George W. Fields

(April 26, 1939 – )

George W. Fields was the fan name of George Fields Williamson, an LA fan, mainly active in the 1950s, who founded a group of fans called 20th Century Fandom and later became a member of LASFS. He was the honoree at the 1959 Fanquet, having sold a number of paintings. He was President (and possibly the only member) of the Science Fiction Fan Award Association.

He was the first editor of De Profundis and edited (with Ted Johnstone) the 1962 edition of The Enchanted Duplicator. He conceived The Willis Papers and announced that he would write a history of LASFS.

According to richard w. brown in Boonfark 3 (November 1979, p. 16), Fields and several other TCF members used pseudonyms for somewhat mistaken reasons:

George -- and apparently the others, as well -- did it because he had read or heard somewhere that pen names could not be sued for libel. This was, of course, a mistaken notion -- and one recognized by all concerned, including George, by the time I came on the fan scene. (I gathered, from my brief and single discussion with George on the subject, that he was the one most concerned about the matter of libel, and that the person he most wanted to vent his uncontrolled anger at was one Francis Towner Laney. I did not know, at the time, that George was gay, and so his reasoning was not anything that I grasped then; it made considerably more sense afterwards.)

Awards, Honors and GoHships:

• 1959 -- Fanquet

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Person

1939—

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