Robert Martin(1948-2020)

Robert Martin was the original editor of "Fangoria", the magazine of horror and exploitation film. Martin steered the publication from 1979 to 1986 -- the slasher-film boom years. Martin's so-called "acting" was a by-product of his career as a journalist, and included a prominent role as a wheelchair-bound geek in "Madhouse", the first video made by the band Anthrax (who were Fangoria readers), directed by Amos Poe. A collaborative relationship with writer-director Frank Henenlotter resulted in two produced screenplays, with Martin writing initial drafts from Henenlotter's detailed outlines. In 1994, Martin, under the name "Ed Flixman" became editor of "Sci-Fi Entertainment", the "Official Magazine" of the Sci-Fi Channel, and continued in that capacity through October of 1996. His column of film news continued to run in that magazine, until an argument with the editor regarding remarks in his column that the new editor feared might incur the wrath of the Sci-Fi Channel. In December of 1996, Martin relocated from his native New York to Los Angeles, where he mostly worked as an Internet techie, but also wrote press materials for a few films, most notably "The People vs. Larry Flynt," in which his description of Flynt as "the last champion of the sexual revolution" stirred the wrath of Gloria Steinem, generating considerable press for the film. (In Martin's original, the phrase had been "the last champion of a failed sexual revolution.") As of January, 2006, he is working as a blackjack dealer in Las Vegas.