Jerry Jacks

(June 27, 1947 -- September 12, 1986)

Jerry Jacks (born Jarrold Ira Jacks) was a Bay Area fan and conrunner. Originally from the Baltiwash area, he found fandom as a young teen and was one of the charter members of BSFS. He was part of Sampo Productions, a group of con-runners. He was on the San Francisco in '78 bid committee and chaired SFCon '71 and SFCon '73, the 1971 and 73 Westercons.

Jacks was the most important conrunner in the Bay Area in the 1970s. He chaired a small convention SFCon 70 at the San Francisco Airport as part of the bidding for SFCon '71: Chelsea Quinn Yarbro did the program for that convention, which appears to have been the first multi-track program at a science fiction convention. It was called, at the time, "Three-Ring Circus programming" and involved two panel tracks and a film program.

By 1971, Jacks was one of the early openly gay fans, making a space for a lot of others to come out. An occasional costumer, his "Fafhrd and the Gay Mouser" (with Ron Bounds) won an award at at least one convention masquerade. He was a member of the SCA.

In the mundane world, he was a writer, a teacher and nearly ran for public office as the first openly gay Supervisor for San Francisco. Instead, Harvey Milk ran for and won that seat.

Jacks died of a heart attack at 39; his autopsy also found that he had lymphoma. Before his death, he donated his SF-related papers from 1980-1981 to the GLBT Historical Society, San Francisco, California 94103.

• Westercon XXXX OB (Obituary by Paul E. Moslander)

Fanzines and Apazines:

• Winnie (some issues)

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Person

1947—1986

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