Prior to the formation of the Church of Satan, Forry was an occasional attendee of LaVey’s Magic Circle meetings in San Francisco. These were essentially lectures delivered by LaVey on subjects running the gamut from vampirism and lycanthropy to freaks of nature and sexual aberrations of various kinds. Illustrations and demonstrations would often accompany the talks, with LaVey‘s William Castle-like flair for showmanship much in evidence; on the occasion of “cannibalism” night a prime cut purported to be human flesh was served to the assembled guests! Though undoubtedly a bit of tounge-in-cheekery on LaVey’s part, this story has astonishingly been taken at face value in recent years by certain anti-FJA factions on the Internet.
Forry shared with LaVey a love of vintage music as is demonstrated in the following anecdote, not without its charm:
“Returning to my friend Anton Szandor LaVey, he could play an organ and also a piano. One day he was in my home; I had a big grand piano at that time. I had so hated to practice the piano instead of reading a science fiction story that at one time I lost my temper and bit the piano. Ever after my childish teeth could be seen in the indentations on the piano leg. Anton sat down at my piano and I believe he played the tune of a popular song called “Here Lies Love.” I knew the song by heart so I began to sing while he played it. I had a rather stiff cold at the time so my voice was rather lower than usual. I’m sorry that I was unable at the time to record it because I usually only sing it around the house to myself without being accompanied by a piano.”
The tale of Forry encountering LaVey’s pet lion Togare in the wake of having been cured of dog phobia via Dianetics is the stuff of another article on another day!
Only a few days prior to Forry’s fated meeting with Prince Sirki, I remember a card being sent to the Acker-mini-mansion from Diane LaVey, Anton’s widow, which I read aloud to the old fellow. It was a touching gesture from the distaff half of Satanism’s First Family and, I’m pleased to say, representative of the kind of love and support that flowed Forry’s way in those final hours.
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