What a great story Rick.....When I was a freshman in college at UC San
Diego in 1972, I was part of a college council that organized events for the
school. We had a meeting one night and it was suggested that we have some
speakers come to the school. Most of the people that were suggested were either
locals or college admiinistrators or professors known for some invention or
theory. Being 18 and not knowing any better, I suggested Ray Bradbuy, to which
everyone chuckled at me. Basically the message was "good luck with that". So,
I talked to everyone that I could think of about how to get to him and somehow
made my way to his manager or a friend of his manager or a secretary or
someone. Anyway, I told my story and wondered if Mr. Bradbury ever attended
colleges to speak. They said they would get back to me. One night, late, as I
was fretting over some test the next day, the phone rang in my dorm and it was
him, Mr. Bradbury himself and said he would love to come down to San Diego and
"chat" with us. When I went to tell all the other people on the council, most
of them all older than me, they didn't believe me at first until I provided his
phone number for them to check.
So........I made the flight arrangements and picked him up at the airport
and we had a great talk all the way back. In fact, I probably didn't shut up
the whole half hour from the airport to the college. He was so wonderful and it
was one of the highlights of my life meeting him. About 10 years ago I was at
LAX taking my in-laws to the airport for a flight back to Floriday and there he
sat, all alone. He was, of course, so much older and had a cane now, but I knew
it was him. I hesitated to go up and say hello, but I just had to. I reminded
him of how nice he had been to "accept" my invitation to school to speak and
he said he remembered that event. I didn't know if he was just saying that to
be nice, but then when he said that he remembered I had an awful lot to say in
those days and how had all my things worked out, I knew he truly did remember.
I told him not much had changed, I still have alot to say all the time!!
I have a customer that has been very close friends with him since
childhood and she use to send me movie posters to have restored and sent to him
as gifts. It was such a treat framing them up knowing that they were going to
be his. When I saw the news come across yesterday, I was so saddened, but what
a great life he had and all the gifts he left us.
Sue
www.hollywoodposterframes.com
Date: Thu, 7 Jun 2012 10:52:42 -0700
From: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [MOPO] Ray Bradbury, A Remembrance
To: [email protected]
We are lucky that we share an appreciation for these great human beings.
Sent from my iPhone
On Jun 7, 2012, at 10:21 AM, "Phillip W. Ayling" <[email protected]> wrote:
Rick,
It is great to hear your story. Ray Bradbury was just the best!!! I met him
several times as a kid at birthday parties that Forrest J. Ackerman used to
hold at his house on Sherbourne Drive in the West L.A. area in the 60's. He was
the nicest of people. No matter who you were, you were part of humanity and
that is what seemed to matter to him. I can't imagine how stupid I sounded as a
10 year old talking about The Martian Chronicles or King Kong. He was sooooo
nice.
There was no sense of "How important are you?" or "A bigger name just walked
into the room, so bye". I shed a tear yesterday. Don't do that often and I'm
tearing-up as I write this.
Two of Sci-Fi's Three Musketeers are gone now. Ray Harryhausen will be 92 on
June 29. All of us who love films and fantasy have been blessed to live during
this time.
----- Original Message -----
From: Rix Posterz
To: [email protected]
Sent: Thursday, June 07, 2012 9:46 AM
Subject: [MOPO] Ray Bradbury, A Remembrance
In the min-1970's, I was a young, aspiring writer living in L.A., working on
a Sci-Fi project with a friend named Tim Bruckner (who is now a well-known
sculptor of super hero and fantasy figures). The story was about a
dream-eating deity called "The Enicol". To make a long story short, both Tim
and I were quite excited about the strange tale we'd come up with and decided
to try to contact as many well-known writers in the Sci-Fi genre as we could.
Believe it or not, back in 1974 Harlan Ellison's home phone number was listed
in the San Fernando Valley white pages, so...after staring at it for a day or
two, I dialed the number and Harlan Ellison did indeed answer my call. I got
as far as saying something to the effect of "Hello, Mr. Ellison, my name's Rick
Ryan and I've always been a huge admirer of your work..." That's as far as I
got before Harlan seemed to go totally berserk, angrily screaming at me about
bothering him with my call, demanding that I promise never, EVER to call him
again! Of course, I quietly did as he asked and immediately hung up the phone.
Within the following month or so, someone had told me that Ray Bradbury had
an office in Beverly Hills (I'm pretty sure that's where it was---if not, it
was very close to Beverly Hills). Anyway, early one afternoon, I entered the
building where Mr. Bradbury's office was supposed to be and. lo and behold, on
the second floor at the end of the hallway was a door that had "Ray Bradbury"
on it in some fashion or another. Unfortunately, the door also had a very
large sign on it saying something like: "WARNING! Please Do Not Disturb! I Am
a Working Author and WILL NOT RESPOND! If you wish to contact me for any
reason, call: 555-6238" (Of course the wording on the sign and the telephone
number were different, but you get the idea...). So. for the next 2 or 3 days
I called and called that number and no one ever answered.
Back then, they didn't have answering machines and Ray Bradbury wasn't the kind
of guy to have one anyway---hey, he never drove a car, so why would he want an
annoying answering machine. Anyway,
after dialing that number for what seemed like 100 times, on the 101st attempt,
a voice answered on the other end of the line. It was Ray Bradbury. In
contrast to Mr. Ellison, Mr. Bradbury talked to me for at least a half an hour
about everything from the craft of writing to his experience working with John
Huston on the set
while they were filming Moby Dick (for which he wrote the screenplay). After
all this time, I don't remember all the incidentals of the conversation. What
I do remember is what a kind, warm and welcoming gentleman the legendary
literary giant Ray Bradbury was when he talked on the phone to some young,
naive
kid who was callling him with some crazy Sci-Fi idea. I also remember his
closing words in our conversation were "God bless you, son". What a wonderful
human being. It's one of the great honors of my life to have had that
experience over 35 years ago....
Rick Ryan
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