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En Garde, whole no. 17, April 1946
Page 22
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page 22. other evening---OLIVER KING SMITH! In person! Even after he had insisted on passing around his driver's license to allay any doubts as to his identity, there was considerable speculation over whether Smith or Tucker was a figment of the other's imagination. Such was the intolerable situation that Smith encountered, all unsuspecting. But let's let Oliver King Smith speak of the matter in his own words: "A TESTIMONIAL (!?) "Let Oliver King Smith Company provide you with an interesting past! Would you like to walk in on a fan meeting and be a Famous Character? Do you crave publicity? The Oliver King Smith Co., (Assorted Services) will get you full page spreads in fanrags. Look what it did for me! "I January 1941 I was handy and cooperative when Earl Singleton decided to retire from fandom with a bang. Earl was spending every evening on fan activity. Finally he began to get fed-up. The combination of studies and fan publishing became too much. He had already obtained his Master's Degree, and was taking post graduate study under a scholarship. Then came news of the Boskone. That was the last straw! He determined to quit both his studies and his fan activity. But---Earl Singleton was a man to do things flamboyantly. He quit his scholarship cold, even though it meant paying several hundred dollars for the one term of it he had taken. He wrote a suicide note, ghosted letters for me, and we worked out a plan for the hoax. "It seemed like a good idea at the time, and neither of us realized how deeply news of his 'death' would affect some fans. The hoax went well until Earl was well away from Boston. Then someone---Chauvenet, I think---had the bright idea of inquiring of MIT about the 'suicide' in its dormitory. "Let us pass lightly over my interview with the housemaster. Three minutes after that session, the founder of the Oliver King Smith Co., retired. So the company's first ghost writer was sticking to his suicide, so the company couldn't take any more contracts anyway. "Then Bob Tucker took over. For five years I relaxed in the Army. Fans were working day and night to keep their names in the mags. I became famous without setting hand to typewriter. Other fans read about each other's pasts; finding out about my own entertains (?) me. "Still it's a little disconcerting to have one's own personal name so blithely bruited about, and brazenly classed as 'an obvious pseudonym'. Also, I might humbly mention that in the future, I would appreciate receiving copies of whatever fanrags find it necessary to take my name in vain!" Oliver K. Smith.
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page 22. other evening---OLIVER KING SMITH! In person! Even after he had insisted on passing around his driver's license to allay any doubts as to his identity, there was considerable speculation over whether Smith or Tucker was a figment of the other's imagination. Such was the intolerable situation that Smith encountered, all unsuspecting. But let's let Oliver King Smith speak of the matter in his own words: "A TESTIMONIAL (!?) "Let Oliver King Smith Company provide you with an interesting past! Would you like to walk in on a fan meeting and be a Famous Character? Do you crave publicity? The Oliver King Smith Co., (Assorted Services) will get you full page spreads in fanrags. Look what it did for me! "I January 1941 I was handy and cooperative when Earl Singleton decided to retire from fandom with a bang. Earl was spending every evening on fan activity. Finally he began to get fed-up. The combination of studies and fan publishing became too much. He had already obtained his Master's Degree, and was taking post graduate study under a scholarship. Then came news of the Boskone. That was the last straw! He determined to quit both his studies and his fan activity. But---Earl Singleton was a man to do things flamboyantly. He quit his scholarship cold, even though it meant paying several hundred dollars for the one term of it he had taken. He wrote a suicide note, ghosted letters for me, and we worked out a plan for the hoax. "It seemed like a good idea at the time, and neither of us realized how deeply news of his 'death' would affect some fans. The hoax went well until Earl was well away from Boston. Then someone---Chauvenet, I think---had the bright idea of inquiring of MIT about the 'suicide' in its dormitory. "Let us pass lightly over my interview with the housemaster. Three minutes after that session, the founder of the Oliver King Smith Co., retired. So the company's first ghost writer was sticking to his suicide, so the company couldn't take any more contracts anyway. "Then Bob Tucker took over. For five years I relaxed in the Army. Fans were working day and night to keep their names in the mags. I became famous without setting hand to typewriter. Other fans read about each other's pasts; finding out about my own entertains (?) me. "Still it's a little disconcerting to have one's own personal name so blithely bruited about, and brazenly classed as 'an obvious pseudonym'. Also, I might humbly mention that in the future, I would appreciate receiving copies of whatever fanrags find it necessary to take my name in vain!" Oliver K. Smith.
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