36 Facts About Clive Barker

Clive Barker was born on 5 October 1952 and is an English writer, filmmaker, and visual artist.

Clive Barker came to prominence in the 1980s with a series of short stories collectively named the Books of Blood, which established him as a leading horror author.

Clive Barker's work has been adapted into films, notably the Hellraiser series and the Candyman series.

Clive Barker has created characters and series for comic books, and some of his more popular horror stories have been featured in ongoing comics series.

Clive Barker's mother, Joan Ruby, was a painter and school welfare officer; his father, Leonard Barker, worked as the personnel director for an industrial relations firm.

Clive Barker was educated at Dovedale Primary School and Quarry Bank High School in Liverpool before joining the University of Liverpool, where he studied English and philosophy.

Clive Barker collaborated on six plays with Theatre of the Imagination in 1974 and two more that he was the sole writer of, A Clowns' Sodom and Day of the Dog, for The Mute Pantomime Theatre in 1976 and 1977.

Clive Barker co-founded the avant-garde theatrical troupe The Dog Company in 1978 with former schoolmates and up-and-coming actors, many of whom would go on to become key collaborators in his film work; Doug Bradley, his long-time friend and former classmate at Quarry Bank High School in Liverpool, took on the now-iconic role of Pinhead in the Hellraiser series while Peter Atkins wrote the scripts for the first three Hellraiser sequels.

Clive Barker is an author of horror and fantasy, although he has said that he thinks of his writing less and less as horror.

Clive Barker began writing early in his career, mostly in the form of short stories and the Faustian novel The Damnation Game.

Clive Barker is the writer of the best-selling Abarat series.

Clive Barker stated on Loveline in 1996 that he had several relationships with older women during his teenage years, but realised he was gay when he was around 18 or 19 years old.

Clive Barker dated John Gregson from 1975 to 1986, and was later in a relationship from 1996 to 2009 with photographer David Armstrong, who was described as his husband in the introduction to Coldheart Canyon.

Clive Barker has been open about his experiences with sadomasochism, calling himself a "six" on its "sliding scale".

Clive Barker is critical of organized religion, but has said that the Bible influences his work and spirituality.

Clive Barker has had two surgical procedures to remove them and believes his voice has improved as a result.

Clive Barker said he did not have cancer and has given up cigars.

Clive Barker wrote the screenplays for Underworld and Rawhead Rex, both directed by George Pavlou.

Clive Barker had been working on a series of film adaptations of his The Abarat Quintet books under The Walt Disney Company's management, but due to creative differences, the project was cancelled.

Clive Barker served as an executive producer for the 1998 film Gods and Monsters, a semi-fictional tale of Frankenstein director James Whale's later years, which won an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay.

In October 2006, Clive Barker announced through his website that he will be writing the script to a forthcoming remake of the original Hellraiser film.

Clive Barker was developing a film based on his Tortured Souls line of toys from McFarlane Toys.

In 2020, Clive Barker regained control of the Hellraiser franchise, and served as executive producer on a 2022 reboot film for the streaming service Hulu.

In May 2015, Variety reported that Clive Barker was developing a television series adaptation of various creepypastas in partnership with Warner Brothers, to be called Clive Barker's Creepypastas, a feature arc based on Slender Man and Ben Drowned.

Clive Barker was involved in a streaming service film adaptation of The Books of Blood in 2020, and is developing a Nightbreed television series directed by Michael Dougherty and written by Josh Stolberg for SyFy.

Clive Barker is a prolific visual artist, often illustrating his own books.

Clive Barker's paintings have been seen first on the covers of his official fan club magazine, Dread, published by Fantaco in the early '90s; on the covers of the collections of his plays, Incarnations and Forms of Heaven ; and on the second printing of the original British publications of his Books of Blood series.

Clive Barker provided the artwork for his young adult novel The Thief of Always and for the Abarat series.

Clive Barker's artwork has been exhibited at Bert Green Fine Art in Los Angeles and Chicago, at the Bess Cutler Gallery in New York and La Luz De Jesus in Los Angeles.

Clive Barker worked on the horror video game Clive Barker's Undying, providing the voice for the character Ambrose.

Clive Barker worked on Clive Barker's Jericho for Codemasters, which was released in late 2007.

Around 150 art works by Clive Barker were used in the set of the Academy of the Unseen Arts for the Netflix TV series Chilling Adventures of Sabrina.

Clive Barker published his Razorline imprint via Marvel Comics in 1993.

Clive Barker served as a consultant and wrote issues of the Hellraiser anthology comic book.

In December 2007, Chris Ryall and Clive Barker announced an upcoming collaboration of an original comic book series, Torakator, to be published by IDW.

In 2008, Clive Barker authored a foreword for the first volume of the DEMONICSEX comic series by Chuck Conner and Sean Platter.