BOB TUCKER

from Fancyclopedia 2

Nickname by which Arthur Wilson Tucker (of the Bloomington, Illinois Tuckers) is generally known. Besides adding several pages to fan history (which you will find scattered thru this volume) he has had a number of items, to us of interest, associated directly with the Tucker name.

The Tucker Hotel was based on a suggestion of Bob's, in 1952 when the ChiCon II and its prices signalled the start of the Big Convention movement, that fans simply build a hotel of their very own for holding conventions in, moving it from one site to another as required. A campaign arose to send Bricks to Tucker for the construction of this edifice; Rich Elsberry, denouncing this as a vile proish plot to get free bricks, recommended that BT be sent straw with which to make bricks for himself. A group of Anglofans designed, and draftsman Bob Shaw drew up plans for, a Tucker Hotel; Walt Willis and Chuck Harris located a fine site for it.

Tuckerism is the practice among professional authors of using their friends' names for characters in stories they are writing, Bob being a leading exponent of this sort of thing.

There have been two Tucker Death Hoaxes. The first was that mentioned under Staple War, in which a fellow boarder made the announcement to the proz -- not actually meaning it as a hoax, but as a joke, tho a sick one. Another came a few weeks before the CinVention; at that time Ben Singer, an 18-year- old Michifan stationed at Chanute AFB near Tucker's place, dropped in on Bob and suggested pulling off a Tucker Death Hoax for the con. Bob deprecated the idea and thought he'd quashed it, but Singer found it a fascinating notion and upon leaving sent Don Ford [CinVention chairman] a telegram, ostensibly from Mari-Beth Wheeler, telling him of Bob's death, and sent Art Rapp a news release giving gory details. The story ran that Bob had written a love novel which Rinehart desperately wanted to buy, tho they had lost the manuscript he had sent them; and that when Tucker got their message his children had just finished burning the only carbon copy. Tuck, per Singer, drowned his sorrows, went to sleep drunk while smoking in the projection room of the theater where he worked, and started a fire in which he was fatally burned. His last words deserve recording: "Tell them I'm sorry..." (i e the CinVention attendees, because he couldn't make it to the con). Rapp took the message at its face value, and flashed the news out to fandom; Will Sykora called Bloomington to check up and found out from the manager of the theater that it was all a hoax, which, accordingly, he indignantly denounced. So did the manager, suspecting Tucker of seeking phony publicity for his writings; only his strong union, Bob says, kept him from being summarily fired.