Summer 2007 by Subterranean Press

for signing other people’s books with his
name. There should be an entire library of them, and yet, only three exempli
remain.
 JS: : It’s a real shame. In fact, a lot of what it came
down to, there is the belief that going back to DeathCon, Ellison slammed the
door. As you know, Winton had a phobia of incandescent bulbs, which meant that
every light in his house was actually a gas wick. So: Door slams, lamp falls
over. Flames. They manage to get his body out in time. Which was good.
 SM: Not realizing that he had already died.
 JS: : Right.
 SM: It was truly a courageous effort on the part of the assembled science fiction
writers. And a great honor, really, for Winton.
 JS: : Yes. They
didn’t let him burn.
 SM: That’s right.
 JS: :
Ironically, he was later cremated.
 SM: Completely different thing.
 JS: : But because of this unfortunate fire, which took up the whole house, so
much memorabilia is lost. The shame is, of course, that the existing material
at the Edison Community College in Piqua, Ohio, is just a shoebox with a few
notes, a figurine of Mickey Mouse from Disneyland and some old candy. Now,
Nick, you know a little about his sweet tooth, because of the parties.
 NS: Yes. He would always offer me candy.
 JS: : Right. Right.
 SM: Did you take the candy from him?
 NS: I would, and then at a
certain point my mother gave me a look, like maybe I shouldn’t do that. But I
don’t think there was anything untoward about it.
 JS: : No, no. I
mean, everybody loves candy.
You and I have gone around on a particular
topic I want to discuss, and feel free to pitch in, Sarah, but Nick, as you
know, at a certain point our friend Winton basically said “To hell with
America, to hell with everything,” and he went to Europe, where he spent time
writing screenplays for Italian science fiction movies. Now, I’ve been a movie
critic for fifteen years. I’ve written a book on science fiction movies. And I
am here to tell you, unreservedly, that Italian science fiction movies are the
worse science fiction movies that have ever existed. In addition to being the
genre of film that spawned the career of David Hasselhoff –
 SM: Which
is a sin for which it can never be forgiven.
 JS: : No, no.
Generations future will curse –
 SM: Curse!
 JS: :
— indeed.
 NS: Hasselhoff aside.
JM: Hasselhoff aside,
you actually think the screenplays that he wrote were sort of a creative
highlight for him.
 NS: I just think it was very different. It’s
not the thing you usually see – spaghetti space opera has a place, and
you just don’t see it very often. They dispensed with a lot of the scientific
aspects of it –
 JS: : And dialogue.
 NS: And
dialogue, and they didn’t use very good actors, and it was kind of a mess.
 SM: But! Nick says. There are redeeming qualities!
 NS: There are
redeeming qualities. There’s a Fellini-esque quality to it. We would actually
put clowns in space. I thought that was very…
 JS: : Well, it’s
because the movie studio was timesharing the building with the Rome Clown
College.
 NS: Yeah.
 JS: : So they were readily
available.
 NS: You have to make use of what you have.
 JS: : But are you giving him too much credit? Fellini used clowns because he
was making a point about clowns. Winton’s using clowns because they were there.
Doesn’t that make a difference?
 NS: Yes, it makes a difference, to
certain extent. But Winton is no Fellini. You have to build with what you’ve
got.
 SM: And it true that by the end of his screenwriting career,
the last film, I think it is heads and shoulder above any of his previous
efforts. And I think it is because, you know, like you’re saying, you have to
dance with them what brung you. But if they want to square dance and you want
to waltz… I think that was the problem Winton was having for much of his
Italian screenwriting career, was that he was working in a medium without
wanting to give in to what