X-Message-Number: 11388
Date: Mon, 8 Mar 1999 07:02:50 -0500
From: Saul Kent <>
Subject: Kubrick, Schloss and Sellers

        Bob Ettinger just posted (11384) some recollections about Stanley
Kubrick's activities vis-a-vis cryonics in the 1960s.  

        One thing Ben Schloss did after reading The Prospect of
Immortality was to hold a fundraising meeting for cryonics "research" at
the New York Academy of  

Sciences in New York, which I attended.  Schloss called his organization
the Society for Anabiosis.  He started the meeting by reading a long
series of "telegrams" from celebrities such as Nelson Rockefeller (then
Governor of New York) who were  

"unable to attend".  This took up so much time that several people dozed
off.  As far as I could determine, Ben didn't raise any money during this
meeting.  

        Later Ben started an organization to achieve physical immortality
by 1989.  Unfortunately, he died of cancer well before 1989.  I talked to
him after he was diagnosed with cancer.  He said he didn't want to make
preparation to be frozen because he was too busy "raising funds" to
achieve immortality by 1989.  

        I understand that another person who received a copy of Ettinger's
book from Kubrick was film actor Peter Sellers, who allegedly read the
book after his first heart attack and then exclaimed that he was very
excited about the prospect of being frozen.  Sellers died some years later
of another heart attack.  He was not frozen.  

        I am an admirer of Kubrick's films.  I hoped that he would someday
make a film about cryonics/life extension.  I guess I'll have to wait for
Stephen Spielberg.  

---Saul Kent  

Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=11388