American artist, cartoonist, pornographer and science fiction author, he was a four-time Hugo Award winner and one-time Nebula Award nominee.
From 1958, Rotsler was involved in the pornography industry, first as a stills photographer on the set of adult films, and later as a film director and actor. In 1966, Rotsler created Adam Film Quarterly, later called Adam Film World, as a sibling magazine to Knight Publishing’s Adam magazine. Adam Film Quarterly featured female nudity but only simulated sex acts.
A byproduct of his coverage of sexploitation films, Rostler earned a reputation as writer—creating novelizations of sexploitation films for his magazine—and as a pornographic photographer.
Rotsler wrote, directed, or acted in some two dozen pornographic films during his career with Boxoffice International Pictures. He also wrote Contemporary Erotic Cinema in 1973, published by Ballantine and Penthouse about pornographic movies from an aesthetic point of view.
Rotsler was a popular cartoonist for science fiction fanzines. His first cover illustration was for National Fantasy Fan, vol. 7, issue 2, published in 1948. He won the Hugo Award for Best Fan Artist four times: 1975, 1979, 1996, and 1997. He also won a “retro-Hugo” for his work in 1946 and was runner-up for 1951.
William Rotsler died on 18 October 1997 at age 71. The Rotsler Award, named for him, is given annually at Loscon by the Southern California Institute for Fan Interests to recognize “lifetime work of outstanding fan artists.”
Link to Wikipedia biography