Marvin Kaye (1938-2021)

Né Marvin Nathan Katz

Author, Journalist, Editor, Publisher, Anthologist, Teacher, Magician, Actor, Comedian, Playwright, Stage Director

Born March 10, 1938, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Died May 13, 2021, New York, New York

Marvin Kaye died last year. He was the editor of Weird Tales magazine from 2012 to 2019. There were four issues published in that time, Fall 2012 (Elder Gods Issue), Summer 2013 (Fairy Tales Issue), Spring 2014 (Undead Issue), and 2019 (No. 363). There has been just one issue published since then, in 2020 (No. 364), this one under the editorship of Jonathan Maberry. Mr. Kaye was also the editor of six issues--the entire run--of H. P. Lovecraft's Magazine of Horror, from 2004 to 2009.

Marvin Nathan Katz was born on March 10, 1938, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His parents were Morris Katz (b. March 7, 1902, Joprow, Austria-Hungary; d. ?) and Theresa (Baroski, Barosky, Barowski, or Barowsky) Katz (b. May 30, 1904, Pennsylvania or New Jersey; d. March 16, 1966, Orlando, Florida). Morris Katz served on the Mexican border with the U.S. 13th and 6th Cavalry Regiments in 1917, so either he was a young teenager when he served or his birth year is inaccurate. I wouldn't rule out the former nor the latter. Either or both could be true.

The Katz family were Jewish. Marvin Katz was born in the same month as the Anschluss, in which Nazi Germany took over Austria. I don't know where in the old Austria-Hungary is the city or town of Joprow. Maybe Morris Katz's native place fell under Hitler's reign in the same week that his son was born. By the way, Marvin Katz was also born 360 days after the death of H.P. Lovecraft.

Morris and Theresa Katz were married in 1925 in Philadelphia. They had four children, Dorothy H. (1926-2020), Evelyn S. (1928-2017), Harold D. (1929-2001), and Marvin N. (1938-2021). You can find more about Marvin Kaye's life and career in other places on the Internet. I'll include here that he married Saralee Bransdorf on August 4, 1963, in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. They had one daughter, Terry. She survives. We offer her and the whole Kaye family and their friends our condolences.

I don't know whether Marvin Katz ever changed his surname legally to Kaye. And whether it was a legal or literary move, I don't know when the change might have happened. Marvin Kaye's first science fiction or fantasy credits listed in the Internet Speculative Fiction Database (ISFDb) are from 1975. Dozens of essays and other writing and editing credits followed, the last coming in 2019. It looks like Marvin Kaye was the one who originated the moniker "Weird Tales: The Magazine that Never Dies" in an anthology of the same name published in 1988. His wife, Saralee Kaye (1942-2006), was co-editor of that book and several others.

I wrote about Marvin Kaye in August 2015 regarding a then-recent Weird Tales controversy. Click here to read Part One of that series. I may have been a little hard on Marvin Kaye at that time. I may have written about some things beyond my direct knowledge. But then one of the problems then as now with Weird Tales is that there seems to be an effort on the part of the editors and publishers to hide what really goes on with the magazine. My question is Why? It's not like national security is at risk. (Secrecy is usually a pretty good sign of dysfunction in any organization, including in families.) Just tell us, the reading public, what is happening and let us figure out for ourselves how we ought to think about things. Anyway, I hope that I didn't give offense. If I did, I apologize.

Marvin Kaye was certainly multitalented. He had an admirable career, the kind that few men or women born in later decades have been able to attain. We should be thankful to him--and his wife--for bringing so much back from the past and placing it before us so that we might all enjoy it once again. Marvin Nathan (Katz) Kaye died on May 13, 2021, in New York City. He was eighty-three years old.

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We have had another death in our own family. This is one too many. I will continue to write, but this year, which started out so well, has suddenly become one filled with grief for all of us.

Text copyright 2022 Terence E. Hanley