Jim Causey and Bill Blackbeard-Part 1

Sometime in the early 1980s, Weird Tales researcher Randal Everts wrote to the author James O. Causey requesting an account of his career. Causey's undated reply follows:

Sunday

Dear Alain [Randal Everts' middle name],

     Sorry about the lapse. Thought you had everything you needed. Thanks for sending a copy of Hammer of Cain. Very kind of you. My sketchy biography follows. Also a few data points on Bill Blackbeard.

     Born 1924, a typical depression child, omniverous [sic] devourer of pulp magazines during the thirties and early forties. Liked heroic fantasy, read every Burroughs novel I could get my hands on, also the stf and fantasy mags, particularly WT [Weird Tales], Astounding, Wonder and Amazing. Later, Unknown, Bluebook, Argosy, Adventure, etc. Met Bill when I was 18, in a second hand bookstore. He was a year younger, a dedicated stf and comics fan and already had an impressive collection which included the old Big Little comic books, vintage Batman and Superman issues and other tomes destined to be rare and costly some day. Even then, Bill was an indefatiguable [sic] collector. I recall the day he discovered an ancient volume of Flaubert's Salambo! with horrific border illustrations by Beardsley. A first edition, which would be worth a packet today. Also Clark Ashton Smith's Ebony and Crystal, which Bill calmly expropriated from the library by the simple expedient of walking out with it under his coat. He had that ruthless verve possessed by all great bibliophiles, his youth notwithstanding.

     "Tut," he waved aside my remonstrations. "Some vile book merchant will steal it eventually. Better an appreciative chap like myself who will gloat over it by lamplight."

     Anyway, he knew I had sold a couple of shorts to WT and it turned out he was working on a story for WT called Hammer of Cain. It hit me right between the eyes and I immediately outlined a plot. He didn't see it that way. We kicked it around, could not agree on the same plot line and finally decided to each write our own version. Did so, and swore a blood oath that no matter whose tale sold, the story would forever be known to the world as a collaboration job.

     When I got drafted the following year, gave Bill my entire collection of Weirds, Unknowns and Stf. Felt I was grown up and it was time to put away the things of childhood. Besides, I had just sold a novelette to Daisy Bacon's Detective Story. She paid me two cents a word on acceptance, whereas WT paid only a cent a word on publication. I had also recently read Steve Fisher's Literary Roller Coaster which appeared in the 1941 Writer's Digest Yearbook and which must have inspired every pulp writer alive. I was determined to go to NY when I got out of the Army and be a full-time free-lance pulpateer. I was young and ambitious and full of plots and stuff and couldn't wait to attack the great pulp market. The few sales I had in the army only served to whet my appetite further.

     Joined the paratroops, but did not see combat duty. Remained stateside for the duration. Got out of the army in early '47, went to New York and dug in. Found a little pad in the upper Bronx, got a typewriter and began writing my guts out. My timing couldn't have been worse. Although I sold a few mystery yarns that year, the pulps were dying. Only a few of the most talented writers made it during this period, guys like Roy Huggins and John D. MacDonald.

Continued in the next entry.

A photograph of Jim Causey, date and place unknown, but probably from the early to mid 1970s. From the collection of Randal Everts.

Thanks for Randal A. Everts for providing a copy of the letter and the photograph.

Artemus Calloway (1883-1948)

Aka Arthemus Calloway, Artemus S. Calloway
Author, Journalist, Critic, Editor, Teacher

Born October 1, 1883, Pineapple, Alabama

Died April 7, 1948, Jefferson County, Alabama

Artemus Calloway was one of a number of tellers of weird tales who wrote from Birmingham, Alabama. I have already posted entries on Jack Kytle (1906-1971) and Pettersen Marzoni (1886-1939). It's likely that they and Calloway crossed paths.

Abram Artemus Calloway was born on October 1, 1883, in Pineapple, Alabama, and worked for the Birmingham Ledger and the Birmingham News as a reporter, author, and editor. Author Octavus Roy Cohen (1891-1959) was on the staff of the Ledger as well for a short time. That may have been where he and Calloway met. In any case, Calloway served as Cohen's secretary despite being the older of the two men. Calloway also associated with Jack Bethea, James Saxon Childers, and Edgar Valentine Smith, all authors and all reporters for Birmingham newspapers. Another connection to a person of note: Calloway's wife, Effie Ball Calloway, was a charter member (in 1930) of the Southern States Communication Association.

Calloway was the author of the book A.B.C.'s of Short Story Writing, published in Birmingham in 1932. He knew whereof he wrote, for Calloway authored about 400 short stories, serials, and novelettes for All-Story, Argosy, the Chicago Tribune, Country Gentlemen, Cowboy Story Magazine, Everybody's Magazine, Holland's, Top-Notch, Triple-X, and many other magazines and newspapers. That number pales in comparison to the 3,000 stories he wrote for a bedtime feature in the Birmingham News. Of course Calloway also wrote for Weird Tales, though only once. His story was called "Jungle Death," and it appeared in the second issue of the magazine, dated April 1923.

In 1931, Calloway started the Birmingham News-Age-Herald's short story department. In his capacity as editor and teacher, he encouraged and instructed young writers, and purchased their stories for weekly publication in his newspaper. Calloway also wrote acts for the Neil O'Brien Minstrels for four years, worked in oratorical contests in his home state, and started a book exchange program for schools in Alabama. Ironically, he was a member of a group called the Loafers Club, established by Octavus Roy Cohen and active--as much as loafers can be active--in the 1920s.

Abram A. Calloway died on April 7, 1948, in Jefferson County, Alabama. He was sixty-four years old.

Artemus Calloway's Story in Weird Tales
"Jungle Death" (Apr. 1923)

Further Reading

Artemus Calloway's A.B.C.'s of Short Story Writing was recently listed on Ebay. Evidently there are still copies of the book floating around out there. There is plenty of material for an expanded biography of Calloway and his circle. A place to start might be "'The Loafers' in Birmingham in the Twenties," by John W. Bloomer, in The Alabama Review, April 1977 (Vol. 30, No. 2). A search of vertical files or newspaper microfilms in Birmingham libraries would probably turn up plenty of information, too. Again, a place to start: an article in the Birmingham News-Age-Herald, dated June 4, 1939.

An advertisement for Holtons Band Instruments featuring Neil O'Brien's Minstrels. Artemus Calloway wrote feature acts for the minstrel show for four years of his very prolific writing career.

Danger in Paradise by Octavus Roy Cohen, a fellow newspaperman in Birmingham and a successful author of crime novels. I'm afraid I don't know the name of the cover artist.

Weird Tales, "The Unique Magazine," April 1923. Artemus Calloway's story, "Jungle Death," appeared in this issue.  The cover artist was R.M. Mally.

Artemus Calloway (1883-1948)

Thanks to Randal A. Everts for the photograph of and other information on Artemus Calloway.
Text and captions copyright 2011, 2023 Terence E. Hanley

Edith Hurley (1903-1997)

Poet, Playwright, Scholar

Born December 23, 1903, Roanoke, Virginia

Died April 16, 1997, Welch, West Virginia

Edith Hurley's life encompassed almost the entire twentieth century and in that time she accomplished more than most. Despite her talents, she was content to remain in her own community, caring for her cats, feeding wild birds, writing poetry and plays, and adhering to her strong Christian faith. She was the kind of figure that is becoming increasingly rare in our own century, for Edith Hurley was a pillar of her community and active in every aspect, in business, her church, the arts, and society.

Edith Elizabeth Selwyn Hurley was born on December 23, 1903, in Roanoke, Virginia, but she spent most of her life in West Virginia. She graduated from Bramwell High School in Bramwell, West Virginia, and picked up her business training at Nashville Business College in Nashville, Tennessee. She graduated in 1921 and worked for a number of law firms in Welch, West Virginia, finally to retire in 1981.

According to Margaret Stacks, Edith's writing career flourished during the 1930s and '40s. She was among six West Virginians included in the collection American Women Poets of 1937. Her verse was published in newspapers in Welch, Bluefield, Huntington, Charleston, and Wheeling, all in her home state of West Virginia. About thirty of her poems saw print in the West Virginia Review. Others were published in small poetry magazines. More prominently, Edith's verse appeared in Contemporary American Women Poets, The Rotarian, and the New York Times. She continued writing poetry even in the nursing home.

Edith Hurley wrote five poems for Weird Tales, all published between 1929 and 1940, placing her in the top tiers of poets in terms of number of contributions. Despite her standing in her community and her strong religious faith (and despite the morbid titles of her poems), she was unashamed of her work for Weird Tales. The forward of her collection of poems, Faint Echo, published in 1977, lists a number of publications that printed her poetry. Weird Tales was one of them. I take that as evidence of the literary and cultural standing of Weird Tales among writers who might not otherwise have contributed to a magazine of fantasy.

Edith Hurley's plays, A More Perfect Union (1964) and We the People (1965), won her awards from the Freedoms Foundation of Valley Forge. She also won the West Virginia D.A.R. Society Certificate of Award in 1964 for A More Perfect Union. Her play, The Sequel on Ratification, won her first place in the Fine Arts Department of the West Virginia Federation of Women's Clubs. She also wrote a play entitled Liberty and Justice for All.

In her forward to Edith's 1977 collection of poems, Faint Echo, Margaret Stacks wrote:

A candid, courageous woman with an independence of spirit and a keen intellect, she set her own pattern of life, shaped her principles, and became an articulate champion of the eternal verities she honored and the causes she espoused.

A largely self-taught scholar, Edith was knowledgeable in art, music (especially opera), history, language, literature, and nature. She was very active in her church, serving as secretary, historian, and Bible moderator. She was also active in clubs and other social and civic groups. She was named Welch Chamber of Commerce Woman of the Year in 1966 and was an honorary member of Phi Chapter of Delta Kappa Gamma Society International for women educators. Everyone who knew her remarks upon her love of cats, birds, and others of God's creatures.

After a very long, active, and remarkable life, Edith S. Hurley died on April 16, 1997, in Welch, West Virginia. She was ninety-three years old.

Edith Hurley's Poems  and Letter in Weird Tales

"The Haunted Forest" (July 1929)

"Sonnet of Death" (June 1930)
Letter to "The Eyrie" (Oct. 1934)

"The City of Death" (Feb. 1939)

"The Dream" (Oct. 1939)

"The Great God Death" (Nov. 1940)

Further Reading

The best chance anyone has of reading about Edith Hurley or reading her works is probably to find a copy of her book, Faint Echo (1977).

Edith Elizabeth Selwyn Hurley in a snapshot from the 1940s, from the collection of Randal A. Everts.

Poet and playwright Edith S. Hurley (1903-1997).

Thanks to Eleanor Beckner at the McDowell Public Library in Welch, West Virginia, for her invaluable information on Edith Hurley.
Thanks to Randal A. Everts for providing Edith's middle name and the snapshot photograph shown above.
Text and captions copyright 2011, 2023 Terence E. Hanley

"It Happened to Me"

As I wrote a previous posting, Weird Tales, "The Unique Magazine," ran a feature called "It Happened to Me" in eleven installments between March 1940 and November 1941. The March 1940 issue was the last under the editorship of Farnsworth Wright. Dorothy McIlwraith took over in May and solicited submissions with the following blurb:

WEIRD TALES will pay ten dollars apiece for true psychic experiences. Have you ever slept in a haunted house, or been chased by a ghost? Have you ever dreamed a dream that came true? Has your life been changed by a vision? Let the other readers of WEIRD TALES know about your weird experience. Your story must be briefly told, in not more than a thousand words: the shorter the better. It must be true, interesting, and must deal with the supernatural. Write it down today and send it to WEIRD TALES, "It Happened to Me" department, 9 Rockefeller Plaza, New York, N.Y. We will pay ten dollars for every one used.

I have written about Jack Kytle and Ralph Rayburn Phillips, but I haven't been able to find information about the other nine writers for the series. If anyone knows anything about them, please send some information my way.

"It Happened to Me" in Weird Tales

"The Centurion's Prisoner" by Lindsay Nisbet (Mar. 1940)

"A Weird Prophecy" by Ken Gary (May 1940)

"Winter Night" by Alice Olsen (May 1940)

"San Francisco" by Caroline Evans (May 1940)

"Three Flowers" by F.T. Compton (July 1940)

"The Cast-Away Slave" by Thomas Trafton (July 1940)

"Rabbit's Intuition" by Jim Price (July 1940)

"They Lynched Him, and Then--" by Jack Kytle (Sept. 1940)

"Ghost Farm" by Dulcie Brown (Nov. 1940)

"The Egyptian Cross" by Ralph Rayburn Phillips (Mar. 1941)

"The Guardian Angel" by Sigmond Miller (Nov. 1941)

Further Reading

"A Weird Prophecy," "Winter Night," and "San Francisco" were reprinted in Weird Tales, a facsimile collection edited by Peter Haining (Carroll and Graf Publishers, 1990).

Ken Gary's tale involves a premonition of the author's death by a gunshot wound. Weird Tales sent him a check in payment for it, but the check was returned. In "Calling Ken Gary," an article published soon afterward, the magazine wondered about his whereabouts and fate. Ken Gary was last known to have lived in Bradenton or Tampa, Florida. "Winter Night," by Alice Olsen, is a variation on a well known folk tale or urban legend, the "girl in white" story. Finally, "San Francisco" is a brief account of astral projection.

"Symphony in White, No. 1: The White Girl," by the American painter James Abbott McNeill Whistler, because a picture of a girl in white seems right for a story about a girl in white.

Text and captions copyright 2011, 2023 Terence E. Hanley

Ralph Rayburn Phillips (1896-1974)

Artist, Writer

Born October 17, 1896, Rutland, Vermont

Died July 17, 1974, Portland, Oregon

Ralph Rayburn Phillips lived the life of a Bohemian artist. "I learned early to hate hopeless conformity," he said, and he did everything but conform to the norms of society. Tall and slender, with a thick shock of dark hair and a dark mustache, he lived in an eight-by-ten room in a Portland mansion, adhered to Buddhism (for a while at least), attended science fiction conventions, associated with Forteans, and drew pictures for science fiction and fantasy magazines or "fanzines." He enjoyed poetry--his sister, Iris Barrie, was a poet--and illustrated what some claim was the first poetry magazine devoted to a single genre, Challenge, a magazine of science fiction and fantasy verse.

Phillips was born on October 17, 1896, in Rutland, Vermont, the son of a dentist and physician. In about 1914, the family moved to Portland, Oregon, where Mr. Phillips sold farm implements. Ralph Rayburn Phillips studied art in high school and attended the School of Applied Art in Battle Creek, Michigan. At the time he filled out his draft card during World War I, he was living in a hotel in Los Angeles. By 1920, he was back in Portland and working as a commercial artist.

Phillips contributed to a number of publications, including Northwest Background, Fantasy Advertiser, Destiny: Tales of Science-Fantasy, Challenge (which was founded and edited by Lilith Lorraine), Fantastic Worlds, Quandry, The Fanscient, Nekromanticon, Shanadu: A Collection of Fantasy, and Weirdbook One. Describing himself as "representative and a modernist," Phillips created weird and surrealistic drawings and paintings, influenced perhaps by Salvador Dalí, Giorgio de Chirico, and Phillips' fellow fantasy artists. He may have influenced in turn artists who came after him. In any case, his vision was his own and his work highly original.

In the 1930 U.S. census and despite his aversion to conformity, Phillips gave his occupation as an organizer and salesman for a fraternal order. (Even slender Bohemian artists must eat.) It must have been a great day in his life when he discovered science fiction fandom, an outgrowth of the science fiction pulp magazines of the late twenties and early thirties. Phillips drew cover and interior illustrations for a number of fan magazines and attended science fiction conventions in Los Angeles in 1946 and Philadelphia in 1947. He was also involved in interests along the fringes of science fiction and fantasy, including Buddhism, the occult, and Fortean studies. His work for Weird Tales included several letters written between 1927 and 1940 and an installment in the series "It Happened to Me" in March 1941. His entry in the series, "The Egyptian Cross," was the second-to-last and displayed his interest in Egypt and the Orient.

In later years, Phillips became a character in the Portland city scene. Always barefoot, he would sit in the park, puff on his pipe, and read from a book of poetry. His lifestyle seems to have agreed with him, for Phillips lived to age seventy-nine. He died on July 17, 1974, in Portland.

Ralph Rayburn Phillips' Story and Letters in Weird Tales

Story
"The Egyptian Cross" (story in the series "It Happened to Me," Mar. 1941)

Letters to "The Eyrie"
July 1927
"From an Old Time Reader," Jan. 1938
June 1938
Dec. 1938
May 1939
Dec. 1939
May 1940

Letter to Strange Stories Magazine
Aug. 1940

Further Reading

You can read more about Ralph Rayburn Phillips at a blog called "From an Oblique Angle" here. Also, Manly Banister wrote a profile of Phillips for the science fiction fanzine Destiny #8 (Spring 1953), thankfully now scanned and available on the Internet as all early fanzines should be. You'll find the article on the website "Fanac Fan History Project" here.

Artist and writer Ralph Rayburn Phillips (1896-1974) from the fanzine Destiny #8 (Spring 1953). Perhaps influenced by Salvador Dalí, he even looks something like the Spanish surrealist in this photo.

Phillips' illustration for "The Gateway of Vroome" by Lilith Lorraine, from Destiny #8 (Spring 1953).

An untitled work by Ralph Rayburn Phillips. This may have been a work in color. Note that it appears in the portrait photograph above.

Finally, "Portland Graveyard," from Quandry #4 (November 1950).

Revised slightly on April 22, 2022.

Text and captions copyright 2011, 2023 Terence E. Hanley

Jack Kytle (1906-1971)

Journalist, Editor, Photographer, and Author

Born October 22, 1906, Wilsonville, Alabama

Died March 5, 1971, Birmingham, Alabama

In its March 1940 issue, the last under the editorship of Farnsworth Wright, Weird Tales began a new feature called "It Happened To Me." According to T.G.L. Cockcroft's Index to the Weird Fiction Magazines (1962), there were eleven installments in the series, each written by a different author and each an ostensibly true account of a psychic or supernatural experience. Dorothy McIlwraith's detractors point to "It Happened To Me" as evidence of "The Unique Magazine's" decline following Wright's departure. After all, the new series could be considered not much more than a confessional, the hallmark of the "true" magazine. Whatever the case, "It Happened To Me" lasted just a year and a half and its eleven installments appeared in just seven issues of Weird Tales (March 1940 to November 1941). As a "true" feature, it was overlapped and succeeded by Irwin J. Weill's "Superstitions and Taboos" (November 1940 to May 1947).

Jack Kytle wrote one installment in the series "It Happened To Me." Entitled "They Lynched Him, and Then--" it appeared in the September 1940 issue of the magazine as the eighth in the series. Whereas the previous two issues had carried three installments each, Kytle's story stood alone. Kytle may have known something about lynching. As a journalist covering events in his native Alabama, he may even have witnessed or reported on the crime. "They Lynched Him, and Then--" was published at a time when lynching in America was still commonplace and just one year after Billie Holiday's version of "Strange Fruit" reached its highest point on the pop music charts.

Elvyn Jackson Kytle was born on October 22, 1906, in Wilsonville, Alabama. As a child, he lived with his family in Talladega, Alabama, and Tallapoosa, Georgia. He was a sportswriter in Atlanta and a writer and copy editor for the Birmingham Age-Herald, Birmingham Post, and Birmingham Post-Herald. Kytle also wrote a column, "Byways of Birmingham," for five years for the Post. In fact, he was a jack-of-all-trades as a writer. His work appeared in the Milwaukee Journal, The Christian Science Monitor, The Message Magazine, and several western pulp titles, including Texas Rangers, Giant Western, Ranch Romances, and Triple Western between 1953 and 1960.

During the 1930s, Kytle was on the editorial staff of the Alabama Writers' Project under the Works Progress Administration (WPA). Kytle and his co-editor, Luther Clark, were responsible for Alabama: A Guide to the Deep South (1941), part of the renowned American Guide Series. Kytle also wrote Fish Are Fighters in Alabama, illustrated by William H. Bunce and published by the Alabama Department of Conservation in 1941.

In the course of his work for the WPA, Kytle interviewed workmen, river men, convicts, former slaves, and other denizens of the pre-war South. His work has been published most recently in Up Before Daylight: Life Histories from the Alabama Writers' Project, 1938-1939 by James Seay Brown (1997) and The Food of a Younger Land by Mark Kurlansky (2009). Mr. Kurlansky's book is available on Google Books.

Kytle served in the U.S. Army in New Guinea and the Philippines during World War II. For more than twenty years, he worked for Alabama newspapers, and he was a freelance writer. His last residence was in Homewood, Alabama, adjacent to Birmingham. Jack Kytle died on March 5, 1971. He was just sixty-four years old.

Jack Kytle's Story in Weird Tales

"They Lynched Him, and Then--"

Further Reading

Books by James Seay Brown and Mark Kurlansky, mentioned above, include some of Kytle's work.

"Lucindy Jurdon, former slave from Georgia," with her mother's spinning wheel. Photograph possibly by Preston Klein and Jack Kytle, ca. 1938, from the website of George Washington University. Jack Kytle worked for the WPA during the Great Depression, traveling in the South and interviewing former slaves, laborers, and others.

One result of his work for the WPA was the book Alabama: A Guide to the Deep South, co-edited by Luther Clark.

Thanks to Jiemin Fan at the Birmingham Public Library, Birmingham, Alabama, for finding Jack Kytle's obituary. Thanks also to Randal A. Everts for providing Kytle's full middle name.

Text and captions copyright 2011, 2023 Terence E. Hanley

Wilma Dorothy Vermilyea (1915-1995)

Aka Millen Cooke, Millen Belknap, Millen le Poer Trench, Millen Trench
Poet, Author, Occultist

Born March 17, 1915, Dilley, Oregon

Died May 21, 1995, Mill Park, Victoria, Australia

Born on March 17, 1915, in Dilley, Oregon, Wilma Dorothy Millen Vermilyea lived in Multnomah and Washington counties as a child and attended Forest Grove High School outside Portland. From an early age, she was interested in theology and philosophy and later became a follower of Tibetan Buddhism.  I know nothing else about her early life except that her poem, "Fear: A Fantasy," was published in the February 1936 issue of Weird Tales under her own name. Wilma, who preferred to be called Millen, also wrote a number of letters to The American Theosophist magazine during the early 1940s. More importantly for science fiction and fantasy fans, she began submitting stories to pulp magazines.

Pen names and house names were common among writers of the pulp fiction era. Wilma Vermilyea used at least two names in her career as a science fiction writer. Her pen name, "Millen Cooke," was a combination of her preferred first name and her husband's last name. "Alexander Blade," used by a number of writers (including Millen), was a house name for Amazing Stories and Fantastic Adventures, both of which were published by Ziff-Davis and edited by Raymond A. Palmer. A blog called "Dark Worlds" by G.W. Thomas lists the men and women who shared the name "Alexander Blade." Unfortunately, Mr. Thomas' list does not indicate which of "Blade's" stories were the work of Millen Cooke. In any case, she was in good company, for Edmond Hamilton, Robert Silverberg, and John Jakes were among the many authors who masqueraded as Alexander Blade in the years 1941 to 1958.

According to the Internet Speculative Fiction Database (ISFDB), Millen Cooke's science fiction was limited to three magazines of the 1940s and '50s: Amazing Stories, Fantastic Fiction (as by Alexander Blade), and Other Worlds Science Stories. ISFDB's list of her work is short enough to repeat here. All stories and essays are as by Millen Cooke unless otherwise indicated:

Stories

• "The Affair of Matthew Eldon" (Amazing Stories, May 1946)
• "M-m-m-m-m-m!" (Amazing Stories, Oct. 1946, reprinted in Science Fiction Adventure Yearbook, 1970)
• "I, John Cotter" (Amazing Stories, Apr. 1947, available as a download on the Internet)
• "The Egg of Time" (Amazing Stories, Mar. 1948)
• "Descent from Mera" (Other Worlds Science Stories, Jan. 1950)
• "Edmund Latimer's Milking Machine" (Other Worlds Science Stories, May 1950)

Essays

• "A Champion for Tibet" (Amazing Stories, May 1946)
• "The Truth About Tibet" (Amazing Stories, Nov. 1946)
• "Son of the Sun" as by Alexander Blade (Fantastic Adventures, Nov. 1947)

If the list is complete, then Millen Cooke's entire body of published science fiction appeared in four short years, between May 1946 and May 1950. Her first marriage, to a man deeply interested in the occult, was inclusive of those years. Also during that period, two new real-world beliefs, Dianetics and flying saucers, began to evolve out of the work of science fiction writers. Millen Cooke would be involved in both.

Millen Cooke's first husband, John Starr Cooke, was born into a wealthy and prominent family in Honolulu, Hawaii, on March 9, 1920. He became interested in the occult early in life and used a Ouija board to make important decisions, including the decision to marry. Cooke and Wilma Dorothy Vermilyea married in 1943 and divorced in 1951. In the course of their marriage, Millen Cooke had a series of visions which formed the basis of her husband's "Atlantean Tarot," one of three original Tarot decks he created. (Cooke pronounced Tarot to rhyme with carrot.) She also wrote science fiction, which remains as a large part of her legacy today. An actor and dancer, Cooke appeared on stage and in movies (as an extra) during the early 1940s and was involved in theosophy, Scientology, and the Bahai faith. He also claimed to own Aleister Crowley's own crystal ball.

Cooke lived in North Africa for many years before returning to the United States in the late 1950s. According to a blog called "Doctrine Wars" (doctrinewars.blogspot.com), he was revered by members of the Sufi sect, claimed he could activate "shakti" and "Kundalini" energies, and made an additional claim that he could induce a spinal seizure by touching people on the forehead. (Maybe he was the inspiration for the character of Professor Robert Orwell Sutwell in Beach Party (1963). Played by Bob Cummings, Professor Sutwell is a master of "The Himalayan Suspender," otherwise known as "The Finger," frequently used to render Eric Von Zipper helpless.) Cooke became involved in the counter-culture movement in the San Francisco area during the tumultuous '60s. After many years living in Mexico, John Starr Cooke died of cancer on August 21, 1976.

Millen's second husband was William Burke Belknap, Jr., a friend and associate of her first. Like Cooke, Belknap was the scion of a prominent family. Born on December 30, 1923, in Goshen, Kentucky, he graduated from Yale University and worked as a chemical engineer.  He became interested in L. Ron Hubbard's Dianetics and served as president of the Freudian Foundation of America, Inc., a Scientological organization dating from the early 1950s. He and Millen were married for a brief period during which she was also involved in Scientology. Their marriage ended in divorce, after which he remarried, in 1960. Burke Belknap lived and worked in Oceanside, California, and died on November 26, 2010.

On June 16, 1961, Millen topped off her marriages to fringe figures when she walked down the aisle with (take a deep breath) The Right Honourable William Francis Brinsley Le Poer Trench, 8th Earl of Clancarty, 7th Marquess of Heusden. Le Poer Trench (1911-1995) was an Irish peer, a member of Dutch nobility, and a member of the House of Lords. He was also a believer in ancient astronauts, a hollow earth, and flying saucers. Editor of the Flying Saucer Review from 1956 to 1959, Le Poer Trench wrote several books on the subject, including The Sky People (1960), The Flying Saucer Story (1966), Operation Earth (1969), and Secret of the Ages (1974). Millen, who had been investigating aliens and UFOs for a quarter century, provided some of the concepts and content for Le Poer Trench's first book. Unfortunately, he did not give her credit when The Sky People was published. According to an anonymous source, part of his second book, Men Among Mankind (1962), was hers as well.

Wilma Dorothy Millen Vermilyea lived in many places the world over during her long life. Her marriage to Brinsley Le Poer Trench ended in divorce in 1969, but by an almost occult coincidence, they died in 1995 within days of each other, though half the globe and many years apart separated them.

Wilma Dorothy Vermilyea's Poem in Weird Tales

"Fear: A Fantasy" (Feb. 1936)

Further Reading

Biographical information on Wilma Dorothy Vermilyea and her husbands is relatively easy to find. If you want to read more about John Starr Cooke, you might start with a website called "The Royal Maze," here.

A page from The Optimist, the yearbook of Forest Grove High School, 1929. Wilma Dorothy Vermilyea is there, second from the right in the third row from the bottom, looking very boyish.

Millen and John Starr Cooke, 1943, the year in which they were married. Photograph courtesy of an anonymous source.

John Starr Cooke (1920-1976), actor, occultist, artist, and the first husband of Wilma Dorothy Vermilyea. Photo from the website, "The Royal Maze."

In Beach Party, Bob Cummings played Professor Robert Orwell Sutwell. . .

And here he is (in the seersucker suit) as Eric Von Zipper gives himself "The Finger." Could Cummings' character (or at least his talent) have been inspired by John Starr Cooke?

The Flying Saucer Story from 1966, a peak year for popular culture in America. Written by Brinsley Le Poer Trench, the book was one of hundreds concerning visitors from outer space published during the 1950s and '60s. Le Poer Trench was Wilma Dorothy Vermilyea's third husband.

A photograph of a UFO, taken by Millen Belknap, April 10, 1958, in Vista, California.

Note: This is a revised version of the original posting. Thanks to an anonymous source for confirmation of certain information, and for corrections and clarifications.

Text and captions copyright 2011, 2023 Terence E. Hanley