Richard Burton Matheson was an American author and screenwriter, primarily in the fantasy, horror, and science fiction genres.
23 Facts About Richard Matheson
2.
Richard Matheson 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.
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Richard Matheson adapted his 1971 short story "Duel" as a screenplay, directed by Steven Spielberg for the television film of the same name that year.
4.
Richard Matheson was born in Allendale, New Jersey, to Norwegian immigrants Bertolf and Fanny Richard Matheson.
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Richard Matheson's early writing influences were the film Dracula, novels by Kenneth Roberts, and a poem which he read in the newspaper Brooklyn Eagle, where he published his first short story at age eight.
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Richard Matheson 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.
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Richard Matheson attended the Missouri School of Journalism at the University of Missouri, earning his BA in 1949, then moved to California.
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Richard Matheson was a member of the "Southern California Sorcerers" group in the 1950s and 1960s, a collective of west coast writers which included Charles Beaumont, Ray Bradbury, George Clayton Johnson, William F Nolan, Jerry Sohl, and others.
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In 1960, Richard Matheson published The Beardless Warriors, a non-fantastic, autobiographical novel about teenage American soldiers in World War II.
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Richard Matheson wrote the Star Trek episode "The Enemy Within".
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Richard Matheson adapted five works of Edgar Allan Poe for Roger Corman's Poe series, including House of Usher, The Pit and the Pendulum, and The Raven.
12.
In 1973, Richard Matheson earned an Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America for his teleplay for The Night Stalker, one of two TV movies written by Richard Matheson and directed by Dan Curtis, the other being The Night Strangler, which preceded the TV series Kolchak: The Night Stalker.
13.
Richard Matheson wrote the screenplays for several movies, including the comedy Loose Cannons and the television biopic The Dreamer of Oz: The L Frank Baum Story, as well as a segment of Twilight Zone: Rod Serling's Lost Classics and segments of Trilogy of Terror II.
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In 1999, Richard Matheson published a non-fiction work, The Path, inspired by his interest in psychic phenomena.
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Many previously unpublished novels by Richard Matheson appeared late in his career, as did various collections of his work and previously unpublished screenplays.
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Richard Matheson wrote new works, such as the suspense novel Hunted Past Reason and the children's illustrated fantasy Abu and the 7 Marvels.
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In 1952, Richard Matheson married Ruth Ann Woodson, whom he met in California.
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Richard Matheson died on June 23,2013, at his home in Los Angeles, California, at the age of 87.
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Richard Matheson received the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement in 1984 and the Bram Stoker Award for Lifetime Achievement from the Horror Writers Association in 1991.
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At the annual World Fantasy Conventions, he won two judged, annual literary awards for particular works: World Fantasy Awards for Bid Time Return as the best novel of 1975 and Richard Matheson: Collected Stories as the best collection of 1989.
21.
Richard Matheson died just days before he was due to receive the Visionary Award at the 39th Saturn Awards ceremony.
22.
Anne Rice stated that Richard Matheson's short story "A Dress of White Silk" was an early influence on her interest in vampires and fantasy fiction.
23.
Richard Matheson was a close friend and the best screenwriter I ever worked with.