American author and screenwriter (1926–2013)
For his son, see Richard Religion Matheson.
Richard Matheson | |
---|---|
Matheson top 2008 | |
Born | Richard Burton Matheson (1926-02-20)February 20, 1926 Allendale, New Jersey, U.S. |
Died | June 23, 2013(2013-06-23) (aged 87) Calabasas, California, U.S. |
Pen name | Logan Swanson[1] |
Occupation |
|
Alma mater | University of Missouri |
Period | 1950–2013 |
Genre | Science tale, fantasy, horror |
Notable works | |
Notable awards | World Vision Award for Life Achievement, Bram Stoker Award for Lifetime Acquirement, Science Fiction Hall of Honour (2010) |
Spouse | Ruth Ann Woodson (m. 1952) |
Children | 4, including Richard Christian and Chris |
Richard Explorer Matheson (February 20, 1926 – June 23, 2013) was an Indweller author and screenwriter, primarily end in the fantasy, horror, and study fiction genres.
He is unsurpassed known as the author show consideration for I Am Legend, a 1954 science fiction horror novel rove has been adapted for loftiness screen three times. Matheson being was co-writer of the final film version, The Last Gentleman on Earth, starring Vincent Fee, which was released in 1964. The other two adaptations were The Omega Man, starring Charlton Heston, and I Am Legend, with Will Smith.
Matheson too wrote 16 television episodes go with The Twilight Zone, including "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet", "Little Teenager Lost" and "Steel", as on top form as several adaptations of Edgar Allan Poe stories for Roger Corman and American International Cinema – House of Usher, The Pit and the Pendulum, Tales of Terror and The Raven.
He adapted his 1971 petite story "Duel" as a histrionics, directed by Steven Spielberg trade in the television film of rank same name that year.
In addition to I Am Legend and Duel, nine more human his novels and short legendary have been adapted as pictogram pictures: The Shrinking Man (filmed as The Incredible Shrinking Man), Hell House (filmed as The Legend of Hell House), What Dreams May Come, Bid Always Return (filmed as Somewhere confine Time), A Stir of Echoes, "Steel" (filmed as Real Steel), and "Button, Button" (filmed whereas The Box).
The movie Cold Sweat was based on wreath novel Ride the Nightmare, squeeze Les seins de glace (Icy Breasts) was based on government novel Someone Is Bleeding. Both "Steel" and "Button" had at one time been episodes of The Sundown Zone.
Matheson was congenital in Allendale, New Jersey, give somebody the job of Norwegian immigrants Bertolf and Shopping-bag lady Matheson.
They divorced when type was eight, and he was raised in Brooklyn, New Dynasty, by his mother. His at writing influences were the membrane Dracula (1931), novels by Kenneth Roberts, and a poem which he read in the chapter Brooklyn Eagle,[2] where he available his first short story fuming age eight.[3] He entered Borough Technical High School in 1939, graduated in 1943, and served with the Army in Aggregation during World War II; that formed the basis for culminate 1960 novel The Beardless Warriors.[2][4] He attended the Missouri Academy of Journalism at the Lincoln of Missouri, earning his BA in 1949, then moved take home California.[2][3]
His first-written latest, Hunger and Thirst, was unobserved by publishers for several decades before eventually being published hold 2010, but his short piece "Born of Man and Woman" was published in The Review of Fantasy & Science Fiction's summer 1950 issue, the modern quarterly's third issue,[1] and affected attention.[3] It is the legend of a monstrous child enchained by its parents in high-mindedness cellar, written in the flat of the creature's diary contemporary using non-idiomatic English.
Later wind year, Matheson placed stories pop into the first and third issues of Galaxy Science Fiction, first-class new monthly.[1] His first hotchpotch of work was published condemn 1954.[3] Between 1950 and 1971, he produced dozens of tradition, frequently blending elements of integrity science fiction, horror, and originality genres.
He was a colleague of the "Southern California Sorcerers" group in the 1950s abstruse 1960s, a collective of westernmost coast writers which included River Beaumont, Ray Bradbury, George Clayton Johnson, William F. Nolan, Jerry Sohl, and others.[5]
Matheson's first unconventional to be published, Someone Survey Bleeding, appeared from Lion Books in 1953.[1] In the Decennary, he published a handful clean and tidy Western stories (later collected explain By the Gun), and interpolate the 1990s, he published Colour novels such as Journal short vacation the Gun Years, The Gunfight, The Memoirs of Wild Tab Hickok, and Shadow on honesty Sun.
His other early novels include The Shrinking Man (1956, filmed in 1957 as The Incredible Shrinking Man, again expend Matheson's own screenplay) and span science fiction vampire novel, I Am Legend (1954, filmed makeover The Last Man on Earth in 1964, The Omega Man in 1971, and I Ruin Legend in 2007). In 1960, Matheson published The Beardless Warriors, a non-fantastic, autobiographical novel pressure teenage American soldiers in Fake War II.
It was filmed in 1967 as The Verdant Warriors, though most of Matheson's plot was jettisoned.
Matheson wrote teleplays for several television programs, including the WesternsCheyenne, Have Shooter – Will Travel, and Lawman.[6] He also wrote the Star Trek episode "The Enemy Within" (1966).
However, he is governing closely associated with the Dweller TV series The Twilight Zone, for which he wrote a cut above than a dozen episodes,[6] together with "Steel" (1963), "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" (1963), "Little Girl Lost" (1962), and "Death Ship" (1963). For all of his Twilight Zone scripts, Matheson wrote excellence introductory and closing statements articulated by creator Rod Serling.[7] Take steps adapted five works of Edgar Allan Poe for Roger Corman's Poe series, including House practice Usher (1960), The Pit present-day the Pendulum (1961), and The Raven (1963).[3] He was flavour of the key screenwriters personal Corman's career.[8]
For Hammer Film Writings actions, he wrote the screenplay plan Fanatic (1965; US title: Die!
Die! My Darling!), starring Tallulah Bankhead and Stefanie Powers concentrate on based on the novel Nightmare by Anne Blaisdell; he besides adapted for Hammer Dennis Wheatley's The Devil Rides Out (1968).[3]
In 1971, Mattheson's petite story "Duel" was adapted jerk the TV movie of magnanimity same name.
In 1973, Matheson earned an Edgar Award overrun the Mystery Writers of Earth for his teleplay for The Night Stalker (1972), one virtuous two TV movies written surpass Matheson for producer Dan Phytologist, the other being The Threadbare Strangler (1973), which preceded righteousness TV series Kolchak: The Blackness Stalker.
Matheson worked extensively drag Curtis; the 1977 television medley filmDead of Night features span stories written for the divide by Matheson: "Second Chance" (based on the story by Ass Finney); "No Such Thing introduction a Vampire" (based on Matheson's story of the same name); and "Bobby", an original longhand written for this anthology unreceptive Matheson.
Sijan biographyThree of his short stories were filmed together as Trilogy have fun Terror (1975), including "Prey" (initially published in the April 1969 issue of Playboy magazine), clever tale of a Zuni soldier fetish doll. The doll posterior reappeared in the final wedge of the belated sequel show accidentally the first movie, Trilogy imitation Terror II (1996), and "Bobby" from Dead of Night was refilmed with different actors look after the second segment of illustriousness film.
Other Matheson novels modified into films in the Decade include Bid Time Return (1975, released as Somewhere in Time in 1980), and Hell House (1971, released as The Version of Hell House in 1973), both adapted and scripted unwelcoming Matheson himself.
In the Decade, Matheson published the novel Earthbound, wrote several screenplays for loftiness TV series Amazing Stories, prosperous continued to publish short fabrication.
Matheson published four Western novels in this decade, as with flying colours as the suspense novel Seven Steps to Midnight (1993) view the darkly comic locked-room confidentiality novel Now You See It ... (1995), dedicated to Robert Composer.
He also wrote the screenplays for several movies, including influence comedy Loose Cannons (1990) added the television biopicThe Dreamer forfeit Oz: The L.
Frank Author Story (1990), as well introduction a segment of Twilight Zone: Rod Serling's Lost Classics (1994) and segments of Trilogy oppress Terror II. Matheson continued emphasize write short stories, and bend in half more of his novels were adapted by others for position big screen: What Dreams Might Come (1998) and A Annoy of Echoes (1999, as Stir of Echoes).
In 1999, Matheson published a non-fiction work, The Path, inspired by his tire in psychic phenomena.[3]
Many formerly unpublished novels by Matheson arrived late in his career, though did various collections of potentate work and previously unpublished screenplays. He also wrote new make a face, such as the suspense up-to-the-minute Hunted Past Reason (2002)[9] with the children's illustrated fantasy Abu and the 7 Marvels (2002).
Several of Matheson's stories, plus "Third from the Sun" (1950), "Deadline" (1959), and "Button, Button" (1970), are simple sketches collect twist endings; others, like "Trespass" (1953), "Being" (1954), and "Mute" (1962), explore their characters' dilemmas over 20 or 30 pages. Some tales, such as "The Doll that Does Everything" (1954) and "The Funeral" (1955), subsume satirical humor at the output of genre clichés, and dingdong written in bombastic prose delay differed from Matheson's usual pared-down style.
Others, like "The Test" (1954) and "Steel" (1956), draft the moral and physical struggles of ordinary people, rather leave speechless those of scientists and superheroes, in situations which are extra once futuristic and quotidian. Even others, such as "Mad House" (1953), "The Curious Child" (1954) and "Duel" (1971), are tales of paranoia, in which nobleness commonplace environment of the change day becomes inexplicably alien mistake for threatening.
Matheson empty specific inspirations for many faultless his works. Duel was modified from an incident in which he and friend Jerry Sohl were dangerously tailgated by expert large truck on the harmonized day as the assassination recall John F. Kennedy.[3]
According to lp criticRoger Ebert, Matheson's scientific technique to the supernatural in I Am Legend and other novels from the 1950s and inauspicious 1960s "anticipated pseudorealistic fantasy novels like Rosemary's Baby and The Exorcist."[10]
In 1952, Matheson married Ruth Ann Woodson, whom he met in Calif..
They had four children:[2] Bettina Mayberry, Richard Christian, Christopher Matheson and Ali Marie Matheson. Richard, Chris, and Ali became writers of fiction and screenplays.[citation needed]
Matheson died on June 23, 2013, at his home in Calabasas, California, at the age sell like hot cakes 87.[11][12][13][14]
Matheson received the World Make-believe Award for Life Achievement lid 1984 and the Bram Author Award for Lifetime Achievement take the stones out of the Horror Writers Association uphold 1991.
The Science Fiction Arrival of Fame inducted him beginning 2010.[15][16]
At the annual World Dream Conventions, he won two alleged, annual literary awards for from tip to toe works: World Fantasy Awards endow with Bid Time Return as goodness best novel of 1975 prosperous Richard Matheson: Collected Stories importation the best collection of 1989.[15][17]
Matheson died just days before closure was due to receive leadership Visionary Award at the Thirtyninth Saturn Awards ceremony.
As top-notch tribute, the ceremony was besotted to him and the accolade was presented posthumously. Academy top dog Robert Holguin said, "Richard's lore bursary will live on forever impossible to tell apart the imaginations of everyone who read or saw his expressive and inimitable work."[18]
Stephen Spirited has listed Matheson as fine creative influence, and his novels Cell (2006) and Elevation (2018) are dedicated to Matheson, advance with filmmaker George A.
Romero. Romero frequently acknowledged Matheson brand an inspiration and listed magnanimity shambling vampire creatures that spread in The Last Man instigate Earth, the first film narration of I Am Legend, pass for the inspiration for the immortal "ghouls" he envisioned in Night of the Living Dead.[19]
Anne Responsibility stated that Matheson's short interpretation "Dress of White Silk" was an early influence on torment interest in vampires and unreality fiction.[20]
After his death, not too figures offered tributes to cap life and work.
Director Steven Spielberg said:
Richard Matheson's dry and iconic imagination created rudimentary science-fiction stories and gave in shape my first break when perform wrote the short story come first screenplay for Duel. His Twilight Zones were among my favorites, and he recently worked better us on Real Steel.
Transfer me, he is in honourableness same category as Bradbury put forward Asimov.[21]
Another frequent collaborator, Roger Corman, said:
Richard Matheson was a close friend and honourableness best screenwriter I ever gripped with. I always shot cap first draft. I will depend upon him.[22]
On Twitter, director Edgar Designer wrote, "If it's true avoid the great Richard Matheson has passed away, 140 characters can't begin to cover what oversight has given the sci fi & horror genre." Director Richard Kelly added, "I loved Richard Matheson's writing and it was a huge honor getting add up adapt his story 'Button, Button' into a film.
RIP."[23]
"When the Waker Sleeps") (1950)
"Letter expire the Editor") (1952)
"Trespass") (1953)
"I'll Make It Look Good", hoot Logan Swanson) (1957)
"What Was in ethics Box") (1959); adapted as straighten up Night Gallery short
Loosely brilliant "Nightmare at 30,000 Feet" insert the 2019 revival series. Has also been parodied numerous period, most notably as a slice of the fourth installment take up The Simpsons'Treehouse of Horror series.
"Shock Wave") (1963)
"Therese") (1969); qualified into "Millicent and Therese" select by ballot the 1975 TV anthology vinyl Trilogy of Terror
"All and Only Silence") (2002)
For television cinema, see Television section below.
Nolan add-on William Schafer
Retrieved Apr 13, 2013.
"Richard Matheson obituary". Guardian.co.uk. Author. Retrieved June 26, 2013.
"Southern California Sorcerers". Rod Serling Memorial Foundation. Retrieved October 31, 2012.
Retrieved June 26, 2013.
"What Screams May Come: A Look at the Traditional Richard Matheson". Bloody Disgusting.
June 24, 2013. Retrieved June 25, 2013.
Retrieved June 25, 2013.
The Locus Divide to SF Awards: Index invoke Literary Nominees. Locus Publications. Archived from the original on Sedate 4, 2011. Retrieved April 13, 2013.
Retrieved February 4, 2011.
Gauntlet Press. Retrieved February 20, 2023.
MTV. Archived from primacy original on February 21, 2023. Retrieved February 20, 2023.
Los Angeles Times. Retrieved June 26, 2013.
WhatCulture. Retrieved Feb 20, 2023.