Richard Matheson

Richard Burton Matheson (February 20, 1926 – June 23, 2013) was an American author and screenwriter, primarily in the fantasy, horror, and science fiction genres.

He is best known as the author of '' I Am Legend'', a 1954 science fiction horror novel that has been adapted for the screen three times. Matheson himself was co-writer of the first film version, '' The Last Man on Earth'', starring Vincent Price, which was released in 1964. The other two adaptations were ''The Omega Man'', starring Charlton Heston, and '' I Am Legend'', with Will Smith. Matheson also wrote 16 television episodes of ''The Twilight Zone'', including " Nightmare at 20,000 Feet", " Little Girl Lost" and "Steel", as well as several adaptations of Edgar Allan Poe stories for Roger Corman and American International Pictures – '' House of Usher'', '' The Pit and the Pendulum'', '' Tales of Terror'' and ''The Raven''. He adapted his 1971 short story "Duel" as a screenplay, directed by Steven Spielberg as the television film of the same name that year.

In addition to ''I Am Legend'' and ''Duel'', nine more of his novels and short stories have been adapted as motion pictures: '' The Shrinking Man'' (filmed as ''The Incredible Shrinking Man''), '' Hell House'' (filmed as '' The Legend of Hell House''), '' What Dreams May Come'', '' Bid Time Return'' (filmed as '' Somewhere in Time''), '' A Stir of Echoes'', "Steel" (filmed as ''Real Steel''), and " Button, Button" (filmed as '' The Box''). The movie '' Cold Sweat'' was based on his novel ''Ride the Nightmare'', and ''Les seins de glace'' ('' Icy Breasts'') was based on his novel ''Someone Is Bleeding''. Both "Steel" and "Button" had previously been episodes of ''The Twilight Zone''.

Early life

Matheson was born in Allendale, New Jersey, to Norwegian immigrants Bertolf and Fanny Matheson. They divorced when he was eight, and he was raised in Brooklyn, New York by his mother. His early writing influences were the film ''Dracula'' (1931), novels by Kenneth Roberts, and a poem which he read in the ''Brooklyn Eagle'', where he published his first short story at age eight. He entered Brooklyn Technical High School in 1939, graduated in 1943, and served with the Army in Europe during World War II; this formed the basis for his 1960 novel '' The Beardless Warriors''. Following his discharge, he received his undergraduate degree (via the G.I. Bill) from the Missouri School of Journalism at the University of Missouri in 1949 before moving to California.

Career

1950s and 1960s

His first-written novel, ''Hunger and Thirst'', was ignored by publishers for several decades before eventually being published in 2010, but his short story " Born of Man and Woman" was published in ''The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fictions summer 1950 issue, the new quarterly's third issue, and attracted attention. It is the tale of a monstrous child chained by its parents in the cellar, written in the form of the creature's diary and using non- idiomatic English. Later that year, Matheson placed stories in the first and third issues of ''Galaxy Science Fiction'', a new monthly. His first anthology of work was published in 1954. Between 1950 and 1971, he produced dozens of stories, frequently blending elements of the science fiction, horror, and fantasy genres.

He was a member of the "Southern California Sorcerers" group in the 1950s and 1960s, an informal collective of West Coast-based writers which included Charles Beaumont, Ray Bradbury, George Clayton Johnson, William F. Nolan, Jerry Sohl, and others; collectively, these writers shared an affinity for an allegorically numinous storytelling approach that bridged the heretofore persistent lacuna between the relatively cloistered, professionally interlocked world of print science fiction (and such critical derivations as contemporaneous amateur press association-oriented science fiction fandom) with the "mainstream" New York City-based publishing industry (in particular, Bradbury was championed by the likes of Christopher Isherwood and Truman Capote) and the broader milieux of film and television (culminating in their recognition as a kind of informal brain trust retained by creator/showrunner Rod Serling on ''The Twilight Zone'').

Matheson's first novel to be published, ''Someone Is Bleeding'', appeared from Lion Books in 1953. In the 1950s, he published a handful of Western stories (later collected in ''By the Gun''), and in the 1990s, he published Western novels such as ''Journal of the Gun Years'', ''The Gunfight'', ''The Memoirs of Wild Bill Hickok'', and ''Shadow on the Sun''.

His other early novels include '' The Shrinking Man'' (1956, filmed in 1957 as ''The Incredible Shrinking Man'', again from Matheson's own screenplay) and a science fiction vampire novel, '' I Am Legend'' (1954, filmed as '' The Last Man on Earth'' in 1964, ''The Omega Man'' in 1971, and '' I Am Legend'' in 2007). In 1960, Matheson published ''The Beardless Warriors'', a non-fantastic, autobiographical novel about teenage American soldiers in World War II. It was filmed in 1967 as '' The Young Warriors'', though most of Matheson's plot was jettisoned.

Matheson wrote teleplays for several television programs, including the Westerns ''Cheyenne'', '' Have Gun – Will Travel'', and '' Lawman''. He also wrote the ''Star Trek'' episode " The Enemy Within" (1966). However, he is most closely associated with the American TV series ''The Twilight Zone'', for which he wrote more than a dozen episodes, including "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 the introductory and closing statements spoken by creator Rod Serling. He adapted five works of Edgar Allan Poe for Roger Corman's Poe series, including '' House of Usher'' (1960), '' The Pit and the Pendulum (1961)'', and ''The Raven'' (1963). He was one of the key screenwriters in Corman's career.

For Hammer Film Productions, he wrote the screenplay for '' Fanatic'' (1965; US title: ''Die! Die! My Darling!''), starring Tallulah Bankhead and Stefanie Powers and based on the novel ''Nightmare'' by Anne Blaisdell; he also adapted for Hammer Dennis Wheatley's ''The Devil Rides Out'' (1968).

1970s and 1980s

In 1971, Mattheson's short story "Duel" was adapted into the TV movie of the same name. In 1973, Matheson earned an Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America for his teleplay for '' The Night Stalker'' (1972), one of two TV movies written by Matheson for producer Dan Curtis, the other being '' The Night Strangler'' (1973), which preceded the TV series '' Kolchak: The Night Stalker''. Matheson worked extensively with Curtis; the 1977 television anthology film '' Dead of Night'' features three stories written for the screen by Matheson: "Second Chance" (based on the story by Jack Finney); "No Such Thing as a Vampire" (based on Matheson's story of the same name); and "Bobby", an original script written for this anthology by Matheson.

Three of his short stories were filmed together as '' Trilogy of Terror'' (1975), including "Prey" (initially published in the April 1969 issue of ''Playboy'' magazine), a tale of a Zuni warrior fetish doll. The doll later reappeared in the final segment of the belated sequel to the first movie, '' Trilogy of Terror II'' (1996), and "Bobby" from ''Dead of Night'' was refilmed with different actors for the second segment of the film.

Other Matheson novels adapted into films in the 1970s include ''Bid Time Return'' (1975, released as '' Somewhere in Time'' in 1980), and '' Hell House'' (1971, released as '' The Legend of Hell House'' in 1973), both adapted and scripted by Matheson himself.

In the 1980s, Matheson published the novel ''Earthbound'', wrote several screenplays for the TV series ''Amazing Stories'', and continued to publish short fiction.

1990s

Matheson published four Western novels in this decade, as well as the suspense novel ''Seven Steps to Midnight'' (1993) and the darkly comic locked-room mystery novel ''Now You See It ...'' (1995), dedicated to Robert Bloch.

He also wrote the screenplays for several movies, including the comedy '' Loose Cannons'' (1990) and the television biopic '' The Dreamer of Oz: The L. Frank Baum Story'' (1990), as well as a segment of '' Twilight Zone: Rod Serling's Lost Classics'' (1994) and segments of ''Trilogy of Terror II''. Matheson continued to write short stories, and two more of his novels were adapted by others for the big screen: '' What Dreams May Come'' (1998) and '' A Stir of Echoes'' (1999, as '' Stir of Echoes''). In 1999, Matheson published a non-fiction work, ''The Path'', inspired by his interest in psychic phenomena.

21st century

Many previously unpublished novels by Matheson appeared late in his career, as did various collections of his work and previously unpublished screenplays. He also wrote new works, such as the suspense novel ''Hunted Past Reason'' (2002) and the children's illustrated fantasy '' Abu and the 7 Marvels'' (2002).

Style

Several of Matheson's stories, including " Third from the Sun" (1950), "Deadline" (1959), and "Button, Button" (1970), are simple sketches with 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), incorporate satirical humor at the expense of genre clichés, and are written in bombastic prose that differed from Matheson's usual pared-down style. Others, like "The Test" (1954) and "Steel" (1956), portray the moral and physical struggles of ordinary people, rather than those of scientists and superheroes, in situations which are at once futuristic and quotidian. Still others, such as "Mad House" (1953), "The Curious Child" (1954) and "Duel" (1971), are tales of paranoia, in which the commonplace environment of the present day becomes inexplicably alien or threatening.

Sources of inspiration

Matheson cited specific inspirations for many of his works. ''Duel'' was derived from an incident in which he and friend Jerry Sohl were dangerously tailgated by a large truck on the same day as the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

According to film critic Roger Ebert, Matheson's scientific approach to the supernatural in ''I Am Legend'' and other novels from the 1950s and early 1960s "anticipated pseudorealistic fantasy novels like '' Rosemary's Baby'' and ''The Exorcist''."

Personal life and death

In 1952, Matheson married Ruth Ann Woodson, whom he met in California. They had four children: Bettina Mayberry, Richard Christian, Christopher Matheson and Ali Marie Matheson. Richard, Chris, and Ali became writers of fiction and screenplays.

Matheson died on June 23, 2013, at his home in Calabasas, California

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