Ray Douglas Bradbury is an American
fantasyFantasy is a genre of fiction that commonly uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary element of plot, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic is common...
,
horrorHorror fiction also Horror fantasy is a philosophy of literature, which is intended to, or has the capacity to frighten its readers, inducing feelings of horror and terror. It creates an eerie atmosphere. Horror can be either supernatural or non-supernatural...
,
science fictionScience fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
, and mystery writer. Best known for his
dystopiaA dystopia is the idea of a society in a repressive and controlled state, often under the guise of being utopian, as characterized in books like Brave New World and Nineteen Eighty-Four...
n novel
Fahrenheit 451Fahrenheit 451 is a 1953 dystopian novel by Ray Bradbury. The novel presents a future American society where reading is outlawed and firemen start fires to burn books...
(1953) and for the science fiction stories gathered together as
The Martian ChroniclesThe Martian Chronicles is a 1950 science fiction short story collection by Ray Bradbury that chronicles the colonization of Mars by humans fleeing from a troubled and eventually atomically devastated Earth, and the conflict between aboriginal Martians and the new colonists...
(1950) and
The Illustrated ManThe Illustrated Man is a 1951 book of eighteen science fiction short stories by Ray Bradbury that explores the nature of mankind. While none of the stories has a plot or character connection with the next, a recurring theme is the conflict of the cold mechanics of technology and the psychology of...
(1951), Bradbury is one of the most celebrated among 20th and 21st century American writers of
speculative fictionSpeculative fiction is an umbrella term encompassing the more fantastical fiction genres, specifically science fiction, fantasy, horror, supernatural fiction, superhero fiction, utopian and dystopian fiction, apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction, and alternate history in literature as well as...
. Many of Bradbury's works have been adapted into television shows or films.
Early life
Bradbury was born in
Waukegan, IllinoisWaukegan is a city and county seat of Lake County, Illinois. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 87,901. The 2010 population was 89,078. It is the ninth-largest city in Illinois by population...
to Esther Moberg Bradbury, a
Swedish immigrantSwedish Americans are Americans of Swedish descent, especially the descendants of about 1.2 million immigrants from Sweden during 1885-1915. Most were Lutherans who affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America ; some were Methodists...
, and Leonard Spaulding Bradbury, a power and telephone lineman. He was the brother of two older twin boys, one of whom died in 1918. His paternal grandfather and great-grandfather were newspaper publishers.
He is related to the American Shakespeare scholar Douglas Spaulding. Ray is also directly descended from
Mary BradburyMary Perkins Bradbury was tried, convicted and sentenced to hang as a witch in Salem, Massachusetts in 1692.-Early life:...
who was tried, convicted and sentenced to hang as a witch in Salem, Massachusetts in 1692. She was married to Captain Thomas Bradbury of
Salisbury, MassachusettsSalisbury is a town in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 7,827 at the 2000 census. The community is a popular summer resort beach town situated on the Atlantic Ocean north of Boston on the New Hampshire border....
.
Bradbury was a reader and writer throughout his youth, spending much time in the
Carnegie library in
Waukegan, IllinoisWaukegan is a city and county seat of Lake County, Illinois. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 87,901. The 2010 population was 89,078. It is the ninth-largest city in Illinois by population...
, reading such authors as H.G. Wells,
Jules VerneJules Gabriel Verne was a French author who pioneered the science fiction genre. He is best known for his novels Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea , A Journey to the Center of the Earth , and Around the World in Eighty Days...
, and his favorite author,
Edgar Rice BurroughsEdgar Rice Burroughs was an American author, best known for his creation of the jungle hero Tarzan and the heroic Mars adventurer John Carter, although he produced works in many genres.-Biography:...
who wrote novels such as
Tarzan and
Warlord of Mars. Bradbury was pushed to writing by his aunt, who read him short stories when he was a child. He used this library as a setting for much of his novel
Something Wicked This Way ComesSomething Wicked This Way Comes is a 1962 novel by Ray Bradbury. It is about two 13-year-old boys, Jim Nightshade and William Halloway, who have a harrowing experience with a nightmarish traveling carnival that comes to their Midwestern town one October. The carnival's leader is the mysterious "Mr...
, and depicted Waukegan as "Green Town" in some of his other semi-
autobiographicalAn autobiography is a book about the life of a person, written by that person.-Origin of the term:...
novels—
Dandelion WineDandelion Wine is a 1957 novel by Ray Bradbury, taking place in the summer of 1928 in the fictional town of Green Town, Illinois — a pseudonym for Bradbury's childhood home of Waukegan, Illinois...
,
Farewell SummerFarewell Summer is a novel by Ray Bradbury, published on October 17, 2006. It is a sequel to his 1957 novel Dandelion Wine, and is set during an Indian summer in October 1929. The story concerns a mock war between the young and the old in Green Town, Illinois, and the sexual awakening of Doug...
—as well as in many of his short stories.
He attributes his lifelong habit of writing every day to two incidents. The first, which occurred when he was three years old when his mother took him to Lon Chaney's performance of the Hunchback of Notre Dame, and the second, which occurred in 1932 when a carnival entertainer, Mr. Electrico, touched him on the nose with an electrified sword, made his hair stand on end, and shouted, "Live forever!" It was from then that Bradbury wanted to live forever and decided on his career as an author in order to do what he was told: live forever. It was at that age that Bradbury first started to do
magicMagic is a performing art that entertains audiences by staging tricks or creating illusions of seemingly impossible or supernatural feats using natural means...
. Magic was his first great love. If he had not discovered writing, he would have become a magician.
The Bradbury family lived in
Tucson, ArizonaTucson is a city in and the county seat of Pima County, Arizona, United States. The city is located 118 miles southeast of Phoenix and 60 miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border. The 2010 United States Census puts the city's population at 520,116 with a metropolitan area population at 1,020,200...
, in 1926–27 and 1932–33 as his father pursued employment, each time returning to Waukegan, but eventually settled in Los Angeles in 1934, when Ray was thirteen.
Bradbury graduated from
Los Angeles High SchoolLos Angeles High School is the oldest public high school in the Southern California Region and in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Its colors are blue and white and the teams are called the Romans....
, where he took poetry and short story writing courses that furthered his interest in writing, but he did not attend college. Instead, he sold newspapers at the corner of South Norton Avenue and Olympic Boulevard. In regard to his education, Bradbury said:
It was in UCLA's
Powell LibraryPowell Library is the main college undergraduate library on the campus of the University of California, Los Angeles . It was constructed from 1926 to 1929 and was one of the original four buildings that comprised the UCLA campus in the early period of the university's life...
, in a study room with typewriters for rent, in which Bradbury wrote his classic story of a book-burning future, "Fahrenheit 451."
Career
Ray Bradbury had the freedom of starting his writing career when he was rejected admission into the military (bad eyesight) during World War II. Having been influenced by
science fictionScience fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
heroes like
Flash GordonFlash Gordon is the hero of a science fiction adventure comic strip originally drawn by Alex Raymond. First published January 7, 1934, the strip was inspired by and created to compete with the already established Buck Rogers adventure strip. Also inspired by these series were comics such as Dash...
and
Buck RogersAnthony Rogers is a fictional character that first appeared in Armageddon 2419 A.D. by Philip Francis Nowlan in the August 1928 issue of the pulp magazine Amazing Stories. A sequel, The Airlords of Han, was published in the March 1929 issue....
, Bradbury began to publish science fiction stories in
fanzineA fanzine is a nonprofessional and nonofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon for the pleasure of others who share their interest...
s in 1938. Bradbury was invited by
Forrest J AckermanForrest J Ackerman was an American collector of science fiction books and movie memorabilia and a science fiction fan...
to attend the Alabama "roll tide", which at the time met at Clifton’s Cafeteria in downtown Los Angeles. This was where he met the writers
Robert A. HeinleinRobert Anson Heinlein was an American science fiction writer. Often called the "dean of science fiction writers", he was one of the most influential and controversial authors of the genre. He set a standard for science and engineering plausibility and helped to raise the genre's standards of...
,
Emil PetajaEmil Petaja was an American science fiction and fantasy writer whose career spanned seven decades. He was the author of 13 published novels, nearly 150 short stories, numerous poems, and a handful of books and articles on various subjects...
,
Fredric BrownFredric Brown was an American science fiction and mystery writer. He was born in Cincinnati.He had two sons: James Ross Brown and Linn Lewis Brown ....
,
Henry KuttnerHenry Kuttner was an American author of science fiction, fantasy and horror.-Early life:Henry Kuttner was born in Los Angeles, California in 1915...
,
Leigh BrackettLeigh Douglass Brackett was an American author, particularly of science fiction. She was also a screenwriter, known for her work on famous films such as The Big Sleep , Rio Bravo , The Long Goodbye and The Empire Strikes Back .-Life:Leigh Brackett was born and grew up in Los Angeles, California...
, and
Jack WilliamsonJohn Stewart Williamson , who wrote as Jack Williamson was a U.S. writer often referred to as the "Dean of Science Fiction" following the death in 1988 of Robert A...
. His first published story was "Hollerbochen's Dilemma", which appeared in the
fanzineA fanzine is a nonprofessional and nonofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon for the pleasure of others who share their interest...
Imagination! in January, 1938. Launching his own fanzine in 1939, titled
Futuria Fantasia, he wrote most of its four issues, each limited to under 100 copies. Between 1941 and 1947, he was a contributor to Rob Wagner's film magazine,
Script.
Bradbury's first paid piece, "Pendulum", written with Henry Hasse, was published in the
pulp magazinePulp magazines , also collectively known as pulp fiction, refers to inexpensive fiction magazines published from 1896 through the 1950s. The typical pulp magazine was seven inches wide by ten inches high, half an inch thick, and 128 pages long...
Super Science Stories in November 1941, for which he earned $15. He became a full-time writer by the end of 1942. His first collection of short stories,
Dark Carnival, was published in 1947 by
Arkham HouseArkham House is a publishing house specializing in weird fiction founded in Sauk City, Wisconsin in 1939 by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei to preserve in hardcover the best fiction of H.P. Lovecraft. The company's name is derived from Lovecraft's fictional New England city, Arkham. Arkham House...
, a small press in Sauk City, Wis., owned by writer August Derleth.
A chance encounter in a Los Angeles bookstore with the British expatriate writer
Christopher IsherwoodChristopher William Bradshaw Isherwood was an English-American novelist.-Early life and work:Born at Wyberslegh Hall, High Lane, Cheshire in North West England, Isherwood spent his childhood in various towns where his father, a Lieutenant-Colonel in the British Army, was stationed...
gave Bradbury the opportunity to put
The Martian ChroniclesThe Martian Chronicles is a 1950 science fiction short story collection by Ray Bradbury that chronicles the colonization of Mars by humans fleeing from a troubled and eventually atomically devastated Earth, and the conflict between aboriginal Martians and the new colonists...
into the hands of a respected critic. Isherwood's glowing review followed.
Although he is often described as a
science fictionScience fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
writer, Bradbury does not box himself into a particular narrative categorization:
On another occasion, Bradbury observed that the novel touches on the alienation of people by media:
Besides his fiction work, Bradbury has written many short
essayAn essay is a piece of writing which is often written from an author's personal point of view. Essays can consist of a number of elements, including: literary criticism, political manifestos, learned arguments, observations of daily life, recollections, and reflections of the author. The definition...
s on the arts and culture, attracting the attention of critics in this field. Bradbury also hosted "The Ray Bradbury Theater" which was based on his short stories. Bradbury was a consultant for the American Pavilion at the
1964 New York World's FairThe 1964/1965 New York World's Fair was the third major world's fair to be held in New York City. Hailing itself as a "universal and international" exposition, the fair's theme was "Peace Through Understanding," dedicated to "Man's Achievement on a Shrinking Globe in an Expanding Universe";...
and the original exhibit housed in
EpcotEpcot is a theme park in the Walt Disney World Resort, located near Orlando, Florida. The park is dedicated to the celebration of human achievement, namely international culture and technological innovation. The second park built at the resort, it opened on October 1, 1982 and was initially named...
's Spaceship Earth geosphere at
Walt Disney WorldWalt Disney World Resort , is the world's most-visited entertaimental resort. Located in Lake Buena Vista, Florida ; approximately southwest of Orlando, Florida, United States, the resort covers an area of and includes four theme parks, two water parks, 23 on-site themed resort hotels Walt...
.
In the 1980s, he moved his writings to detective fiction.
Personal life
Ray Bradbury married Marguerite McClure (1922–2003) in 1947, and they had four daughters. Bradbury has never obtained a
driver's licenseA driver's license/licence , or driving licence is an official document which states that a person may operate a motorized vehicle, such as a motorcycle, car, truck or a bus, on a public roadway. Most U.S...
.
Bradbury was a close friend of
Charles AddamsCharles "Chas" Samuel Addams was an American cartoonist known for his particularly black humor and macabre characters...
, and Addams illustrated the first of Bradbury's stories about the Elliotts, a family that would resemble Addams' own Addams Family placed in rural
IllinoisIllinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...
. Bradbury's first story about them was "Homecoming," published in the 1946 Halloween issue of
MademoiselleMademoiselle was an influential women's magazine first published in 1935 by Street and Smith and later acquired by Condé Nast Publications....
, with Addams illustrations. He and Addams planned a larger collaborative work that would tell the family's complete history, but it never materialized, and according to a 2001 interview, they went their separate ways. In October 2001, Bradbury published all the Family stories he had written in one book with a connecting narrative,
From the Dust ReturnedFrom the Dust Returned is a fix-up fantasy novel by Ray Bradbury. The novel is largely comprised from a series of short stories which Bradbury had written decades earlier, centering around a family of Illinois-based ghosts named the Elliotts...
, featuring a wraparound Addams cover of the original 'Homecoming' illustration.
Bradbury made regular appearances at science fiction conventions until 2009 when he retired from the circuit on the grounds of old age and lack of energy.
Despite the numerous (and often prescient) technological predictions of his novels, he has expressed scepticism about the value of the Internet to society, stating that it has reduced people's ability to communicate and hold conversations with each other. He has also exhibited scepticism with regard to modern technology by resisting the conversion of his work into
e-bookAn electronic book is a book-length publication in digital form, consisting of text, images, or both, and produced on, published through, and readable on computers or other electronic devices. Sometimes the equivalent of a conventional printed book, e-books can also be born digital...
s and stating that
Critical reception
Critical opinion of Bradbury's work is sharply divided. In his review of
The Martian Chronicles,
Christopher IsherwoodChristopher William Bradshaw Isherwood was an English-American novelist.-Early life and work:Born at Wyberslegh Hall, High Lane, Cheshire in North West England, Isherwood spent his childhood in various towns where his father, a Lieutenant-Colonel in the British Army, was stationed...
wrote:
... the sheer lift and power of a truly original imagination exhilarates... His is a very great and unusual talent.
At the other extreme, science fiction author and critic
Damon KnightDamon Francis Knight was an American science fiction author, editor, critic and fan. His forte was short stories and he is widely acknowledged as having been a master of the genre.-Biography:...
wrote:
Although [Bradbury] has a large following among science fiction readers, there is at least an equally large contingent of people who cannot stomach his work at all... His imagination is mediocre; he borrows nearly all his backgrounds and props, and distorts them badly; wherever he is required to invent anything—a planet, a Martian, a machine—the image is flat and unconvincing.
Adaptations to other media
From 1951 to 1954, 27 of Bradbury's stories were adapted by
Al FeldsteinAlbert B. Feldstein is an American writer, editor, and artist, best known for his work at EC Comics and, from 1956 to 1985, as the editor of the satirical magazine Mad. Since retiring from Mad, Feldstein has concentrated on American paintings of Western wildlife...
for
EC ComicsEntertaining Comics, more commonly known as EC Comics, was an American publisher of comic books specializing in horror fiction, crime fiction, satire, military fiction and science fiction from the 1940s through the mid-1950s, notably the Tales from the Crypt series...
, and 16 of these were collected in the paperbacks,
The Autumn PeopleThe Autumn People is a mass-market paperback collection of comic adaptations of eight short horror and crime stories by Ray Bradbury, gathered from the pages of the EC Comics comic books of the 1950s...
(1965) and
Tomorrow MidnightTomorrow Midnight is a mass-market paperback collection of comic adaptations of eight short science fiction stories by Ray Bradbury, gathered from the pages of the EC Comics comic books of the 1950s...
(1966), both published by
Ballantine BooksBallantine Books is a major book publisher located in the United States, founded in 1952 by Ian Ballantine with his wife, Betty Ballantine. It was acquired by Random House in 1973, which in turn was acquired by Bertelsmann AG in 1998 and remains part of that company today. Ballantine's logo is a...
with cover illustrations by
Frank FrazettaFrank Frazetta was an American fantasy and science fiction artist, noted for work in comic books, paperback book covers, paintings, posters, LP record album covers and other media...
.
Also in the early 1950s, adaptations of Bradbury's stories were televised on a variety of an anthology shows, including
Tales of TomorrowTales of Tomorrow is an American anthology science fiction series that was performed and broadcast live on ABC from 1951 to 1953. The series covered such stories as Frankenstein, starring Lon Chaney, Jr., 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea starring Thomas Mitchell as Captain Nemo, and many others...
,
Lights OutLights Out is an extremely popular American old-time radio program, an early example of a network series devoted mostly to horror and the supernatural, predating Suspense and Inner Sanctum...
,
Out There,
Suspense-Production background:One of the premier drama programs of the Golden Age of Radio, was subtitled "radio's outstanding theater of thrills" and focused on suspense thriller-type scripts, usually featuring leading Hollywood actors of the era...
,
CBS Television WorkshopCBS Television Workshop was a 1952 television series famous for an early appearance of Audrey Hepburn and James Dean.On 13 January 1952, in the very first episode, a dramatized 30 minute version of Don Quixote starring Boris Karloff and directed by Sidney Lumet, Grace Kelly made an appearance as...
,
Jane Wyman's Fireside TheatreFireside Theater is an American anthology drama series that ran from on NBC from 1949 to 1958, and was the first successful filmed series on American television. Stories were low budget and often based on public domain stories or written by freelance writers such as Rod Serling. While it was panned...
,
Star TonightStar Tonight, an American television anthology series, aired on ABC from February 1955 to August 1956.-Adaptations and actors:It consisted of 80 total episodes, 30 from 1955 and 50 from 1956. Each episode was a self-contained story, usually adapted from famous plays, short-stories or novels by some...
,
Windows and
Alfred Hitchcock PresentsAlfred Hitchcock Presents is an American television anthology series hosted by Alfred Hitchcock. The series featured dramas, thrillers, and mysteries. By the premiere of the show on October 2, 1955, Hitchcock had been directing films for over three decades...
. "The Merry-Go-Round," a half-hour film adaptation of Bradbury's "The Black Ferris," praised by
Variety, was shown on
Starlight Summer Theater in 1954 and NBC's
Sneak Preview in 1956. During that same period, several stories were adapted for radio drama, notably on the science fiction anthologies
Dimension XDimension X was an NBC radio program broadcast on an unsponsored, sustaining basis from April 8, 1950 to September 29, 1951. The first 13 episodes were broadcast live, and the remainder were pre-recorded...
and its successor
X Minus OneX Minus One was a half-hour science fiction radio drama series broadcast from April 24, 1955 to January 9, 1958 in various timeslots on NBC.-Overview:...
.
Producer William Alland first brought Bradbury to movie theaters in 1953 with
It Came from Outer SpaceIt Came from Outer Space is a 1953 science fiction 3-D film directed by Jack Arnold, and starring Richard Carlson, Barbara Rush, and Charles Drake. It was Universal's first film to be filmed in 3-D.- Plot :...
, a
Harry EssexHarry Essex was a prolific American screenwriter. He was born on 29 November 1910 in New York City. He died on 5 February 1997 in Los Angeles. His career spanned more than fifty years...
screenplay developed from Bradbury's screen treatment "Atomic Monster". Three weeks later came the release of Eugène Lourié's
The Beast from 20,000 FathomsThe Beast from 20,000 Fathoms is a 1953 science fiction film directed by Eugène Lourié and stars Paul Christian, Paula Raymond and Cecil Kellaway with visual effects by Ray Harryhausen. The film is about an atomic bomb test in the Arctic Circle that unfreezes a hibernating fictional dinosaur, a...
(1953), which featured one scene based on Bradbury's "
The Fog Horn"The Fog Horn" is a 1951 science fiction short story by Ray Bradbury, and the first in his collection The Golden Apples of the Sun. The story was the basis for the 1953 film The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms.-Plot summary:...
", about a sea monster mistaking the sound of a fog horn for the mating cry of a female. Bradbury's close friend
Ray HarryhausenRay Harryhausen is an American film producer and special effects creator...
produced the stop-motion animation of the creature. Bradbury would later return the favor by writing a short story, "Tyrannosaurus Rex", about a stop-motion animator who strongly resembled Harryhausen. Over the next 50 years, more than 35 features, shorts, and TV movies were based on Bradbury's stories or screenplays.
Bradbury was hired in 1953 by director
John HustonJohn Marcellus Huston was an American film director, screenwriter and actor. He wrote most of the 37 feature films he directed, many of which are today considered classics: The Maltese Falcon , The Treasure of the Sierra Madre , Key Largo , The Asphalt Jungle , The African Queen , Moulin Rouge...
to work on the screenplay for the 1956 film
Moby DickMoby Dick is a 1956 film adaptation of Herman Melville's novel Moby-Dick. It was directed by John Huston with a screenplay by Ray Bradbury and the director. The film starred Gregory Peck, Richard Basehart, and Leo Genn...
, which was faithfully based on the novel by
Herman MelvilleHerman Melville was an American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet. He is best known for his novel Moby-Dick and the posthumous novella Billy Budd....
and starred
Gregory PeckEldred Gregory Peck was an American actor.One of 20th Century Fox's most popular film stars from the 1940s to the 1960s, Peck continued to play important roles well into the 1980s. His notable performances include that of Atticus Finch in the 1962 film To Kill a Mockingbird, for which he won an...
as Captain Ahab,
Richard BasehartJohn Richard Basehart was an American actor. He starred in the 1960s television science fiction drama Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, in the role of Admiral Harriman Nelson.-Career:...
as Ishmael, and
Orson WellesGeorge Orson Welles , best known as Orson Welles, was an American film director, actor, theatre director, screenwriter, and producer, who worked extensively in film, theatre, television and radio...
as Father Mapple. A significant result of the film was Bradbury's book
Green Shadows, White WhaleGreen Shadows, White Whale is a 1992 novel by Ray Bradbury. It gives a fictionalized account of his journey to Ireland in 1953-1954 to write a screen adaptation of the novel Moby-Dick with director John Huston. Bradbury has said he wrote it after reading actress Katharine Hepburn's account of...
, a semi-fictionalized account of the making of the film, including Bradbury's dealings with Huston and his time in
IrelandIreland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
, where exterior scenes that were set in
New Bedford, MassachusettsNew Bedford is a city in Bristol County, Massachusetts, United States, located south of Boston, southeast of Providence, Rhode Island, and about east of Fall River. As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 95,072, making it the sixth-largest city in Massachusetts...
, were filmed.
Bradbury's short story
I Sing the Body ElectricI Sing the Body Electric! is a 1969 collection of short stories by Ray Bradbury. The book takes its name from a line in Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman.-Contents:The collection includes these stories:* "The Kilimanjaro Device"...
(from the book of the same name) was adapted for the
100th episode of The Twilight Zone"I Sing the Body Electric" is the 100th episode of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone.The script was written by Ray Bradbury, and based on his short story of the same name, itself named after a Walt Whitman poem. Although Bradbury contributed several scripts to The Twilight...
. The episode was first aired on May 18, 1962.
Oskar Werner-Early life:Born Oskar Josef Bschließmayer in Vienna, Werner spent much of his childhood in the care of his grandmother, who entertained him with stories about the Burgtheater, the Austrian state theatre, where he was accepted at the age of eighteen by Lothar Müthel. He was the youngest person ever...
and
Julie ChristieJulie Frances Christie is a British actress. Born in British India to English parents, at the age of six Christie moved to England, where she attended boarding school....
starred in
Fahrenheit 451Fahrenheit 451 is a 1966 film directed by François Truffaut, in his first colour film as well as his only English-language film. It is based on the novel of the same name by Ray Bradbury....
(1966), an adaptation of Bradbury's novel directed by
François TruffautFrançois Roland Truffaut was an influential film critic and filmmaker and one of the founders of the French New Wave. In a film career lasting over a quarter of a century, he remains an icon of the French film industry. He was also a screenwriter, producer, and actor working on over twenty-five...
.
In 1966 Bradbury helped
Lynn GarrisonLynn Garrison is a Canadian pilot and political adviser. He was an RCAF fighter pilot from the 403 City of Calgary Squadron, commercial pilot, film producer, director and mercenary...
create AVIAN, a specialist aviation magazine. For the first issue Bradbury wrote a poem – Planes that land on grass.
In 1969,
The Illustrated ManThe Illustrated Man is a 1951 book of eighteen science fiction short stories by Ray Bradbury that explores the nature of mankind. While none of the stories has a plot or character connection with the next, a recurring theme is the conflict of the cold mechanics of technology and the psychology of...
was brought to the big screen, starring
Rod SteigerRodney Stephen "Rod" Steiger was an Academy Award-winning American actor known for his performances in such films as On the Waterfront, The Big Knife, Oklahoma!, The Harder They Fall, Across the Bridge, The Pawnbroker, Doctor Zhivago, In the Heat of the Night, and Waterloo as well as the...
,
Claire BloomClaire Bloom is an English film and stage actress.-Early life:Bloom was born in the North London suburb of Finchley, the daughter of Elizabeth and Edward Max Blume, who worked in sales...
and
Robert DrivasRobert Drivas was an American actor and theatre director.Drivas was born Robert Choromokos in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Hariklia and James Peter Choromokos. Drivas studied at the University of Chicago and the University of Miami...
. Containing the prologue and three short stories from the book, the film received mediocre reviews.
The Martian ChroniclesThe Martian Chronicles is a television miniseries based on Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles and dealing with the exploration of Mars and the inhabitants there. The series starred Rock Hudson, Darren McGavin, Bernadette Peters, Roddy McDowall, Barry Morse, and Maria Schell...
became a three-part TV
miniseriesA miniseries , in a serial storytelling medium, is a television show production which tells a story in a limited number of episodes. The exact number is open to interpretation; however, they are usually limited to fewer than a whole season. The term "miniseries" is generally a North American term...
starring
Rock HudsonRoy Harold Scherer, Jr., later Roy Harold Fitzgerald , known professionally as Rock Hudson, was an American film and television actor, recognized as a romantic leading man during the 1950s and 1960s, most notably in several romantic comedies with Doris Day.Hudson was voted "Star of the Year",...
which was first broadcast by
NBCThe National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
in 1980. Bradbury found the miniseries "just boring".
The 1983 horror film
Something Wicked This Way ComesSomething Wicked This Way Comes is a 1983 film based on the Ray Bradbury novel of the same name, starring Jason Robards and Jonathan Pryce. Directed by Jack Clayton from a screenplay written by Bradbury himself, the movie suffered from offscreen conflicts of vision...
, starring
Jason RobardsJason Nelson Robards, Jr. was an American actor on stage, and in film and television, and a winner of the Tony Award , two Academy Awards and the Emmy Award...
and
Jonathan PryceJonathan Pryce, CBE is a Welsh stage and film actor and singer. After studying at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and meeting his longtime partner English actress Kate Fahy in 1974, he began his career as a stage actor in the 1970s...
, is based on the Bradbury novel of the
same nameSomething Wicked This Way Comes is a 1962 novel by Ray Bradbury. It is about two 13-year-old boys, Jim Nightshade and William Halloway, who have a harrowing experience with a nightmarish traveling carnival that comes to their Midwestern town one October. The carnival's leader is the mysterious "Mr...
.
In 1984, Michael McDonough of Brigham Young University produced "Bradbury 13," a series of 13 audio adaptations of famous Ray Bradbury stories, in conjunction with National Public Radio. The full-cast dramatizations featured adaptations of "The Ravine," "Night Call, Collect," "
The Veldt"The Veldt" is a short story written by Ray Bradbury that was published originally as "The World the Children Made" in the September 23, 1950 issue of The Saturday Evening Post, later republished in the anthology The Illustrated Man in 1951...
", "There Was an Old Woman," "Kaleidoscope," "
Dark They Were, and Golden-Eyed"Dark They Were, and Golden-Eyed" is a science fiction short story by Ray Bradbury. It was originally published in the magazine Thrilling Wonder Stories in August 1949...
", "The Screaming Woman," "
A Sound of Thunder“A Sound of Thunder” is a science fiction short story by Ray Bradbury, first published in Collier’s magazine in 1952. As of 1984 it was the most re-published science fiction story up to the present time...
," "The Man," "The Wind," "The Fox and the Forest," "
Here There Be Tygers"Here There Be Tygers" is a short story written by Ray Bradbury, originally published in the anthology New Tales of Space and Time in 1951. It was later collected in Bradbury's short story collections R is for Rocket and The Golden Apples of the Sun...
" and "The Happiness Machine". Voiceover actor
Paul FreesPaul Frees was an American voice actor and character actor.-Biography:He was born Solomon Hersh Frees in Chicago...
provided narration, while Bradbury himself was responsible for the opening voiceover; Greg Hansen and Roger Hoffman scored the episodes. The series won a
Peabody AwardThe George Foster Peabody Awards recognize distinguished and meritorious public service by radio and television stations, networks, producing organizations and individuals. In 1939, the National Association of Broadcasters formed a committee to recognize outstanding achievement in radio broadcasting...
as well as two Gold Cindy awards and was released on CD on May 1, 2010. The series began airing on BBC Radio 4 Extra on June 12, 2011.
From 1985 to 1992 Bradbury hosted a syndicated anthology television series,
The Ray Bradbury TheaterThe Ray Bradbury Theater is an anthology series that ran for two seasons on HBO, three episodes per season from 1985 to 1986, and four additional seasons on USA Network from 1988 to 1992. It was later shown in reruns on the Sci Fi Channel...
, for which he adapted 65 of his stories. Each episode would begin with a shot of Bradbury in his office, gazing over mementoes of his life, which he states (in narrative) are used to spark ideas for stories. During the first two seasons, Bradbury also provided additional voiceover narration specific to the featured story and appeared on screen.
Five episodes of the
USSRThe Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
science fiction TV series
This Fantastic World adapted Ray Bradbury's stories
I Sing The Body Electric,
Fahrenheit 451,
A Piece of Wood,
To the Chicago Abyss, and
Forever and the Earth. A
SovietThe Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
adaptation of "The Veldt" was filmed in 1987.
The 1998 film
The Wonderful Ice Cream SuitThe Wonderful Ice Cream Suit is a 1998 film set in East Los Angeles directed by Stuart Gordon, written by Ray Bradbury and starring Edward James Olmos, Joe Mantegna, Esai Morales, Clifton Collins Jr. , Sid Caesar, Howard Morris and Gregory Sierra...
, released by
Touchstone PicturesTouchstone Pictures is an American film production label and is one of several film labels of the Walt Disney Motion Pictures Group. Established in 1984, its releases typically feature more mature themes and darker tones than those that are released under the Walt Disney Pictures banner.Touchstone...
, was written by Ray Bradbury. It was based on his story "The Magic White Suit" originally published in
The Saturday Evening PostThe Saturday Evening Post is a bimonthly American magazine. It was published weekly under this title from 1897 until 1969, and quarterly and then bimonthly from 1971.-History:...
in 1957. The story had also previously been adapted as a play, a musical, and a 1958 television version.
In 2002, Bradbury's own Pandemonium Theatre Company production of
Fahrenheit 451 at Burbank's Falcon Theatre combined live acting with projected digital animation by the
Pixel Pups. In 1984, Telarium released a for
Commodore 64The Commodore 64 is an 8-bit home computer introduced by Commodore International in January 1982.Volume production started in the spring of 1982, with machines being released on to the market in August at a price of US$595...
based on
Fahrenheit 451. Bradbury and director Charles Rome Smith co-founded Pandemonium in 1964, staging the New York production of
The World of Ray Bradbury (1964), adaptations of "
The Pedestrian"The Pedestrian" is a short story by author Ray Bradbury. This story was originally published in 1951 by The Fortnightly Publishing Company. It is included in the collection The Golden Apples of the Sun .-Summary:...
", "The Veldt", and "To the Chicago Abyss."
In 2005, the film
A Sound of ThunderA Sound of Thunder is a 2005 science fiction film directed by Peter Hyams. The film was planned originally for a 2002 release. However, flooding in Prague and other financial difficulties—including the bankruptcy of the original production company during post-production—resulted in a delayed...
was released, loosely based upon the short story of the same name. The film
The Butterfly EffectThe Butterfly Effect is a 2004 American sci-fi psychological thriller film that is written and directed by Eric Bress and J. Mackye Gruber and starring Ashton Kutcher and Amy Smart...
revolves around the same theory as A Sound of Thunder and contains many references to its inspiration. Short film adaptations of
A Piece of Wood and
The Small AssassinThe Small Assassin is a short story collection by Ray Bradbury. The stories originally appeared in the magazines Dime Mystery Magazine, Weird Tales, Harper's, Mademoiselle and the book Dark Carnival.-Contents:...
were released in 2005 and 2007 respectively.
In 2005, it was reported that Bradbury was upset with filmmaker
Michael MooreMichael Francis Moore is an American filmmaker, author, social critic and activist. He is the director and producer of Fahrenheit 9/11, which is the highest-grossing documentary of all time. His films Bowling for Columbine and Sicko also place in the top ten highest-grossing documentaries...
for using the title
Fahrenheit 9/11Fahrenheit 9/11 is a 2004 documentary film by American filmmaker and political commentator Michael Moore. The film takes a critical look at the presidency of George W. Bush, the War on Terror, and its coverage in the news media...
, which is an allusion to Bradbury's
Fahrenheit 451Fahrenheit 451 is a 1953 dystopian novel by Ray Bradbury. The novel presents a future American society where reading is outlawed and firemen start fires to burn books...
, for his documentary about the George W. Bush administration. Bradbury expressed displeasure with Moore's use of the title but stated that his resentment was not politically motivated. Bradbury asserts that he does not want any of the money made by the movie, nor does he believe that he deserves it. He pressured Moore to change the name, but to no avail. Moore called Bradbury two weeks before the film's release to apologize, saying that the film's marketing had been set in motion a long time ago and it was too late to change the title.
In 2008, the film
Ray Bradbury's ChrysalisRay Bradbury's Chrysalis is a 2008 film based on a short story by Ray Bradbury and produced by Roger Lay Jr. The film tells the tale of mankind's struggle for survival in a distant future after the effects of war and carelessness have completely ravaged the environment.The story takes place inside...
was produced by Roger Lay Jr. for Urban Archipelago Films, based upon the short story of the same name. The film won the best feature award at the International Horror and Sci-Fi Film Festival in Phoenix. The film has international distribution by Arsenal Pictures and domestic distribution by Lightning Entertainment.
In 2010, The Martian Chronicles was adapted for radio by
Colonial Radio TheatreThe Colonial Radio Theatre on the Air is an award winning radio drama production company based out of Boston, Massachusetts. Officially established in 1995 by Jerry Robbins and Mark Vander Berg, Colonial can be heard nationwide on XM/Sirius Satellite radio...
on the Air.
Bradbury's works and approach to writing are documented in
Terry SandersTerry Sanders is an American filmmaker having produced and/or directed more than 70 dramatic features, televisions specials, documentaries and portrait films. He co-heads the American Film Foundation and has produced and photographed the Oscar-winning dramatic short "A Time Out of War"...
' film
Ray Bradbury: Story of a Writer (1963).
Honors
- In 2010, Spike TV
Spike is an American cable television channel. It launched on March 7, 1983 as The Nashville Network , a joint venture of WSM, Inc...
Scream AwardsThe Scream Awards is an award show dedicated to the horror, sci-fi, and fantasy genres of feature films, hosted and sponsored by Spike TV. The show was created by executive producers Michael Levitt, Cindy Levitt, and Casey Patterson...
Comic-ConComic-Con, Comic Con or ComiCon may refer to any of the following Comic book conventions, none of them affiliated to any other:*San Diego Comic-Con International, annual fan convention in San Diego held since 1970, also known as Comic-Con or San Diego Comic-Con*Dallas Comic Con, annual fan...
Icon Award went to Ray Bradbury
- In 2010, on occasion of his 90th birthday, Bradbury received Pulsar Award from Sarajevo SF Club PulSar
- In 2007, Bradbury received the French Commandeur Ordre des Arts et des Lettres
The Ordre des Arts et des Lettres is an Order of France, established on 2 May 1957 by the Minister of Culture, and confirmed as part of the Ordre national du Mérite by President Charles de Gaulle in 1963...
medal.
- For his contribution to the motion picture industry, Ray Bradbury was given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
The Hollywood Walk of Fame consists of more than 2,400 five-pointed terrazzo and brass stars embedded in the sidewalks along fifteen blocks of Hollywood Boulevard and three blocks of Vine Street in Hollywood, California...
at 6644 Hollywood Blvd.
- An asteroid
Asteroids are a class of small Solar System bodies in orbit around the Sun. They have also been called planetoids, especially the larger ones...
is named in his honor, "9766 Bradbury9766 Bradbury is a main-belt asteroid discovered on February 24, 1992 by the Spacewatch project at Kitt Peak. It was named after science fiction writer Ray Bradbury, author of The Martian Chronicles and Fahrenheit 451.- External links :*...
", along with a crater on the moon called "Dandelion CraterDandelion Crater is an impact crater on the Moon. The crater was named in 1971 by the Apollo 15 astronauts after the American author Ray Bradbury's 1957 novel Dandelion Wine....
" (named after his novel, Dandelion WineDandelion Wine is a 1957 novel by Ray Bradbury, taking place in the summer of 1928 in the fictional town of Green Town, Illinois — a pseudonym for Bradbury's childhood home of Waukegan, Illinois...
).
- On April 16, 2007, Bradbury received a special citation from The Pulitzer Board
The Pulitzer Prizes for 2007 were announced on April 16, 2007.In November 2006, the Pulitzer Prize Board announced two changes that would apply for the 2007 awards:...
, "for his distinguished, prolific, and deeply influential career as an unmatched author of science fiction and fantasy."
- On November 17, 2004, Bradbury was the recipient of the National Medal of Arts
The National Medal of Arts is an award and title created by the United States Congress in 1984, for the purpose of honoring artists and patrons of the arts. It is the highest honor conferred to an individual artist on behalf of the people. Honorees are selected by the National Endowment for the...
, presented by President George W. BushGeorge Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
and Laura BushLaura Lane Welch Bush is the wife of the 43rd President of the United States, George W. Bush. She was the First Lady of the United States from January 20, 2001, to January 20, 2009. She has held a love of books and reading since childhood and her life and education have reflected that interest...
. Bradbury has also received the World Fantasy AwardThe World Fantasy Awards are annual, international awards given to authors and artists who have demonstrated outstanding achievement in the field of fantasy...
life achievement, Stoker Award life achievement, SFWA Grand MasterThe Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award is an award given by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. It is awarded to a living author for lifetime achievement in science fiction and/or fantasy. Officially, it is not a Nebula Award though it is awarded at the Nebula ceremony...
, SF Hall of Fame Living Inductee, and First Fandom AwardFirst Fandom is an association of experienced science fiction fans.In 1958 a number of fans at Midwestcon realized amid table-talk that they all had been active in fandom for more than 20 years. This inspired the creation of an organization for longstanding fans under the initial chairmanship of...
. He received an Emmy AwardAn Emmy Award, often referred to simply as the Emmy, is a television production award, similar in nature to the Peabody Awards but more focused on entertainment, and is considered the television equivalent to the Academy Awards and the Grammy Awards .A majority of Emmys are presented in various...
for his work on The Halloween Tree. He received the Prometheus AwardThe Prometheus Award is an award for libertarian science fiction novels given annually by the Libertarian Futurist Society, which also publishes a quarterly journal Prometheus. L. Neil Smith established the award in 1979, but it was not awarded regularly until the newly founded Libertarian Futurist...
for Fahrenheit 451.
Ray Douglas Bradbury (born August 22, 1920) is an American
fantasyFantasy is a genre of fiction that commonly uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary element of plot, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic is common...
,
horrorHorror fiction also Horror fantasy is a philosophy of literature, which is intended to, or has the capacity to frighten its readers, inducing feelings of horror and terror. It creates an eerie atmosphere. Horror can be either supernatural or non-supernatural...
,
science fictionScience fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
, and mystery writer. Best known for his
dystopiaA dystopia is the idea of a society in a repressive and controlled state, often under the guise of being utopian, as characterized in books like Brave New World and Nineteen Eighty-Four...
n novel
Fahrenheit 451Fahrenheit 451 is a 1953 dystopian novel by Ray Bradbury. The novel presents a future American society where reading is outlawed and firemen start fires to burn books...
(1953) and for the science fiction stories gathered together as
The Martian ChroniclesThe Martian Chronicles is a 1950 science fiction short story collection by Ray Bradbury that chronicles the colonization of Mars by humans fleeing from a troubled and eventually atomically devastated Earth, and the conflict between aboriginal Martians and the new colonists...
(1950) and
The Illustrated ManThe Illustrated Man is a 1951 book of eighteen science fiction short stories by Ray Bradbury that explores the nature of mankind. While none of the stories has a plot or character connection with the next, a recurring theme is the conflict of the cold mechanics of technology and the psychology of...
(1951), Bradbury is one of the most celebrated among 20th and 21st century American writers of
speculative fictionSpeculative fiction is an umbrella term encompassing the more fantastical fiction genres, specifically science fiction, fantasy, horror, supernatural fiction, superhero fiction, utopian and dystopian fiction, apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction, and alternate history in literature as well as...
. Many of Bradbury's works have been adapted into television shows or films.
Early life
Bradbury was born in
Waukegan, IllinoisWaukegan is a city and county seat of Lake County, Illinois. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 87,901. The 2010 population was 89,078. It is the ninth-largest city in Illinois by population...
to Esther Moberg Bradbury, a
Swedish immigrantSwedish Americans are Americans of Swedish descent, especially the descendants of about 1.2 million immigrants from Sweden during 1885-1915. Most were Lutherans who affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America ; some were Methodists...
, and Leonard Spaulding Bradbury, a power and telephone lineman. He was the brother of two older twin boys, one of whom died in 1918. His paternal grandfather and great-grandfather were newspaper publishers.
He is related to the American Shakespeare scholar Douglas Spaulding. Ray is also directly descended from
Mary BradburyMary Perkins Bradbury was tried, convicted and sentenced to hang as a witch in Salem, Massachusetts in 1692.-Early life:...
who was tried, convicted and sentenced to hang as a witch in Salem, Massachusetts in 1692. She was married to Captain Thomas Bradbury of
Salisbury, MassachusettsSalisbury is a town in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 7,827 at the 2000 census. The community is a popular summer resort beach town situated on the Atlantic Ocean north of Boston on the New Hampshire border....
.
Bradbury was a reader and writer throughout his youth, spending much time in the
Carnegie library in
Waukegan, IllinoisWaukegan is a city and county seat of Lake County, Illinois. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 87,901. The 2010 population was 89,078. It is the ninth-largest city in Illinois by population...
, reading such authors as H.G. Wells,
Jules VerneJules Gabriel Verne was a French author who pioneered the science fiction genre. He is best known for his novels Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea , A Journey to the Center of the Earth , and Around the World in Eighty Days...
, and his favorite author,
Edgar Rice BurroughsEdgar Rice Burroughs was an American author, best known for his creation of the jungle hero Tarzan and the heroic Mars adventurer John Carter, although he produced works in many genres.-Biography:...
who wrote novels such as
Tarzan and
Warlord of Mars. Bradbury was pushed to writing by his aunt, who read him short stories when he was a child. He used this library as a setting for much of his novel
Something Wicked This Way ComesSomething Wicked This Way Comes is a 1962 novel by Ray Bradbury. It is about two 13-year-old boys, Jim Nightshade and William Halloway, who have a harrowing experience with a nightmarish traveling carnival that comes to their Midwestern town one October. The carnival's leader is the mysterious "Mr...
, and depicted Waukegan as "Green Town" in some of his other semi-
autobiographicalAn autobiography is a book about the life of a person, written by that person.-Origin of the term:...
novels—
Dandelion WineDandelion Wine is a 1957 novel by Ray Bradbury, taking place in the summer of 1928 in the fictional town of Green Town, Illinois — a pseudonym for Bradbury's childhood home of Waukegan, Illinois...
,
Farewell SummerFarewell Summer is a novel by Ray Bradbury, published on October 17, 2006. It is a sequel to his 1957 novel Dandelion Wine, and is set during an Indian summer in October 1929. The story concerns a mock war between the young and the old in Green Town, Illinois, and the sexual awakening of Doug...
—as well as in many of his short stories.
He attributes his lifelong habit of writing every day to two incidents. The first, which occurred when he was three years old when his mother took him to Lon Chaney's performance of the Hunchback of Notre Dame, and the second, which occurred in 1932 when a carnival entertainer, Mr. Electrico, touched him on the nose with an electrified sword, made his hair stand on end, and shouted, "Live forever!" It was from then that Bradbury wanted to live forever and decided on his career as an author in order to do what he was told: live forever. It was at that age that Bradbury first started to do
magicMagic is a performing art that entertains audiences by staging tricks or creating illusions of seemingly impossible or supernatural feats using natural means...
. Magic was his first great love. If he had not discovered writing, he would have become a magician.
The Bradbury family lived in
Tucson, ArizonaTucson is a city in and the county seat of Pima County, Arizona, United States. The city is located 118 miles southeast of Phoenix and 60 miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border. The 2010 United States Census puts the city's population at 520,116 with a metropolitan area population at 1,020,200...
, in 1926–27 and 1932–33 as his father pursued employment, each time returning to Waukegan, but eventually settled in Los Angeles in 1934, when Ray was thirteen.
Bradbury graduated from
Los Angeles High SchoolLos Angeles High School is the oldest public high school in the Southern California Region and in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Its colors are blue and white and the teams are called the Romans....
, where he took poetry and short story writing courses that furthered his interest in writing, but he did not attend college. Instead, he sold newspapers at the corner of South Norton Avenue and Olympic Boulevard. In regard to his education, Bradbury said:
It was in UCLA's
Powell LibraryPowell Library is the main college undergraduate library on the campus of the University of California, Los Angeles . It was constructed from 1926 to 1929 and was one of the original four buildings that comprised the UCLA campus in the early period of the university's life...
, in a study room with typewriters for rent, in which Bradbury wrote his classic story of a book-burning future, "Fahrenheit 451."
Career
Ray Bradbury had the freedom of starting his writing career when he was rejected admission into the military (bad eyesight) during World War II. Having been influenced by
science fictionScience fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
heroes like
Flash GordonFlash Gordon is the hero of a science fiction adventure comic strip originally drawn by Alex Raymond. First published January 7, 1934, the strip was inspired by and created to compete with the already established Buck Rogers adventure strip. Also inspired by these series were comics such as Dash...
and
Buck RogersAnthony Rogers is a fictional character that first appeared in Armageddon 2419 A.D. by Philip Francis Nowlan in the August 1928 issue of the pulp magazine Amazing Stories. A sequel, The Airlords of Han, was published in the March 1929 issue....
, Bradbury began to publish science fiction stories in
fanzineA fanzine is a nonprofessional and nonofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon for the pleasure of others who share their interest...
s in 1938. Bradbury was invited by
Forrest J AckermanForrest J Ackerman was an American collector of science fiction books and movie memorabilia and a science fiction fan...
to attend the Alabama "roll tide", which at the time met at Clifton’s Cafeteria in downtown Los Angeles. This was where he met the writers
Robert A. HeinleinRobert Anson Heinlein was an American science fiction writer. Often called the "dean of science fiction writers", he was one of the most influential and controversial authors of the genre. He set a standard for science and engineering plausibility and helped to raise the genre's standards of...
,
Emil PetajaEmil Petaja was an American science fiction and fantasy writer whose career spanned seven decades. He was the author of 13 published novels, nearly 150 short stories, numerous poems, and a handful of books and articles on various subjects...
,
Fredric BrownFredric Brown was an American science fiction and mystery writer. He was born in Cincinnati.He had two sons: James Ross Brown and Linn Lewis Brown ....
,
Henry KuttnerHenry Kuttner was an American author of science fiction, fantasy and horror.-Early life:Henry Kuttner was born in Los Angeles, California in 1915...
,
Leigh BrackettLeigh Douglass Brackett was an American author, particularly of science fiction. She was also a screenwriter, known for her work on famous films such as The Big Sleep , Rio Bravo , The Long Goodbye and The Empire Strikes Back .-Life:Leigh Brackett was born and grew up in Los Angeles, California...
, and
Jack WilliamsonJohn Stewart Williamson , who wrote as Jack Williamson was a U.S. writer often referred to as the "Dean of Science Fiction" following the death in 1988 of Robert A...
. His first published story was "Hollerbochen's Dilemma", which appeared in the
fanzineA fanzine is a nonprofessional and nonofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon for the pleasure of others who share their interest...
Imagination! in January, 1938. Launching his own fanzine in 1939, titled
Futuria Fantasia, he wrote most of its four issues, each limited to under 100 copies. Between 1941 and 1947, he was a contributor to Rob Wagner's film magazine,
Script.
Bradbury's first paid piece, "Pendulum", written with Henry Hasse, was published in the
pulp magazinePulp magazines , also collectively known as pulp fiction, refers to inexpensive fiction magazines published from 1896 through the 1950s. The typical pulp magazine was seven inches wide by ten inches high, half an inch thick, and 128 pages long...
Super Science Stories in November 1941, for which he earned $15. He became a full-time writer by the end of 1942. His first collection of short stories,
Dark Carnival, was published in 1947 by
Arkham HouseArkham House is a publishing house specializing in weird fiction founded in Sauk City, Wisconsin in 1939 by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei to preserve in hardcover the best fiction of H.P. Lovecraft. The company's name is derived from Lovecraft's fictional New England city, Arkham. Arkham House...
, a small press in Sauk City, Wis., owned by writer August Derleth.
A chance encounter in a Los Angeles bookstore with the British expatriate writer
Christopher IsherwoodChristopher William Bradshaw Isherwood was an English-American novelist.-Early life and work:Born at Wyberslegh Hall, High Lane, Cheshire in North West England, Isherwood spent his childhood in various towns where his father, a Lieutenant-Colonel in the British Army, was stationed...
gave Bradbury the opportunity to put
The Martian ChroniclesThe Martian Chronicles is a 1950 science fiction short story collection by Ray Bradbury that chronicles the colonization of Mars by humans fleeing from a troubled and eventually atomically devastated Earth, and the conflict between aboriginal Martians and the new colonists...
into the hands of a respected critic. Isherwood's glowing review followed.
Although he is often described as a
science fictionScience fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
writer, Bradbury does not box himself into a particular narrative categorization:
On another occasion, Bradbury observed that the novel touches on the alienation of people by media:
Besides his fiction work, Bradbury has written many short
essayAn essay is a piece of writing which is often written from an author's personal point of view. Essays can consist of a number of elements, including: literary criticism, political manifestos, learned arguments, observations of daily life, recollections, and reflections of the author. The definition...
s on the arts and culture, attracting the attention of critics in this field. Bradbury also hosted "The Ray Bradbury Theater" which was based on his short stories. Bradbury was a consultant for the American Pavilion at the
1964 New York World's FairThe 1964/1965 New York World's Fair was the third major world's fair to be held in New York City. Hailing itself as a "universal and international" exposition, the fair's theme was "Peace Through Understanding," dedicated to "Man's Achievement on a Shrinking Globe in an Expanding Universe";...
and the original exhibit housed in
EpcotEpcot is a theme park in the Walt Disney World Resort, located near Orlando, Florida. The park is dedicated to the celebration of human achievement, namely international culture and technological innovation. The second park built at the resort, it opened on October 1, 1982 and was initially named...
's Spaceship Earth geosphere at
Walt Disney WorldWalt Disney World Resort , is the world's most-visited entertaimental resort. Located in Lake Buena Vista, Florida ; approximately southwest of Orlando, Florida, United States, the resort covers an area of and includes four theme parks, two water parks, 23 on-site themed resort hotels Walt...
.
In the 1980s, he moved his writings to detective fiction.
Personal life
Ray Bradbury married Marguerite McClure (1922–2003) in 1947, and they had four daughters. Bradbury has never obtained a
driver's licenseA driver's license/licence , or driving licence is an official document which states that a person may operate a motorized vehicle, such as a motorcycle, car, truck or a bus, on a public roadway. Most U.S...
.
Bradbury was a close friend of
Charles AddamsCharles "Chas" Samuel Addams was an American cartoonist known for his particularly black humor and macabre characters...
, and Addams illustrated the first of Bradbury's stories about the Elliotts, a family that would resemble Addams' own Addams Family placed in rural
IllinoisIllinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...
. Bradbury's first story about them was "Homecoming," published in the 1946 Halloween issue of
MademoiselleMademoiselle was an influential women's magazine first published in 1935 by Street and Smith and later acquired by Condé Nast Publications....
, with Addams illustrations. He and Addams planned a larger collaborative work that would tell the family's complete history, but it never materialized, and according to a 2001 interview, they went their separate ways. In October 2001, Bradbury published all the Family stories he had written in one book with a connecting narrative,
From the Dust ReturnedFrom the Dust Returned is a fix-up fantasy novel by Ray Bradbury. The novel is largely comprised from a series of short stories which Bradbury had written decades earlier, centering around a family of Illinois-based ghosts named the Elliotts...
, featuring a wraparound Addams cover of the original 'Homecoming' illustration.
Bradbury made regular appearances at science fiction conventions until 2009 when he retired from the circuit on the grounds of old age and lack of energy.
Despite the numerous (and often prescient) technological predictions of his novels, he has expressed scepticism about the value of the Internet to society, stating that it has reduced people's ability to communicate and hold conversations with each other. He has also exhibited scepticism with regard to modern technology by resisting the conversion of his work into
e-bookAn electronic book is a book-length publication in digital form, consisting of text, images, or both, and produced on, published through, and readable on computers or other electronic devices. Sometimes the equivalent of a conventional printed book, e-books can also be born digital...
s and stating that
Critical reception
Critical opinion of Bradbury's work is sharply divided. In his review of
The Martian Chronicles,
Christopher IsherwoodChristopher William Bradshaw Isherwood was an English-American novelist.-Early life and work:Born at Wyberslegh Hall, High Lane, Cheshire in North West England, Isherwood spent his childhood in various towns where his father, a Lieutenant-Colonel in the British Army, was stationed...
wrote:
... the sheer lift and power of a truly original imagination exhilarates... His is a very great and unusual talent.
At the other extreme, science fiction author and critic
Damon KnightDamon Francis Knight was an American science fiction author, editor, critic and fan. His forte was short stories and he is widely acknowledged as having been a master of the genre.-Biography:...
wrote:
Although [Bradbury] has a large following among science fiction readers, there is at least an equally large contingent of people who cannot stomach his work at all... His imagination is mediocre; he borrows nearly all his backgrounds and props, and distorts them badly; wherever he is required to invent anything—a planet, a Martian, a machine—the image is flat and unconvincing.
Adaptations to other media
From 1951 to 1954, 27 of Bradbury's stories were adapted by
Al FeldsteinAlbert B. Feldstein is an American writer, editor, and artist, best known for his work at EC Comics and, from 1956 to 1985, as the editor of the satirical magazine Mad. Since retiring from Mad, Feldstein has concentrated on American paintings of Western wildlife...
for
EC ComicsEntertaining Comics, more commonly known as EC Comics, was an American publisher of comic books specializing in horror fiction, crime fiction, satire, military fiction and science fiction from the 1940s through the mid-1950s, notably the Tales from the Crypt series...
, and 16 of these were collected in the paperbacks,
The Autumn PeopleThe Autumn People is a mass-market paperback collection of comic adaptations of eight short horror and crime stories by Ray Bradbury, gathered from the pages of the EC Comics comic books of the 1950s...
(1965) and
Tomorrow MidnightTomorrow Midnight is a mass-market paperback collection of comic adaptations of eight short science fiction stories by Ray Bradbury, gathered from the pages of the EC Comics comic books of the 1950s...
(1966), both published by
Ballantine BooksBallantine Books is a major book publisher located in the United States, founded in 1952 by Ian Ballantine with his wife, Betty Ballantine. It was acquired by Random House in 1973, which in turn was acquired by Bertelsmann AG in 1998 and remains part of that company today. Ballantine's logo is a...
with cover illustrations by
Frank FrazettaFrank Frazetta was an American fantasy and science fiction artist, noted for work in comic books, paperback book covers, paintings, posters, LP record album covers and other media...
.
Also in the early 1950s, adaptations of Bradbury's stories were televised on a variety of an anthology shows, including
Tales of TomorrowTales of Tomorrow is an American anthology science fiction series that was performed and broadcast live on ABC from 1951 to 1953. The series covered such stories as Frankenstein, starring Lon Chaney, Jr., 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea starring Thomas Mitchell as Captain Nemo, and many others...
,
Lights OutLights Out is an extremely popular American old-time radio program, an early example of a network series devoted mostly to horror and the supernatural, predating Suspense and Inner Sanctum...
,
Out There,
Suspense-Production background:One of the premier drama programs of the Golden Age of Radio, was subtitled "radio's outstanding theater of thrills" and focused on suspense thriller-type scripts, usually featuring leading Hollywood actors of the era...
,
CBS Television WorkshopCBS Television Workshop was a 1952 television series famous for an early appearance of Audrey Hepburn and James Dean.On 13 January 1952, in the very first episode, a dramatized 30 minute version of Don Quixote starring Boris Karloff and directed by Sidney Lumet, Grace Kelly made an appearance as...
,
Jane Wyman's Fireside TheatreFireside Theater is an American anthology drama series that ran from on NBC from 1949 to 1958, and was the first successful filmed series on American television. Stories were low budget and often based on public domain stories or written by freelance writers such as Rod Serling. While it was panned...
,
Star TonightStar Tonight, an American television anthology series, aired on ABC from February 1955 to August 1956.-Adaptations and actors:It consisted of 80 total episodes, 30 from 1955 and 50 from 1956. Each episode was a self-contained story, usually adapted from famous plays, short-stories or novels by some...
,
Windows and
Alfred Hitchcock PresentsAlfred Hitchcock Presents is an American television anthology series hosted by Alfred Hitchcock. The series featured dramas, thrillers, and mysteries. By the premiere of the show on October 2, 1955, Hitchcock had been directing films for over three decades...
. "The Merry-Go-Round," a half-hour film adaptation of Bradbury's "The Black Ferris," praised by
Variety, was shown on
Starlight Summer Theater in 1954 and NBC's
Sneak Preview in 1956. During that same period, several stories were adapted for radio drama, notably on the science fiction anthologies
Dimension XDimension X was an NBC radio program broadcast on an unsponsored, sustaining basis from April 8, 1950 to September 29, 1951. The first 13 episodes were broadcast live, and the remainder were pre-recorded...
and its successor
X Minus OneX Minus One was a half-hour science fiction radio drama series broadcast from April 24, 1955 to January 9, 1958 in various timeslots on NBC.-Overview:...
.
Producer William Alland first brought Bradbury to movie theaters in 1953 with
It Came from Outer SpaceIt Came from Outer Space is a 1953 science fiction 3-D film directed by Jack Arnold, and starring Richard Carlson, Barbara Rush, and Charles Drake. It was Universal's first film to be filmed in 3-D.- Plot :...
, a
Harry EssexHarry Essex was a prolific American screenwriter. He was born on 29 November 1910 in New York City. He died on 5 February 1997 in Los Angeles. His career spanned more than fifty years...
screenplay developed from Bradbury's screen treatment "Atomic Monster". Three weeks later came the release of Eugène Lourié's
The Beast from 20,000 FathomsThe Beast from 20,000 Fathoms is a 1953 science fiction film directed by Eugène Lourié and stars Paul Christian, Paula Raymond and Cecil Kellaway with visual effects by Ray Harryhausen. The film is about an atomic bomb test in the Arctic Circle that unfreezes a hibernating fictional dinosaur, a...
(1953), which featured one scene based on Bradbury's "
The Fog Horn"The Fog Horn" is a 1951 science fiction short story by Ray Bradbury, and the first in his collection The Golden Apples of the Sun. The story was the basis for the 1953 film The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms.-Plot summary:...
", about a sea monster mistaking the sound of a fog horn for the mating cry of a female. Bradbury's close friend
Ray HarryhausenRay Harryhausen is an American film producer and special effects creator...
produced the stop-motion animation of the creature. Bradbury would later return the favor by writing a short story, "Tyrannosaurus Rex", about a stop-motion animator who strongly resembled Harryhausen. Over the next 50 years, more than 35 features, shorts, and TV movies were based on Bradbury's stories or screenplays.
Bradbury was hired in 1953 by director
John HustonJohn Marcellus Huston was an American film director, screenwriter and actor. He wrote most of the 37 feature films he directed, many of which are today considered classics: The Maltese Falcon , The Treasure of the Sierra Madre , Key Largo , The Asphalt Jungle , The African Queen , Moulin Rouge...
to work on the screenplay for the 1956 film
Moby DickMoby Dick is a 1956 film adaptation of Herman Melville's novel Moby-Dick. It was directed by John Huston with a screenplay by Ray Bradbury and the director. The film starred Gregory Peck, Richard Basehart, and Leo Genn...
, which was faithfully based on the novel by
Herman MelvilleHerman Melville was an American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet. He is best known for his novel Moby-Dick and the posthumous novella Billy Budd....
and starred
Gregory PeckEldred Gregory Peck was an American actor.One of 20th Century Fox's most popular film stars from the 1940s to the 1960s, Peck continued to play important roles well into the 1980s. His notable performances include that of Atticus Finch in the 1962 film To Kill a Mockingbird, for which he won an...
as Captain Ahab,
Richard BasehartJohn Richard Basehart was an American actor. He starred in the 1960s television science fiction drama Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, in the role of Admiral Harriman Nelson.-Career:...
as Ishmael, and
Orson WellesGeorge Orson Welles , best known as Orson Welles, was an American film director, actor, theatre director, screenwriter, and producer, who worked extensively in film, theatre, television and radio...
as Father Mapple. A significant result of the film was Bradbury's book
Green Shadows, White WhaleGreen Shadows, White Whale is a 1992 novel by Ray Bradbury. It gives a fictionalized account of his journey to Ireland in 1953-1954 to write a screen adaptation of the novel Moby-Dick with director John Huston. Bradbury has said he wrote it after reading actress Katharine Hepburn's account of...
, a semi-fictionalized account of the making of the film, including Bradbury's dealings with Huston and his time in
IrelandIreland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
, where exterior scenes that were set in
New Bedford, MassachusettsNew Bedford is a city in Bristol County, Massachusetts, United States, located south of Boston, southeast of Providence, Rhode Island, and about east of Fall River. As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 95,072, making it the sixth-largest city in Massachusetts...
, were filmed.
Bradbury's short story
I Sing the Body ElectricI Sing the Body Electric! is a 1969 collection of short stories by Ray Bradbury. The book takes its name from a line in Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman.-Contents:The collection includes these stories:* "The Kilimanjaro Device"...
(from the book of the same name) was adapted for the
100th episode of The Twilight Zone"I Sing the Body Electric" is the 100th episode of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone.The script was written by Ray Bradbury, and based on his short story of the same name, itself named after a Walt Whitman poem. Although Bradbury contributed several scripts to The Twilight...
. The episode was first aired on May 18, 1962.
Oskar Werner-Early life:Born Oskar Josef Bschließmayer in Vienna, Werner spent much of his childhood in the care of his grandmother, who entertained him with stories about the Burgtheater, the Austrian state theatre, where he was accepted at the age of eighteen by Lothar Müthel. He was the youngest person ever...
and
Julie ChristieJulie Frances Christie is a British actress. Born in British India to English parents, at the age of six Christie moved to England, where she attended boarding school....
starred in
Fahrenheit 451Fahrenheit 451 is a 1966 film directed by François Truffaut, in his first colour film as well as his only English-language film. It is based on the novel of the same name by Ray Bradbury....
(1966), an adaptation of Bradbury's novel directed by
François TruffautFrançois Roland Truffaut was an influential film critic and filmmaker and one of the founders of the French New Wave. In a film career lasting over a quarter of a century, he remains an icon of the French film industry. He was also a screenwriter, producer, and actor working on over twenty-five...
.
In 1966 Bradbury helped
Lynn GarrisonLynn Garrison is a Canadian pilot and political adviser. He was an RCAF fighter pilot from the 403 City of Calgary Squadron, commercial pilot, film producer, director and mercenary...
create AVIAN, a specialist aviation magazine. For the first issue Bradbury wrote a poem – Planes that land on grass.
In 1969,
The Illustrated ManThe Illustrated Man is a 1951 book of eighteen science fiction short stories by Ray Bradbury that explores the nature of mankind. While none of the stories has a plot or character connection with the next, a recurring theme is the conflict of the cold mechanics of technology and the psychology of...
was brought to the big screen, starring
Rod SteigerRodney Stephen "Rod" Steiger was an Academy Award-winning American actor known for his performances in such films as On the Waterfront, The Big Knife, Oklahoma!, The Harder They Fall, Across the Bridge, The Pawnbroker, Doctor Zhivago, In the Heat of the Night, and Waterloo as well as the...
,
Claire BloomClaire Bloom is an English film and stage actress.-Early life:Bloom was born in the North London suburb of Finchley, the daughter of Elizabeth and Edward Max Blume, who worked in sales...
and
Robert DrivasRobert Drivas was an American actor and theatre director.Drivas was born Robert Choromokos in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Hariklia and James Peter Choromokos. Drivas studied at the University of Chicago and the University of Miami...
. Containing the prologue and three short stories from the book, the film received mediocre reviews.
The Martian ChroniclesThe Martian Chronicles is a television miniseries based on Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles and dealing with the exploration of Mars and the inhabitants there. The series starred Rock Hudson, Darren McGavin, Bernadette Peters, Roddy McDowall, Barry Morse, and Maria Schell...
became a three-part TV
miniseriesA miniseries , in a serial storytelling medium, is a television show production which tells a story in a limited number of episodes. The exact number is open to interpretation; however, they are usually limited to fewer than a whole season. The term "miniseries" is generally a North American term...
starring
Rock HudsonRoy Harold Scherer, Jr., later Roy Harold Fitzgerald , known professionally as Rock Hudson, was an American film and television actor, recognized as a romantic leading man during the 1950s and 1960s, most notably in several romantic comedies with Doris Day.Hudson was voted "Star of the Year",...
which was first broadcast by
NBCThe National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
in 1980. Bradbury found the miniseries "just boring".
The 1983 horror film
Something Wicked This Way ComesSomething Wicked This Way Comes is a 1983 film based on the Ray Bradbury novel of the same name, starring Jason Robards and Jonathan Pryce. Directed by Jack Clayton from a screenplay written by Bradbury himself, the movie suffered from offscreen conflicts of vision...
, starring
Jason RobardsJason Nelson Robards, Jr. was an American actor on stage, and in film and television, and a winner of the Tony Award , two Academy Awards and the Emmy Award...
and
Jonathan PryceJonathan Pryce, CBE is a Welsh stage and film actor and singer. After studying at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and meeting his longtime partner English actress Kate Fahy in 1974, he began his career as a stage actor in the 1970s...
, is based on the Bradbury novel of the
same nameSomething Wicked This Way Comes is a 1962 novel by Ray Bradbury. It is about two 13-year-old boys, Jim Nightshade and William Halloway, who have a harrowing experience with a nightmarish traveling carnival that comes to their Midwestern town one October. The carnival's leader is the mysterious "Mr...
.
In 1984, Michael McDonough of Brigham Young University produced "Bradbury 13," a series of 13 audio adaptations of famous Ray Bradbury stories, in conjunction with National Public Radio. The full-cast dramatizations featured adaptations of "The Ravine," "Night Call, Collect," "
The Veldt"The Veldt" is a short story written by Ray Bradbury that was published originally as "The World the Children Made" in the September 23, 1950 issue of The Saturday Evening Post, later republished in the anthology The Illustrated Man in 1951...
", "There Was an Old Woman," "Kaleidoscope," "
Dark They Were, and Golden-Eyed"Dark They Were, and Golden-Eyed" is a science fiction short story by Ray Bradbury. It was originally published in the magazine Thrilling Wonder Stories in August 1949...
", "The Screaming Woman," "
A Sound of Thunder“A Sound of Thunder” is a science fiction short story by Ray Bradbury, first published in Collier’s magazine in 1952. As of 1984 it was the most re-published science fiction story up to the present time...
," "The Man," "The Wind," "The Fox and the Forest," "
Here There Be Tygers"Here There Be Tygers" is a short story written by Ray Bradbury, originally published in the anthology New Tales of Space and Time in 1951. It was later collected in Bradbury's short story collections R is for Rocket and The Golden Apples of the Sun...
" and "The Happiness Machine". Voiceover actor
Paul FreesPaul Frees was an American voice actor and character actor.-Biography:He was born Solomon Hersh Frees in Chicago...
provided narration, while Bradbury himself was responsible for the opening voiceover; Greg Hansen and Roger Hoffman scored the episodes. The series won a
Peabody AwardThe George Foster Peabody Awards recognize distinguished and meritorious public service by radio and television stations, networks, producing organizations and individuals. In 1939, the National Association of Broadcasters formed a committee to recognize outstanding achievement in radio broadcasting...
as well as two Gold Cindy awards and was released on CD on May 1, 2010. The series began airing on BBC Radio 4 Extra on June 12, 2011.
From 1985 to 1992 Bradbury hosted a syndicated anthology television series,
The Ray Bradbury TheaterThe Ray Bradbury Theater is an anthology series that ran for two seasons on HBO, three episodes per season from 1985 to 1986, and four additional seasons on USA Network from 1988 to 1992. It was later shown in reruns on the Sci Fi Channel...
, for which he adapted 65 of his stories. Each episode would begin with a shot of Bradbury in his office, gazing over mementoes of his life, which he states (in narrative) are used to spark ideas for stories. During the first two seasons, Bradbury also provided additional voiceover narration specific to the featured story and appeared on screen.
Five episodes of the
USSRThe Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
science fiction TV series
This Fantastic World adapted Ray Bradbury's stories
I Sing The Body Electric,
Fahrenheit 451,
A Piece of Wood,
To the Chicago Abyss, and
Forever and the Earth. A
SovietThe Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
adaptation of "The Veldt" was filmed in 1987.
The 1998 film
The Wonderful Ice Cream SuitThe Wonderful Ice Cream Suit is a 1998 film set in East Los Angeles directed by Stuart Gordon, written by Ray Bradbury and starring Edward James Olmos, Joe Mantegna, Esai Morales, Clifton Collins Jr. , Sid Caesar, Howard Morris and Gregory Sierra...
, released by
Touchstone PicturesTouchstone Pictures is an American film production label and is one of several film labels of the Walt Disney Motion Pictures Group. Established in 1984, its releases typically feature more mature themes and darker tones than those that are released under the Walt Disney Pictures banner.Touchstone...
, was written by Ray Bradbury. It was based on his story "The Magic White Suit" originally published in
The Saturday Evening PostThe Saturday Evening Post is a bimonthly American magazine. It was published weekly under this title from 1897 until 1969, and quarterly and then bimonthly from 1971.-History:...
in 1957. The story had also previously been adapted as a play, a musical, and a 1958 television version.
In 2002, Bradbury's own Pandemonium Theatre Company production of
Fahrenheit 451 at Burbank's Falcon Theatre combined live acting with projected digital animation by the
Pixel Pups. In 1984, Telarium released a for
Commodore 64The Commodore 64 is an 8-bit home computer introduced by Commodore International in January 1982.Volume production started in the spring of 1982, with machines being released on to the market in August at a price of US$595...
based on
Fahrenheit 451. Bradbury and director Charles Rome Smith co-founded Pandemonium in 1964, staging the New York production of
The World of Ray Bradbury (1964), adaptations of "
The Pedestrian"The Pedestrian" is a short story by author Ray Bradbury. This story was originally published in 1951 by The Fortnightly Publishing Company. It is included in the collection The Golden Apples of the Sun .-Summary:...
", "The Veldt", and "To the Chicago Abyss."
In 2005, the film
A Sound of ThunderA Sound of Thunder is a 2005 science fiction film directed by Peter Hyams. The film was planned originally for a 2002 release. However, flooding in Prague and other financial difficulties—including the bankruptcy of the original production company during post-production—resulted in a delayed...
was released, loosely based upon the short story of the same name. The film
The Butterfly EffectThe Butterfly Effect is a 2004 American sci-fi psychological thriller film that is written and directed by Eric Bress and J. Mackye Gruber and starring Ashton Kutcher and Amy Smart...
revolves around the same theory as A Sound of Thunder and contains many references to its inspiration. Short film adaptations of
A Piece of Wood and
The Small AssassinThe Small Assassin is a short story collection by Ray Bradbury. The stories originally appeared in the magazines Dime Mystery Magazine, Weird Tales, Harper's, Mademoiselle and the book Dark Carnival.-Contents:...
were released in 2005 and 2007 respectively.
In 2005, it was reported that Bradbury was upset with filmmaker
Michael MooreMichael Francis Moore is an American filmmaker, author, social critic and activist. He is the director and producer of Fahrenheit 9/11, which is the highest-grossing documentary of all time. His films Bowling for Columbine and Sicko also place in the top ten highest-grossing documentaries...
for using the title
Fahrenheit 9/11Fahrenheit 9/11 is a 2004 documentary film by American filmmaker and political commentator Michael Moore. The film takes a critical look at the presidency of George W. Bush, the War on Terror, and its coverage in the news media...
, which is an allusion to Bradbury's
Fahrenheit 451Fahrenheit 451 is a 1953 dystopian novel by Ray Bradbury. The novel presents a future American society where reading is outlawed and firemen start fires to burn books...
, for his documentary about the George W. Bush administration. Bradbury expressed displeasure with Moore's use of the title but stated that his resentment was not politically motivated. Bradbury asserts that he does not want any of the money made by the movie, nor does he believe that he deserves it. He pressured Moore to change the name, but to no avail. Moore called Bradbury two weeks before the film's release to apologize, saying that the film's marketing had been set in motion a long time ago and it was too late to change the title.
In 2008, the film
Ray Bradbury's ChrysalisRay Bradbury's Chrysalis is a 2008 film based on a short story by Ray Bradbury and produced by Roger Lay Jr. The film tells the tale of mankind's struggle for survival in a distant future after the effects of war and carelessness have completely ravaged the environment.The story takes place inside...
was produced by Roger Lay Jr. for Urban Archipelago Films, based upon the short story of the same name. The film won the best feature award at the International Horror and Sci-Fi Film Festival in Phoenix. The film has international distribution by Arsenal Pictures and domestic distribution by Lightning Entertainment.
In 2010, The Martian Chronicles was adapted for radio by
Colonial Radio TheatreThe Colonial Radio Theatre on the Air is an award winning radio drama production company based out of Boston, Massachusetts. Officially established in 1995 by Jerry Robbins and Mark Vander Berg, Colonial can be heard nationwide on XM/Sirius Satellite radio...
on the Air.
Bradbury's works and approach to writing are documented in
Terry SandersTerry Sanders is an American filmmaker having produced and/or directed more than 70 dramatic features, televisions specials, documentaries and portrait films. He co-heads the American Film Foundation and has produced and photographed the Oscar-winning dramatic short "A Time Out of War"...
' film
Ray Bradbury: Story of a Writer (1963).
Honors
- In 2010, Spike TV
Spike is an American cable television channel. It launched on March 7, 1983 as The Nashville Network , a joint venture of WSM, Inc...
Scream AwardsThe Scream Awards is an award show dedicated to the horror, sci-fi, and fantasy genres of feature films, hosted and sponsored by Spike TV. The show was created by executive producers Michael Levitt, Cindy Levitt, and Casey Patterson...
Comic-ConComic-Con, Comic Con or ComiCon may refer to any of the following Comic book conventions, none of them affiliated to any other:*San Diego Comic-Con International, annual fan convention in San Diego held since 1970, also known as Comic-Con or San Diego Comic-Con*Dallas Comic Con, annual fan...
Icon Award went to Ray Bradbury
- In 2010, on occasion of his 90th birthday, Bradbury received Pulsar Award from Sarajevo SF Club PulSar
- In 2007, Bradbury received the French Commandeur Ordre des Arts et des Lettres
The Ordre des Arts et des Lettres is an Order of France, established on 2 May 1957 by the Minister of Culture, and confirmed as part of the Ordre national du Mérite by President Charles de Gaulle in 1963...
medal.
- For his contribution to the motion picture industry, Ray Bradbury was given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
The Hollywood Walk of Fame consists of more than 2,400 five-pointed terrazzo and brass stars embedded in the sidewalks along fifteen blocks of Hollywood Boulevard and three blocks of Vine Street in Hollywood, California...
at 6644 Hollywood Blvd.
- An asteroid
Asteroids are a class of small Solar System bodies in orbit around the Sun. They have also been called planetoids, especially the larger ones...
is named in his honor, "9766 Bradbury9766 Bradbury is a main-belt asteroid discovered on February 24, 1992 by the Spacewatch project at Kitt Peak. It was named after science fiction writer Ray Bradbury, author of The Martian Chronicles and Fahrenheit 451.- External links :*...
", along with a crater on the moon called "Dandelion CraterDandelion Crater is an impact crater on the Moon. The crater was named in 1971 by the Apollo 15 astronauts after the American author Ray Bradbury's 1957 novel Dandelion Wine....
" (named after his novel, Dandelion WineDandelion Wine is a 1957 novel by Ray Bradbury, taking place in the summer of 1928 in the fictional town of Green Town, Illinois — a pseudonym for Bradbury's childhood home of Waukegan, Illinois...
).
- On April 16, 2007, Bradbury received a special citation from The Pulitzer Board
The Pulitzer Prizes for 2007 were announced on April 16, 2007.In November 2006, the Pulitzer Prize Board announced two changes that would apply for the 2007 awards:...
, "for his distinguished, prolific, and deeply influential career as an unmatched author of science fiction and fantasy."
- On November 17, 2004, Bradbury was the recipient of the National Medal of Arts
The National Medal of Arts is an award and title created by the United States Congress in 1984, for the purpose of honoring artists and patrons of the arts. It is the highest honor conferred to an individual artist on behalf of the people. Honorees are selected by the National Endowment for the...
, presented by President George W. BushGeorge Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
and Laura BushLaura Lane Welch Bush is the wife of the 43rd President of the United States, George W. Bush. She was the First Lady of the United States from January 20, 2001, to January 20, 2009. She has held a love of books and reading since childhood and her life and education have reflected that interest...
. Bradbury has also received the World Fantasy AwardThe World Fantasy Awards are annual, international awards given to authors and artists who have demonstrated outstanding achievement in the field of fantasy...
life achievement, Stoker Award life achievement, SFWA Grand MasterThe Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award is an award given by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. It is awarded to a living author for lifetime achievement in science fiction and/or fantasy. Officially, it is not a Nebula Award though it is awarded at the Nebula ceremony...
, SF Hall of Fame Living Inductee, and First Fandom AwardFirst Fandom is an association of experienced science fiction fans.In 1958 a number of fans at Midwestcon realized amid table-talk that they all had been active in fandom for more than 20 years. This inspired the creation of an organization for longstanding fans under the initial chairmanship of...
. He received an Emmy AwardAn Emmy Award, often referred to simply as the Emmy, is a television production award, similar in nature to the Peabody Awards but more focused on entertainment, and is considered the television equivalent to the Academy Awards and the Grammy Awards .A majority of Emmys are presented in various...
for his work on The Halloween Tree. He received the Prometheus AwardThe Prometheus Award is an award for libertarian science fiction novels given annually by the Libertarian Futurist Society, which also publishes a quarterly journal Prometheus. L. Neil Smith established the award in 1979, but it was not awarded regularly until the newly founded Libertarian Futurist...
for Fahrenheit 451.
Ray Douglas Bradbury (born August 22, 1920) is an American
fantasyFantasy is a genre of fiction that commonly uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary element of plot, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic is common...
,
horrorHorror fiction also Horror fantasy is a philosophy of literature, which is intended to, or has the capacity to frighten its readers, inducing feelings of horror and terror. It creates an eerie atmosphere. Horror can be either supernatural or non-supernatural...
,
science fictionScience fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
, and mystery writer. Best known for his
dystopiaA dystopia is the idea of a society in a repressive and controlled state, often under the guise of being utopian, as characterized in books like Brave New World and Nineteen Eighty-Four...
n novel
Fahrenheit 451Fahrenheit 451 is a 1953 dystopian novel by Ray Bradbury. The novel presents a future American society where reading is outlawed and firemen start fires to burn books...
(1953) and for the science fiction stories gathered together as
The Martian ChroniclesThe Martian Chronicles is a 1950 science fiction short story collection by Ray Bradbury that chronicles the colonization of Mars by humans fleeing from a troubled and eventually atomically devastated Earth, and the conflict between aboriginal Martians and the new colonists...
(1950) and
The Illustrated ManThe Illustrated Man is a 1951 book of eighteen science fiction short stories by Ray Bradbury that explores the nature of mankind. While none of the stories has a plot or character connection with the next, a recurring theme is the conflict of the cold mechanics of technology and the psychology of...
(1951), Bradbury is one of the most celebrated among 20th and 21st century American writers of
speculative fictionSpeculative fiction is an umbrella term encompassing the more fantastical fiction genres, specifically science fiction, fantasy, horror, supernatural fiction, superhero fiction, utopian and dystopian fiction, apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction, and alternate history in literature as well as...
. Many of Bradbury's works have been adapted into television shows or films.
Early life
Bradbury was born in
Waukegan, IllinoisWaukegan is a city and county seat of Lake County, Illinois. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 87,901. The 2010 population was 89,078. It is the ninth-largest city in Illinois by population...
to Esther Moberg Bradbury, a
Swedish immigrantSwedish Americans are Americans of Swedish descent, especially the descendants of about 1.2 million immigrants from Sweden during 1885-1915. Most were Lutherans who affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America ; some were Methodists...
, and Leonard Spaulding Bradbury, a power and telephone lineman. He was the brother of two older twin boys, one of whom died in 1918. His paternal grandfather and great-grandfather were newspaper publishers.
He is related to the American Shakespeare scholar Douglas Spaulding. Ray is also directly descended from
Mary BradburyMary Perkins Bradbury was tried, convicted and sentenced to hang as a witch in Salem, Massachusetts in 1692.-Early life:...
who was tried, convicted and sentenced to hang as a witch in Salem, Massachusetts in 1692. She was married to Captain Thomas Bradbury of
Salisbury, MassachusettsSalisbury is a town in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 7,827 at the 2000 census. The community is a popular summer resort beach town situated on the Atlantic Ocean north of Boston on the New Hampshire border....
.
Bradbury was a reader and writer throughout his youth, spending much time in the
Carnegie library in
Waukegan, IllinoisWaukegan is a city and county seat of Lake County, Illinois. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 87,901. The 2010 population was 89,078. It is the ninth-largest city in Illinois by population...
, reading such authors as H.G. Wells,
Jules VerneJules Gabriel Verne was a French author who pioneered the science fiction genre. He is best known for his novels Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea , A Journey to the Center of the Earth , and Around the World in Eighty Days...
, and his favorite author,
Edgar Rice BurroughsEdgar Rice Burroughs was an American author, best known for his creation of the jungle hero Tarzan and the heroic Mars adventurer John Carter, although he produced works in many genres.-Biography:...
who wrote novels such as
Tarzan and
Warlord of Mars. Bradbury was pushed to writing by his aunt, who read him short stories when he was a child. He used this library as a setting for much of his novel
Something Wicked This Way ComesSomething Wicked This Way Comes is a 1962 novel by Ray Bradbury. It is about two 13-year-old boys, Jim Nightshade and William Halloway, who have a harrowing experience with a nightmarish traveling carnival that comes to their Midwestern town one October. The carnival's leader is the mysterious "Mr...
, and depicted Waukegan as "Green Town" in some of his other semi-
autobiographicalAn autobiography is a book about the life of a person, written by that person.-Origin of the term:...
novels—
Dandelion WineDandelion Wine is a 1957 novel by Ray Bradbury, taking place in the summer of 1928 in the fictional town of Green Town, Illinois — a pseudonym for Bradbury's childhood home of Waukegan, Illinois...
,
Farewell SummerFarewell Summer is a novel by Ray Bradbury, published on October 17, 2006. It is a sequel to his 1957 novel Dandelion Wine, and is set during an Indian summer in October 1929. The story concerns a mock war between the young and the old in Green Town, Illinois, and the sexual awakening of Doug...
—as well as in many of his short stories.
He attributes his lifelong habit of writing every day to two incidents. The first, which occurred when he was three years old when his mother took him to Lon Chaney's performance of the Hunchback of Notre Dame, and the second, which occurred in 1932 when a carnival entertainer, Mr. Electrico, touched him on the nose with an electrified sword, made his hair stand on end, and shouted, "Live forever!" It was from then that Bradbury wanted to live forever and decided on his career as an author in order to do what he was told: live forever. It was at that age that Bradbury first started to do
magicMagic is a performing art that entertains audiences by staging tricks or creating illusions of seemingly impossible or supernatural feats using natural means...
. Magic was his first great love. If he had not discovered writing, he would have become a magician.
The Bradbury family lived in
Tucson, ArizonaTucson is a city in and the county seat of Pima County, Arizona, United States. The city is located 118 miles southeast of Phoenix and 60 miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border. The 2010 United States Census puts the city's population at 520,116 with a metropolitan area population at 1,020,200...
, in 1926–27 and 1932–33 as his father pursued employment, each time returning to Waukegan, but eventually settled in Los Angeles in 1934, when Ray was thirteen.
Bradbury graduated from
Los Angeles High SchoolLos Angeles High School is the oldest public high school in the Southern California Region and in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Its colors are blue and white and the teams are called the Romans....
, where he took poetry and short story writing courses that furthered his interest in writing, but he did not attend college. Instead, he sold newspapers at the corner of South Norton Avenue and Olympic Boulevard. In regard to his education, Bradbury said:
It was in UCLA's
Powell LibraryPowell Library is the main college undergraduate library on the campus of the University of California, Los Angeles . It was constructed from 1926 to 1929 and was one of the original four buildings that comprised the UCLA campus in the early period of the university's life...
, in a study room with typewriters for rent, in which Bradbury wrote his classic story of a book-burning future, "Fahrenheit 451."
Career
Ray Bradbury had the freedom of starting his writing career when he was rejected admission into the military (bad eyesight) during World War II. Having been influenced by
science fictionScience fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
heroes like
Flash GordonFlash Gordon is the hero of a science fiction adventure comic strip originally drawn by Alex Raymond. First published January 7, 1934, the strip was inspired by and created to compete with the already established Buck Rogers adventure strip. Also inspired by these series were comics such as Dash...
and
Buck RogersAnthony Rogers is a fictional character that first appeared in Armageddon 2419 A.D. by Philip Francis Nowlan in the August 1928 issue of the pulp magazine Amazing Stories. A sequel, The Airlords of Han, was published in the March 1929 issue....
, Bradbury began to publish science fiction stories in
fanzineA fanzine is a nonprofessional and nonofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon for the pleasure of others who share their interest...
s in 1938. Bradbury was invited by
Forrest J AckermanForrest J Ackerman was an American collector of science fiction books and movie memorabilia and a science fiction fan...
to attend the Alabama "roll tide", which at the time met at Clifton’s Cafeteria in downtown Los Angeles. This was where he met the writers
Robert A. HeinleinRobert Anson Heinlein was an American science fiction writer. Often called the "dean of science fiction writers", he was one of the most influential and controversial authors of the genre. He set a standard for science and engineering plausibility and helped to raise the genre's standards of...
,
Emil PetajaEmil Petaja was an American science fiction and fantasy writer whose career spanned seven decades. He was the author of 13 published novels, nearly 150 short stories, numerous poems, and a handful of books and articles on various subjects...
,
Fredric BrownFredric Brown was an American science fiction and mystery writer. He was born in Cincinnati.He had two sons: James Ross Brown and Linn Lewis Brown ....
,
Henry KuttnerHenry Kuttner was an American author of science fiction, fantasy and horror.-Early life:Henry Kuttner was born in Los Angeles, California in 1915...
,
Leigh BrackettLeigh Douglass Brackett was an American author, particularly of science fiction. She was also a screenwriter, known for her work on famous films such as The Big Sleep , Rio Bravo , The Long Goodbye and The Empire Strikes Back .-Life:Leigh Brackett was born and grew up in Los Angeles, California...
, and
Jack WilliamsonJohn Stewart Williamson , who wrote as Jack Williamson was a U.S. writer often referred to as the "Dean of Science Fiction" following the death in 1988 of Robert A...
. His first published story was "Hollerbochen's Dilemma", which appeared in the
fanzineA fanzine is a nonprofessional and nonofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon for the pleasure of others who share their interest...
Imagination! in January, 1938. Launching his own fanzine in 1939, titled
Futuria Fantasia, he wrote most of its four issues, each limited to under 100 copies. Between 1941 and 1947, he was a contributor to Rob Wagner's film magazine,
Script.
Bradbury's first paid piece, "Pendulum", written with Henry Hasse, was published in the
pulp magazinePulp magazines , also collectively known as pulp fiction, refers to inexpensive fiction magazines published from 1896 through the 1950s. The typical pulp magazine was seven inches wide by ten inches high, half an inch thick, and 128 pages long...
Super Science Stories in November 1941, for which he earned $15. He became a full-time writer by the end of 1942. His first collection of short stories,
Dark Carnival, was published in 1947 by
Arkham HouseArkham House is a publishing house specializing in weird fiction founded in Sauk City, Wisconsin in 1939 by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei to preserve in hardcover the best fiction of H.P. Lovecraft. The company's name is derived from Lovecraft's fictional New England city, Arkham. Arkham House...
, a small press in Sauk City, Wis., owned by writer August Derleth.
A chance encounter in a Los Angeles bookstore with the British expatriate writer
Christopher IsherwoodChristopher William Bradshaw Isherwood was an English-American novelist.-Early life and work:Born at Wyberslegh Hall, High Lane, Cheshire in North West England, Isherwood spent his childhood in various towns where his father, a Lieutenant-Colonel in the British Army, was stationed...
gave Bradbury the opportunity to put
The Martian ChroniclesThe Martian Chronicles is a 1950 science fiction short story collection by Ray Bradbury that chronicles the colonization of Mars by humans fleeing from a troubled and eventually atomically devastated Earth, and the conflict between aboriginal Martians and the new colonists...
into the hands of a respected critic. Isherwood's glowing review followed.
Although he is often described as a
science fictionScience fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
writer, Bradbury does not box himself into a particular narrative categorization:
On another occasion, Bradbury observed that the novel touches on the alienation of people by media:
Besides his fiction work, Bradbury has written many short
essayAn essay is a piece of writing which is often written from an author's personal point of view. Essays can consist of a number of elements, including: literary criticism, political manifestos, learned arguments, observations of daily life, recollections, and reflections of the author. The definition...
s on the arts and culture, attracting the attention of critics in this field. Bradbury also hosted "The Ray Bradbury Theater" which was based on his short stories. Bradbury was a consultant for the American Pavilion at the
1964 New York World's FairThe 1964/1965 New York World's Fair was the third major world's fair to be held in New York City. Hailing itself as a "universal and international" exposition, the fair's theme was "Peace Through Understanding," dedicated to "Man's Achievement on a Shrinking Globe in an Expanding Universe";...
and the original exhibit housed in
EpcotEpcot is a theme park in the Walt Disney World Resort, located near Orlando, Florida. The park is dedicated to the celebration of human achievement, namely international culture and technological innovation. The second park built at the resort, it opened on October 1, 1982 and was initially named...
's Spaceship Earth geosphere at
Walt Disney WorldWalt Disney World Resort , is the world's most-visited entertaimental resort. Located in Lake Buena Vista, Florida ; approximately southwest of Orlando, Florida, United States, the resort covers an area of and includes four theme parks, two water parks, 23 on-site themed resort hotels Walt...
.
In the 1980s, he moved his writings to detective fiction.
Personal life
Ray Bradbury married Marguerite McClure (1922–2003) in 1947, and they had four daughters. Bradbury has never obtained a
driver's licenseA driver's license/licence , or driving licence is an official document which states that a person may operate a motorized vehicle, such as a motorcycle, car, truck or a bus, on a public roadway. Most U.S...
.
Bradbury was a close friend of
Charles AddamsCharles "Chas" Samuel Addams was an American cartoonist known for his particularly black humor and macabre characters...
, and Addams illustrated the first of Bradbury's stories about the Elliotts, a family that would resemble Addams' own Addams Family placed in rural
IllinoisIllinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...
. Bradbury's first story about them was "Homecoming," published in the 1946 Halloween issue of
MademoiselleMademoiselle was an influential women's magazine first published in 1935 by Street and Smith and later acquired by Condé Nast Publications....
, with Addams illustrations. He and Addams planned a larger collaborative work that would tell the family's complete history, but it never materialized, and according to a 2001 interview, they went their separate ways. In October 2001, Bradbury published all the Family stories he had written in one book with a connecting narrative,
From the Dust ReturnedFrom the Dust Returned is a fix-up fantasy novel by Ray Bradbury. The novel is largely comprised from a series of short stories which Bradbury had written decades earlier, centering around a family of Illinois-based ghosts named the Elliotts...
, featuring a wraparound Addams cover of the original 'Homecoming' illustration.
Bradbury made regular appearances at science fiction conventions until 2009 when he retired from the circuit on the grounds of old age and lack of energy.
Despite the numerous (and often prescient) technological predictions of his novels, he has expressed scepticism about the value of the Internet to society, stating that it has reduced people's ability to communicate and hold conversations with each other. He has also exhibited scepticism with regard to modern technology by resisting the conversion of his work into
e-bookAn electronic book is a book-length publication in digital form, consisting of text, images, or both, and produced on, published through, and readable on computers or other electronic devices. Sometimes the equivalent of a conventional printed book, e-books can also be born digital...
s and stating that
Critical reception
Critical opinion of Bradbury's work is sharply divided. In his review of
The Martian Chronicles,
Christopher IsherwoodChristopher William Bradshaw Isherwood was an English-American novelist.-Early life and work:Born at Wyberslegh Hall, High Lane, Cheshire in North West England, Isherwood spent his childhood in various towns where his father, a Lieutenant-Colonel in the British Army, was stationed...
wrote:
... the sheer lift and power of a truly original imagination exhilarates... His is a very great and unusual talent.
At the other extreme, science fiction author and critic
Damon KnightDamon Francis Knight was an American science fiction author, editor, critic and fan. His forte was short stories and he is widely acknowledged as having been a master of the genre.-Biography:...
wrote:
Although [Bradbury] has a large following among science fiction readers, there is at least an equally large contingent of people who cannot stomach his work at all... His imagination is mediocre; he borrows nearly all his backgrounds and props, and distorts them badly; wherever he is required to invent anything—a planet, a Martian, a machine—the image is flat and unconvincing.
Adaptations to other media
From 1951 to 1954, 27 of Bradbury's stories were adapted by
Al FeldsteinAlbert B. Feldstein is an American writer, editor, and artist, best known for his work at EC Comics and, from 1956 to 1985, as the editor of the satirical magazine Mad. Since retiring from Mad, Feldstein has concentrated on American paintings of Western wildlife...
for
EC ComicsEntertaining Comics, more commonly known as EC Comics, was an American publisher of comic books specializing in horror fiction, crime fiction, satire, military fiction and science fiction from the 1940s through the mid-1950s, notably the Tales from the Crypt series...
, and 16 of these were collected in the paperbacks,
The Autumn PeopleThe Autumn People is a mass-market paperback collection of comic adaptations of eight short horror and crime stories by Ray Bradbury, gathered from the pages of the EC Comics comic books of the 1950s...
(1965) and
Tomorrow MidnightTomorrow Midnight is a mass-market paperback collection of comic adaptations of eight short science fiction stories by Ray Bradbury, gathered from the pages of the EC Comics comic books of the 1950s...
(1966), both published by
Ballantine BooksBallantine Books is a major book publisher located in the United States, founded in 1952 by Ian Ballantine with his wife, Betty Ballantine. It was acquired by Random House in 1973, which in turn was acquired by Bertelsmann AG in 1998 and remains part of that company today. Ballantine's logo is a...
with cover illustrations by
Frank FrazettaFrank Frazetta was an American fantasy and science fiction artist, noted for work in comic books, paperback book covers, paintings, posters, LP record album covers and other media...
.
Also in the early 1950s, adaptations of Bradbury's stories were televised on a variety of an anthology shows, including
Tales of TomorrowTales of Tomorrow is an American anthology science fiction series that was performed and broadcast live on ABC from 1951 to 1953. The series covered such stories as Frankenstein, starring Lon Chaney, Jr., 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea starring Thomas Mitchell as Captain Nemo, and many others...
,
Lights OutLights Out is an extremely popular American old-time radio program, an early example of a network series devoted mostly to horror and the supernatural, predating Suspense and Inner Sanctum...
,
Out There,
Suspense-Production background:One of the premier drama programs of the Golden Age of Radio, was subtitled "radio's outstanding theater of thrills" and focused on suspense thriller-type scripts, usually featuring leading Hollywood actors of the era...
,
CBS Television WorkshopCBS Television Workshop was a 1952 television series famous for an early appearance of Audrey Hepburn and James Dean.On 13 January 1952, in the very first episode, a dramatized 30 minute version of Don Quixote starring Boris Karloff and directed by Sidney Lumet, Grace Kelly made an appearance as...
,
Jane Wyman's Fireside TheatreFireside Theater is an American anthology drama series that ran from on NBC from 1949 to 1958, and was the first successful filmed series on American television. Stories were low budget and often based on public domain stories or written by freelance writers such as Rod Serling. While it was panned...
,
Star TonightStar Tonight, an American television anthology series, aired on ABC from February 1955 to August 1956.-Adaptations and actors:It consisted of 80 total episodes, 30 from 1955 and 50 from 1956. Each episode was a self-contained story, usually adapted from famous plays, short-stories or novels by some...
,
Windows and
Alfred Hitchcock PresentsAlfred Hitchcock Presents is an American television anthology series hosted by Alfred Hitchcock. The series featured dramas, thrillers, and mysteries. By the premiere of the show on October 2, 1955, Hitchcock had been directing films for over three decades...
. "The Merry-Go-Round," a half-hour film adaptation of Bradbury's "The Black Ferris," praised by
Variety, was shown on
Starlight Summer Theater in 1954 and NBC's
Sneak Preview in 1956. During that same period, several stories were adapted for radio drama, notably on the science fiction anthologies
Dimension XDimension X was an NBC radio program broadcast on an unsponsored, sustaining basis from April 8, 1950 to September 29, 1951. The first 13 episodes were broadcast live, and the remainder were pre-recorded...
and its successor
X Minus OneX Minus One was a half-hour science fiction radio drama series broadcast from April 24, 1955 to January 9, 1958 in various timeslots on NBC.-Overview:...
.
Producer William Alland first brought Bradbury to movie theaters in 1953 with
It Came from Outer SpaceIt Came from Outer Space is a 1953 science fiction 3-D film directed by Jack Arnold, and starring Richard Carlson, Barbara Rush, and Charles Drake. It was Universal's first film to be filmed in 3-D.- Plot :...
, a
Harry EssexHarry Essex was a prolific American screenwriter. He was born on 29 November 1910 in New York City. He died on 5 February 1997 in Los Angeles. His career spanned more than fifty years...
screenplay developed from Bradbury's screen treatment "Atomic Monster". Three weeks later came the release of Eugène Lourié's
The Beast from 20,000 FathomsThe Beast from 20,000 Fathoms is a 1953 science fiction film directed by Eugène Lourié and stars Paul Christian, Paula Raymond and Cecil Kellaway with visual effects by Ray Harryhausen. The film is about an atomic bomb test in the Arctic Circle that unfreezes a hibernating fictional dinosaur, a...
(1953), which featured one scene based on Bradbury's "
The Fog Horn"The Fog Horn" is a 1951 science fiction short story by Ray Bradbury, and the first in his collection The Golden Apples of the Sun. The story was the basis for the 1953 film The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms.-Plot summary:...
", about a sea monster mistaking the sound of a fog horn for the mating cry of a female. Bradbury's close friend
Ray HarryhausenRay Harryhausen is an American film producer and special effects creator...
produced the stop-motion animation of the creature. Bradbury would later return the favor by writing a short story, "Tyrannosaurus Rex", about a stop-motion animator who strongly resembled Harryhausen. Over the next 50 years, more than 35 features, shorts, and TV movies were based on Bradbury's stories or screenplays.
Bradbury was hired in 1953 by director
John HustonJohn Marcellus Huston was an American film director, screenwriter and actor. He wrote most of the 37 feature films he directed, many of which are today considered classics: The Maltese Falcon , The Treasure of the Sierra Madre , Key Largo , The Asphalt Jungle , The African Queen , Moulin Rouge...
to work on the screenplay for the 1956 film
Moby DickMoby Dick is a 1956 film adaptation of Herman Melville's novel Moby-Dick. It was directed by John Huston with a screenplay by Ray Bradbury and the director. The film starred Gregory Peck, Richard Basehart, and Leo Genn...
, which was faithfully based on the novel by
Herman MelvilleHerman Melville was an American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet. He is best known for his novel Moby-Dick and the posthumous novella Billy Budd....
and starred
Gregory PeckEldred Gregory Peck was an American actor.One of 20th Century Fox's most popular film stars from the 1940s to the 1960s, Peck continued to play important roles well into the 1980s. His notable performances include that of Atticus Finch in the 1962 film To Kill a Mockingbird, for which he won an...
as Captain Ahab,
Richard BasehartJohn Richard Basehart was an American actor. He starred in the 1960s television science fiction drama Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, in the role of Admiral Harriman Nelson.-Career:...
as Ishmael, and
Orson WellesGeorge Orson Welles , best known as Orson Welles, was an American film director, actor, theatre director, screenwriter, and producer, who worked extensively in film, theatre, television and radio...
as Father Mapple. A significant result of the film was Bradbury's book
Green Shadows, White WhaleGreen Shadows, White Whale is a 1992 novel by Ray Bradbury. It gives a fictionalized account of his journey to Ireland in 1953-1954 to write a screen adaptation of the novel Moby-Dick with director John Huston. Bradbury has said he wrote it after reading actress Katharine Hepburn's account of...
, a semi-fictionalized account of the making of the film, including Bradbury's dealings with Huston and his time in
IrelandIreland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
, where exterior scenes that were set in
New Bedford, MassachusettsNew Bedford is a city in Bristol County, Massachusetts, United States, located south of Boston, southeast of Providence, Rhode Island, and about east of Fall River. As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 95,072, making it the sixth-largest city in Massachusetts...
, were filmed.
Bradbury's short story
I Sing the Body ElectricI Sing the Body Electric! is a 1969 collection of short stories by Ray Bradbury. The book takes its name from a line in Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman.-Contents:The collection includes these stories:* "The Kilimanjaro Device"...
(from the book of the same name) was adapted for the
100th episode of The Twilight Zone"I Sing the Body Electric" is the 100th episode of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone.The script was written by Ray Bradbury, and based on his short story of the same name, itself named after a Walt Whitman poem. Although Bradbury contributed several scripts to The Twilight...
. The episode was first aired on May 18, 1962.
Oskar Werner-Early life:Born Oskar Josef Bschließmayer in Vienna, Werner spent much of his childhood in the care of his grandmother, who entertained him with stories about the Burgtheater, the Austrian state theatre, where he was accepted at the age of eighteen by Lothar Müthel. He was the youngest person ever...
and
Julie ChristieJulie Frances Christie is a British actress. Born in British India to English parents, at the age of six Christie moved to England, where she attended boarding school....
starred in
Fahrenheit 451Fahrenheit 451 is a 1966 film directed by François Truffaut, in his first colour film as well as his only English-language film. It is based on the novel of the same name by Ray Bradbury....
(1966), an adaptation of Bradbury's novel directed by
François TruffautFrançois Roland Truffaut was an influential film critic and filmmaker and one of the founders of the French New Wave. In a film career lasting over a quarter of a century, he remains an icon of the French film industry. He was also a screenwriter, producer, and actor working on over twenty-five...
.
In 1966 Bradbury helped
Lynn GarrisonLynn Garrison is a Canadian pilot and political adviser. He was an RCAF fighter pilot from the 403 City of Calgary Squadron, commercial pilot, film producer, director and mercenary...
create AVIAN, a specialist aviation magazine. For the first issue Bradbury wrote a poem – Planes that land on grass.
In 1969,
The Illustrated ManThe Illustrated Man is a 1951 book of eighteen science fiction short stories by Ray Bradbury that explores the nature of mankind. While none of the stories has a plot or character connection with the next, a recurring theme is the conflict of the cold mechanics of technology and the psychology of...
was brought to the big screen, starring
Rod SteigerRodney Stephen "Rod" Steiger was an Academy Award-winning American actor known for his performances in such films as On the Waterfront, The Big Knife, Oklahoma!, The Harder They Fall, Across the Bridge, The Pawnbroker, Doctor Zhivago, In the Heat of the Night, and Waterloo as well as the...
,
Claire BloomClaire Bloom is an English film and stage actress.-Early life:Bloom was born in the North London suburb of Finchley, the daughter of Elizabeth and Edward Max Blume, who worked in sales...
and
Robert DrivasRobert Drivas was an American actor and theatre director.Drivas was born Robert Choromokos in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Hariklia and James Peter Choromokos. Drivas studied at the University of Chicago and the University of Miami...
. Containing the prologue and three short stories from the book, the film received mediocre reviews.
The Martian ChroniclesThe Martian Chronicles is a television miniseries based on Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles and dealing with the exploration of Mars and the inhabitants there. The series starred Rock Hudson, Darren McGavin, Bernadette Peters, Roddy McDowall, Barry Morse, and Maria Schell...
became a three-part TV
miniseriesA miniseries , in a serial storytelling medium, is a television show production which tells a story in a limited number of episodes. The exact number is open to interpretation; however, they are usually limited to fewer than a whole season. The term "miniseries" is generally a North American term...
starring
Rock HudsonRoy Harold Scherer, Jr., later Roy Harold Fitzgerald , known professionally as Rock Hudson, was an American film and television actor, recognized as a romantic leading man during the 1950s and 1960s, most notably in several romantic comedies with Doris Day.Hudson was voted "Star of the Year",...
which was first broadcast by
NBCThe National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
in 1980. Bradbury found the miniseries "just boring".
The 1983 horror film
Something Wicked This Way ComesSomething Wicked This Way Comes is a 1983 film based on the Ray Bradbury novel of the same name, starring Jason Robards and Jonathan Pryce. Directed by Jack Clayton from a screenplay written by Bradbury himself, the movie suffered from offscreen conflicts of vision...
, starring
Jason RobardsJason Nelson Robards, Jr. was an American actor on stage, and in film and television, and a winner of the Tony Award , two Academy Awards and the Emmy Award...
and
Jonathan PryceJonathan Pryce, CBE is a Welsh stage and film actor and singer. After studying at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and meeting his longtime partner English actress Kate Fahy in 1974, he began his career as a stage actor in the 1970s...
, is based on the Bradbury novel of the
same nameSomething Wicked This Way Comes is a 1962 novel by Ray Bradbury. It is about two 13-year-old boys, Jim Nightshade and William Halloway, who have a harrowing experience with a nightmarish traveling carnival that comes to their Midwestern town one October. The carnival's leader is the mysterious "Mr...
.
In 1984, Michael McDonough of Brigham Young University produced "Bradbury 13," a series of 13 audio adaptations of famous Ray Bradbury stories, in conjunction with National Public Radio. The full-cast dramatizations featured adaptations of "The Ravine," "Night Call, Collect," "
The Veldt"The Veldt" is a short story written by Ray Bradbury that was published originally as "The World the Children Made" in the September 23, 1950 issue of The Saturday Evening Post, later republished in the anthology The Illustrated Man in 1951...
", "There Was an Old Woman," "Kaleidoscope," "
Dark They Were, and Golden-Eyed"Dark They Were, and Golden-Eyed" is a science fiction short story by Ray Bradbury. It was originally published in the magazine Thrilling Wonder Stories in August 1949...
", "The Screaming Woman," "
A Sound of Thunder“A Sound of Thunder” is a science fiction short story by Ray Bradbury, first published in Collier’s magazine in 1952. As of 1984 it was the most re-published science fiction story up to the present time...
," "The Man," "The Wind," "The Fox and the Forest," "
Here There Be Tygers"Here There Be Tygers" is a short story written by Ray Bradbury, originally published in the anthology New Tales of Space and Time in 1951. It was later collected in Bradbury's short story collections R is for Rocket and The Golden Apples of the Sun...
" and "The Happiness Machine". Voiceover actor
Paul FreesPaul Frees was an American voice actor and character actor.-Biography:He was born Solomon Hersh Frees in Chicago...
provided narration, while Bradbury himself was responsible for the opening voiceover; Greg Hansen and Roger Hoffman scored the episodes. The series won a
Peabody AwardThe George Foster Peabody Awards recognize distinguished and meritorious public service by radio and television stations, networks, producing organizations and individuals. In 1939, the National Association of Broadcasters formed a committee to recognize outstanding achievement in radio broadcasting...
as well as two Gold Cindy awards and was released on CD on May 1, 2010. The series began airing on BBC Radio 4 Extra on June 12, 2011.
From 1985 to 1992 Bradbury hosted a syndicated anthology television series,
The Ray Bradbury TheaterThe Ray Bradbury Theater is an anthology series that ran for two seasons on HBO, three episodes per season from 1985 to 1986, and four additional seasons on USA Network from 1988 to 1992. It was later shown in reruns on the Sci Fi Channel...
, for which he adapted 65 of his stories. Each episode would begin with a shot of Bradbury in his office, gazing over mementoes of his life, which he states (in narrative) are used to spark ideas for stories. During the first two seasons, Bradbury also provided additional voiceover narration specific to the featured story and appeared on screen.
Five episodes of the
USSRThe Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
science fiction TV series
This Fantastic World adapted Ray Bradbury's stories
I Sing The Body Electric,
Fahrenheit 451,
A Piece of Wood,
To the Chicago Abyss, and
Forever and the Earth. A
SovietThe Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
adaptation of "The Veldt" was filmed in 1987.
The 1998 film
The Wonderful Ice Cream SuitThe Wonderful Ice Cream Suit is a 1998 film set in East Los Angeles directed by Stuart Gordon, written by Ray Bradbury and starring Edward James Olmos, Joe Mantegna, Esai Morales, Clifton Collins Jr. , Sid Caesar, Howard Morris and Gregory Sierra...
, released by
Touchstone PicturesTouchstone Pictures is an American film production label and is one of several film labels of the Walt Disney Motion Pictures Group. Established in 1984, its releases typically feature more mature themes and darker tones than those that are released under the Walt Disney Pictures banner.Touchstone...
, was written by Ray Bradbury. It was based on his story "The Magic White Suit" originally published in
The Saturday Evening PostThe Saturday Evening Post is a bimonthly American magazine. It was published weekly under this title from 1897 until 1969, and quarterly and then bimonthly from 1971.-History:...
in 1957. The story had also previously been adapted as a play, a musical, and a 1958 television version.
In 2002, Bradbury's own Pandemonium Theatre Company production of
Fahrenheit 451 at Burbank's Falcon Theatre combined live acting with projected digital animation by the
Pixel Pups. In 1984, Telarium released a for
Commodore 64The Commodore 64 is an 8-bit home computer introduced by Commodore International in January 1982.Volume production started in the spring of 1982, with machines being released on to the market in August at a price of US$595...
based on
Fahrenheit 451. Bradbury and director Charles Rome Smith co-founded Pandemonium in 1964, staging the New York production of
The World of Ray Bradbury (1964), adaptations of "
The Pedestrian"The Pedestrian" is a short story by author Ray Bradbury. This story was originally published in 1951 by The Fortnightly Publishing Company. It is included in the collection The Golden Apples of the Sun .-Summary:...
", "The Veldt", and "To the Chicago Abyss."
In 2005, the film
A Sound of ThunderA Sound of Thunder is a 2005 science fiction film directed by Peter Hyams. The film was planned originally for a 2002 release. However, flooding in Prague and other financial difficulties—including the bankruptcy of the original production company during post-production—resulted in a delayed...
was released, loosely based upon the short story of the same name. The film
The Butterfly EffectThe Butterfly Effect is a 2004 American sci-fi psychological thriller film that is written and directed by Eric Bress and J. Mackye Gruber and starring Ashton Kutcher and Amy Smart...
revolves around the same theory as A Sound of Thunder and contains many references to its inspiration. Short film adaptations of
A Piece of Wood and
The Small AssassinThe Small Assassin is a short story collection by Ray Bradbury. The stories originally appeared in the magazines Dime Mystery Magazine, Weird Tales, Harper's, Mademoiselle and the book Dark Carnival.-Contents:...
were released in 2005 and 2007 respectively.
In 2005, it was reported that Bradbury was upset with filmmaker
Michael MooreMichael Francis Moore is an American filmmaker, author, social critic and activist. He is the director and producer of Fahrenheit 9/11, which is the highest-grossing documentary of all time. His films Bowling for Columbine and Sicko also place in the top ten highest-grossing documentaries...
for using the title
Fahrenheit 9/11Fahrenheit 9/11 is a 2004 documentary film by American filmmaker and political commentator Michael Moore. The film takes a critical look at the presidency of George W. Bush, the War on Terror, and its coverage in the news media...
, which is an allusion to Bradbury's
Fahrenheit 451Fahrenheit 451 is a 1953 dystopian novel by Ray Bradbury. The novel presents a future American society where reading is outlawed and firemen start fires to burn books...
, for his documentary about the George W. Bush administration. Bradbury expressed displeasure with Moore's use of the title but stated that his resentment was not politically motivated. Bradbury asserts that he does not want any of the money made by the movie, nor does he believe that he deserves it. He pressured Moore to change the name, but to no avail. Moore called Bradbury two weeks before the film's release to apologize, saying that the film's marketing had been set in motion a long time ago and it was too late to change the title.
In 2008, the film
Ray Bradbury's ChrysalisRay Bradbury's Chrysalis is a 2008 film based on a short story by Ray Bradbury and produced by Roger Lay Jr. The film tells the tale of mankind's struggle for survival in a distant future after the effects of war and carelessness have completely ravaged the environment.The story takes place inside...
was produced by Roger Lay Jr. for Urban Archipelago Films, based upon the short story of the same name. The film won the best feature award at the International Horror and Sci-Fi Film Festival in Phoenix. The film has international distribution by Arsenal Pictures and domestic distribution by Lightning Entertainment.
In 2010, The Martian Chronicles was adapted for radio by
Colonial Radio TheatreThe Colonial Radio Theatre on the Air is an award winning radio drama production company based out of Boston, Massachusetts. Officially established in 1995 by Jerry Robbins and Mark Vander Berg, Colonial can be heard nationwide on XM/Sirius Satellite radio...
on the Air.
Bradbury's works and approach to writing are documented in
Terry SandersTerry Sanders is an American filmmaker having produced and/or directed more than 70 dramatic features, televisions specials, documentaries and portrait films. He co-heads the American Film Foundation and has produced and photographed the Oscar-winning dramatic short "A Time Out of War"...
' film
Ray Bradbury: Story of a Writer (1963).
Honors
- In 2010, Spike TV
Spike is an American cable television channel. It launched on March 7, 1983 as The Nashville Network , a joint venture of WSM, Inc...
Scream AwardsThe Scream Awards is an award show dedicated to the horror, sci-fi, and fantasy genres of feature films, hosted and sponsored by Spike TV. The show was created by executive producers Michael Levitt, Cindy Levitt, and Casey Patterson...
Comic-ConComic-Con, Comic Con or ComiCon may refer to any of the following Comic book conventions, none of them affiliated to any other:*San Diego Comic-Con International, annual fan convention in San Diego held since 1970, also known as Comic-Con or San Diego Comic-Con*Dallas Comic Con, annual fan...
Icon Award went to Ray Bradbury
- In 2010, on occasion of his 90th birthday, Bradbury received Pulsar Award from Sarajevo SF Club PulSar
- In 2007, Bradbury received the French Commandeur Ordre des Arts et des Lettres
The Ordre des Arts et des Lettres is an Order of France, established on 2 May 1957 by the Minister of Culture, and confirmed as part of the Ordre national du Mérite by President Charles de Gaulle in 1963...
medal.
- For his contribution to the motion picture industry, Ray Bradbury was given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
The Hollywood Walk of Fame consists of more than 2,400 five-pointed terrazzo and brass stars embedded in the sidewalks along fifteen blocks of Hollywood Boulevard and three blocks of Vine Street in Hollywood, California...
at 6644 Hollywood Blvd.
- An asteroid
Asteroids are a class of small Solar System bodies in orbit around the Sun. They have also been called planetoids, especially the larger ones...
is named in his honor, "9766 Bradbury9766 Bradbury is a main-belt asteroid discovered on February 24, 1992 by the Spacewatch project at Kitt Peak. It was named after science fiction writer Ray Bradbury, author of The Martian Chronicles and Fahrenheit 451.- External links :*...
", along with a crater on the moon called "Dandelion CraterDandelion Crater is an impact crater on the Moon. The crater was named in 1971 by the Apollo 15 astronauts after the American author Ray Bradbury's 1957 novel Dandelion Wine....
" (named after his novel, Dandelion WineDandelion Wine is a 1957 novel by Ray Bradbury, taking place in the summer of 1928 in the fictional town of Green Town, Illinois — a pseudonym for Bradbury's childhood home of Waukegan, Illinois...
).
- On April 16, 2007, Bradbury received a special citation from The Pulitzer Board
The Pulitzer Prizes for 2007 were announced on April 16, 2007.In November 2006, the Pulitzer Prize Board announced two changes that would apply for the 2007 awards:...
, "for his distinguished, prolific, and deeply influential career as an unmatched author of science fiction and fantasy."
- On November 17, 2004, Bradbury was the recipient of the National Medal of Arts
The National Medal of Arts is an award and title created by the United States Congress in 1984, for the purpose of honoring artists and patrons of the arts. It is the highest honor conferred to an individual artist on behalf of the people. Honorees are selected by the National Endowment for the...
, presented by President George W. BushGeorge Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
and Laura BushLaura Lane Welch Bush is the wife of the 43rd President of the United States, George W. Bush. She was the First Lady of the United States from January 20, 2001, to January 20, 2009. She has held a love of books and reading since childhood and her life and education have reflected that interest...
. Bradbury has also received the World Fantasy AwardThe World Fantasy Awards are annual, international awards given to authors and artists who have demonstrated outstanding achievement in the field of fantasy...
life achievement, Stoker Award life achievement, SFWA Grand MasterThe Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award is an award given by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. It is awarded to a living author for lifetime achievement in science fiction and/or fantasy. Officially, it is not a Nebula Award though it is awarded at the Nebula ceremony...
, SF Hall of Fame Living Inductee, and First Fandom AwardFirst Fandom is an association of experienced science fiction fans.In 1958 a number of fans at Midwestcon realized amid table-talk that they all had been active in fandom for more than 20 years. This inspired the creation of an organization for longstanding fans under the initial chairmanship of...
. He received an Emmy AwardAn Emmy Award, often referred to simply as the Emmy, is a television production award, similar in nature to the Peabody Awards but more focused on entertainment, and is considered the television equivalent to the Academy Awards and the Grammy Awards .A majority of Emmys are presented in various...
for his work on The Halloween Tree. He received the Prometheus AwardThe Prometheus Award is an award for libertarian science fiction novels given annually by the Libertarian Futurist Society, which also publishes a quarterly journal Prometheus. L. Neil Smith established the award in 1979, but it was not awarded regularly until the newly founded Libertarian Futurist...
for Fahrenheit 451.
-
From 1951 to 1954, 27 of Bradbury's stories were adapted by Al FeldsteinAlbert B. Feldstein is an American writer, editor, and artist, best known for his work at EC Comics and, from 1956 to 1985, as the editor of the satirical magazine Mad. Since retiring from Mad, Feldstein has concentrated on American paintings of Western wildlife...
for EC ComicsEntertaining Comics, more commonly known as EC Comics, was an American publisher of comic books specializing in horror fiction, crime fiction, satire, military fiction and science fiction from the 1940s through the mid-1950s, notably the Tales from the Crypt series...
, and 16 of these were collected in the paperbacks, The Autumn PeopleThe Autumn People is a mass-market paperback collection of comic adaptations of eight short horror and crime stories by Ray Bradbury, gathered from the pages of the EC Comics comic books of the 1950s...
(1965) and Tomorrow MidnightTomorrow Midnight is a mass-market paperback collection of comic adaptations of eight short science fiction stories by Ray Bradbury, gathered from the pages of the EC Comics comic books of the 1950s...
(1966), both published by Ballantine BooksBallantine Books is a major book publisher located in the United States, founded in 1952 by Ian Ballantine with his wife, Betty Ballantine. It was acquired by Random House in 1973, which in turn was acquired by Bertelsmann AG in 1998 and remains part of that company today. Ballantine's logo is a...
with cover illustrations by Frank FrazettaFrank Frazetta was an American fantasy and science fiction artist, noted for work in comic books, paperback book covers, paintings, posters, LP record album covers and other media...
.
Also in the early 1950s, adaptations of Bradbury's stories were televised on a variety of an anthology shows, including Tales of TomorrowTales of Tomorrow is an American anthology science fiction series that was performed and broadcast live on ABC from 1951 to 1953. The series covered such stories as Frankenstein, starring Lon Chaney, Jr., 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea starring Thomas Mitchell as Captain Nemo, and many others...
, Lights OutLights Out is an extremely popular American old-time radio program, an early example of a network series devoted mostly to horror and the supernatural, predating Suspense and Inner Sanctum...
, Out There, Suspense-Production background:One of the premier drama programs of the Golden Age of Radio, was subtitled "radio's outstanding theater of thrills" and focused on suspense thriller-type scripts, usually featuring leading Hollywood actors of the era...
, CBS Television WorkshopCBS Television Workshop was a 1952 television series famous for an early appearance of Audrey Hepburn and James Dean.On 13 January 1952, in the very first episode, a dramatized 30 minute version of Don Quixote starring Boris Karloff and directed by Sidney Lumet, Grace Kelly made an appearance as...
, Jane Wyman's Fireside TheatreFireside Theater is an American anthology drama series that ran from on NBC from 1949 to 1958, and was the first successful filmed series on American television. Stories were low budget and often based on public domain stories or written by freelance writers such as Rod Serling. While it was panned...
, Star TonightStar Tonight, an American television anthology series, aired on ABC from February 1955 to August 1956.-Adaptations and actors:It consisted of 80 total episodes, 30 from 1955 and 50 from 1956. Each episode was a self-contained story, usually adapted from famous plays, short-stories or novels by some...
, Windows and Alfred Hitchcock PresentsAlfred Hitchcock Presents is an American television anthology series hosted by Alfred Hitchcock. The series featured dramas, thrillers, and mysteries. By the premiere of the show on October 2, 1955, Hitchcock had been directing films for over three decades...
. "The Merry-Go-Round," a half-hour film adaptation of Bradbury's "The Black Ferris," praised by Variety, was shown on Starlight Summer Theater in 1954 and NBC's Sneak Preview in 1956. During that same period, several stories were adapted for radio drama, notably on the science fiction anthologies Dimension XDimension X was an NBC radio program broadcast on an unsponsored, sustaining basis from April 8, 1950 to September 29, 1951. The first 13 episodes were broadcast live, and the remainder were pre-recorded...
and its successor X Minus OneX Minus One was a half-hour science fiction radio drama series broadcast from April 24, 1955 to January 9, 1958 in various timeslots on NBC.-Overview:...
.
Producer William Alland first brought Bradbury to movie theaters in 1953 with It Came from Outer SpaceIt Came from Outer Space is a 1953 science fiction 3-D film directed by Jack Arnold, and starring Richard Carlson, Barbara Rush, and Charles Drake. It was Universal's first film to be filmed in 3-D.- Plot :...
, a Harry EssexHarry Essex was a prolific American screenwriter. He was born on 29 November 1910 in New York City. He died on 5 February 1997 in Los Angeles. His career spanned more than fifty years...
screenplay developed from Bradbury's screen treatment "Atomic Monster". Three weeks later came the release of Eugène Lourié's The Beast from 20,000 FathomsThe Beast from 20,000 Fathoms is a 1953 science fiction film directed by Eugène Lourié and stars Paul Christian, Paula Raymond and Cecil Kellaway with visual effects by Ray Harryhausen. The film is about an atomic bomb test in the Arctic Circle that unfreezes a hibernating fictional dinosaur, a...
(1953), which featured one scene based on Bradbury's "The Fog Horn"The Fog Horn" is a 1951 science fiction short story by Ray Bradbury, and the first in his collection The Golden Apples of the Sun. The story was the basis for the 1953 film The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms.-Plot summary:...
", about a sea monster mistaking the sound of a fog horn for the mating cry of a female. Bradbury's close friend Ray HarryhausenRay Harryhausen is an American film producer and special effects creator...
produced the stop-motion animation of the creature. Bradbury would later return the favor by writing a short story, "Tyrannosaurus Rex", about a stop-motion animator who strongly resembled Harryhausen. Over the next 50 years, more than 35 features, shorts, and TV movies were based on Bradbury's stories or screenplays.
Bradbury was hired in 1953 by director John HustonJohn Marcellus Huston was an American film director, screenwriter and actor. He wrote most of the 37 feature films he directed, many of which are today considered classics: The Maltese Falcon , The Treasure of the Sierra Madre , Key Largo , The Asphalt Jungle , The African Queen , Moulin Rouge...
to work on the screenplay for the 1956 film Moby DickMoby Dick is a 1956 film adaptation of Herman Melville's novel Moby-Dick. It was directed by John Huston with a screenplay by Ray Bradbury and the director. The film starred Gregory Peck, Richard Basehart, and Leo Genn...
, which was faithfully based on the novel by Herman MelvilleHerman Melville was an American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet. He is best known for his novel Moby-Dick and the posthumous novella Billy Budd....
and starred Gregory PeckEldred Gregory Peck was an American actor.One of 20th Century Fox's most popular film stars from the 1940s to the 1960s, Peck continued to play important roles well into the 1980s. His notable performances include that of Atticus Finch in the 1962 film To Kill a Mockingbird, for which he won an...
as Captain Ahab, Richard BasehartJohn Richard Basehart was an American actor. He starred in the 1960s television science fiction drama Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, in the role of Admiral Harriman Nelson.-Career:...
as Ishmael, and Orson WellesGeorge Orson Welles , best known as Orson Welles, was an American film director, actor, theatre director, screenwriter, and producer, who worked extensively in film, theatre, television and radio...
as Father Mapple. A significant result of the film was Bradbury's book Green Shadows, White WhaleGreen Shadows, White Whale is a 1992 novel by Ray Bradbury. It gives a fictionalized account of his journey to Ireland in 1953-1954 to write a screen adaptation of the novel Moby-Dick with director John Huston. Bradbury has said he wrote it after reading actress Katharine Hepburn's account of...
, a semi-fictionalized account of the making of the film, including Bradbury's dealings with Huston and his time in IrelandIreland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
, where exterior scenes that were set in New Bedford, MassachusettsNew Bedford is a city in Bristol County, Massachusetts, United States, located south of Boston, southeast of Providence, Rhode Island, and about east of Fall River. As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 95,072, making it the sixth-largest city in Massachusetts...
, were filmed.
Bradbury's short story I Sing the Body ElectricI Sing the Body Electric! is a 1969 collection of short stories by Ray Bradbury. The book takes its name from a line in Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman.-Contents:The collection includes these stories:* "The Kilimanjaro Device"...
(from the book of the same name) was adapted for the 100th episode of The Twilight Zone"I Sing the Body Electric" is the 100th episode of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone.The script was written by Ray Bradbury, and based on his short story of the same name, itself named after a Walt Whitman poem. Although Bradbury contributed several scripts to The Twilight...
. The episode was first aired on May 18, 1962.
Oskar Werner-Early life:Born Oskar Josef Bschließmayer in Vienna, Werner spent much of his childhood in the care of his grandmother, who entertained him with stories about the Burgtheater, the Austrian state theatre, where he was accepted at the age of eighteen by Lothar Müthel. He was the youngest person ever...
and Julie ChristieJulie Frances Christie is a British actress. Born in British India to English parents, at the age of six Christie moved to England, where she attended boarding school....
starred in Fahrenheit 451Fahrenheit 451 is a 1966 film directed by François Truffaut, in his first colour film as well as his only English-language film. It is based on the novel of the same name by Ray Bradbury....
(1966), an adaptation of Bradbury's novel directed by François TruffautFrançois Roland Truffaut was an influential film critic and filmmaker and one of the founders of the French New Wave. In a film career lasting over a quarter of a century, he remains an icon of the French film industry. He was also a screenwriter, producer, and actor working on over twenty-five...
.
In 1966 Bradbury helped Lynn GarrisonLynn Garrison is a Canadian pilot and political adviser. He was an RCAF fighter pilot from the 403 City of Calgary Squadron, commercial pilot, film producer, director and mercenary...
create AVIAN, a specialist aviation magazine. For the first issue Bradbury wrote a poem – Planes that land on grass.
In 1969, The Illustrated ManThe Illustrated Man is a 1951 book of eighteen science fiction short stories by Ray Bradbury that explores the nature of mankind. While none of the stories has a plot or character connection with the next, a recurring theme is the conflict of the cold mechanics of technology and the psychology of...
was brought to the big screen, starring Rod SteigerRodney Stephen "Rod" Steiger was an Academy Award-winning American actor known for his performances in such films as On the Waterfront, The Big Knife, Oklahoma!, The Harder They Fall, Across the Bridge, The Pawnbroker, Doctor Zhivago, In the Heat of the Night, and Waterloo as well as the...
, Claire BloomClaire Bloom is an English film and stage actress.-Early life:Bloom was born in the North London suburb of Finchley, the daughter of Elizabeth and Edward Max Blume, who worked in sales...
and Robert DrivasRobert Drivas was an American actor and theatre director.Drivas was born Robert Choromokos in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Hariklia and James Peter Choromokos. Drivas studied at the University of Chicago and the University of Miami...
. Containing the prologue and three short stories from the book, the film received mediocre reviews.
The Martian ChroniclesThe Martian Chronicles is a television miniseries based on Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles and dealing with the exploration of Mars and the inhabitants there. The series starred Rock Hudson, Darren McGavin, Bernadette Peters, Roddy McDowall, Barry Morse, and Maria Schell...
became a three-part TV miniseriesA miniseries , in a serial storytelling medium, is a television show production which tells a story in a limited number of episodes. The exact number is open to interpretation; however, they are usually limited to fewer than a whole season. The term "miniseries" is generally a North American term...
starring Rock HudsonRoy Harold Scherer, Jr., later Roy Harold Fitzgerald , known professionally as Rock Hudson, was an American film and television actor, recognized as a romantic leading man during the 1950s and 1960s, most notably in several romantic comedies with Doris Day.Hudson was voted "Star of the Year",...
which was first broadcast by NBCThe National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
in 1980. Bradbury found the miniseries "just boring".
The 1983 horror film Something Wicked This Way ComesSomething Wicked This Way Comes is a 1983 film based on the Ray Bradbury novel of the same name, starring Jason Robards and Jonathan Pryce. Directed by Jack Clayton from a screenplay written by Bradbury himself, the movie suffered from offscreen conflicts of vision...
, starring Jason RobardsJason Nelson Robards, Jr. was an American actor on stage, and in film and television, and a winner of the Tony Award , two Academy Awards and the Emmy Award...
and Jonathan PryceJonathan Pryce, CBE is a Welsh stage and film actor and singer. After studying at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and meeting his longtime partner English actress Kate Fahy in 1974, he began his career as a stage actor in the 1970s...
, is based on the Bradbury novel of the same nameSomething Wicked This Way Comes is a 1962 novel by Ray Bradbury. It is about two 13-year-old boys, Jim Nightshade and William Halloway, who have a harrowing experience with a nightmarish traveling carnival that comes to their Midwestern town one October. The carnival's leader is the mysterious "Mr...
.
In 1984, Michael McDonough of Brigham Young University produced "Bradbury 13," a series of 13 audio adaptations of famous Ray Bradbury stories, in conjunction with National Public Radio. The full-cast dramatizations featured adaptations of "The Ravine," "Night Call, Collect," "The Veldt"The Veldt" is a short story written by Ray Bradbury that was published originally as "The World the Children Made" in the September 23, 1950 issue of The Saturday Evening Post, later republished in the anthology The Illustrated Man in 1951...
", "There Was an Old Woman," "Kaleidoscope," "Dark They Were, and Golden-Eyed"Dark They Were, and Golden-Eyed" is a science fiction short story by Ray Bradbury. It was originally published in the magazine Thrilling Wonder Stories in August 1949...
", "The Screaming Woman," "A Sound of Thunder“A Sound of Thunder” is a science fiction short story by Ray Bradbury, first published in Collier’s magazine in 1952. As of 1984 it was the most re-published science fiction story up to the present time...
," "The Man," "The Wind," "The Fox and the Forest," "Here There Be Tygers"Here There Be Tygers" is a short story written by Ray Bradbury, originally published in the anthology New Tales of Space and Time in 1951. It was later collected in Bradbury's short story collections R is for Rocket and The Golden Apples of the Sun...
" and "The Happiness Machine". Voiceover actor Paul FreesPaul Frees was an American voice actor and character actor.-Biography:He was born Solomon Hersh Frees in Chicago...
provided narration, while Bradbury himself was responsible for the opening voiceover; Greg Hansen and Roger Hoffman scored the episodes. The series won a Peabody AwardThe George Foster Peabody Awards recognize distinguished and meritorious public service by radio and television stations, networks, producing organizations and individuals. In 1939, the National Association of Broadcasters formed a committee to recognize outstanding achievement in radio broadcasting...
as well as two Gold Cindy awards and was released on CD on May 1, 2010. The series began airing on BBC Radio 4 Extra on June 12, 2011.
From 1985 to 1992 Bradbury hosted a syndicated anthology television series, The Ray Bradbury TheaterThe Ray Bradbury Theater is an anthology series that ran for two seasons on HBO, three episodes per season from 1985 to 1986, and four additional seasons on USA Network from 1988 to 1992. It was later shown in reruns on the Sci Fi Channel...
, for which he adapted 65 of his stories. Each episode would begin with a shot of Bradbury in his office, gazing over mementoes of his life, which he states (in narrative) are used to spark ideas for stories. During the first two seasons, Bradbury also provided additional voiceover narration specific to the featured story and appeared on screen.
Five episodes of the USSRThe Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
science fiction TV series This Fantastic World adapted Ray Bradbury's stories I Sing The Body Electric, Fahrenheit 451, A Piece of Wood, To the Chicago Abyss, and Forever and the Earth.The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
adaptation of "The Veldt" was filmed in 1987.
The 1998 film The Wonderful Ice Cream SuitThe Wonderful Ice Cream Suit is a 1998 film set in East Los Angeles directed by Stuart Gordon, written by Ray Bradbury and starring Edward James Olmos, Joe Mantegna, Esai Morales, Clifton Collins Jr. , Sid Caesar, Howard Morris and Gregory Sierra...
, released by Touchstone PicturesTouchstone Pictures is an American film production label and is one of several film labels of the Walt Disney Motion Pictures Group. Established in 1984, its releases typically feature more mature themes and darker tones than those that are released under the Walt Disney Pictures banner.Touchstone...
, was written by Ray Bradbury. It was based on his story "The Magic White Suit" originally published in The Saturday Evening PostThe Saturday Evening Post is a bimonthly American magazine. It was published weekly under this title from 1897 until 1969, and quarterly and then bimonthly from 1971.-History:...
in 1957. The story had also previously been adapted as a play, a musical, and a 1958 television version.
In 2002, Bradbury's own Pandemonium Theatre Company production of Fahrenheit 451 at Burbank's Falcon Theatre combined live acting with projected digital animation by the Pixel Pups. In 1984, Telarium released a for Commodore 64The Commodore 64 is an 8-bit home computer introduced by Commodore International in January 1982.Volume production started in the spring of 1982, with machines being released on to the market in August at a price of US$595...
based on Fahrenheit 451."The Pedestrian" is a short story by author Ray Bradbury. This story was originally published in 1951 by The Fortnightly Publishing Company. It is included in the collection The Golden Apples of the Sun .-Summary:...
", "The Veldt", and "To the Chicago Abyss."
In 2005, the film A Sound of ThunderA Sound of Thunder is a 2005 science fiction film directed by Peter Hyams. The film was planned originally for a 2002 release. However, flooding in Prague and other financial difficulties—including the bankruptcy of the original production company during post-production—resulted in a delayed...
was released, loosely based upon the short story of the same name. The film The Butterfly EffectThe Butterfly Effect is a 2004 American sci-fi psychological thriller film that is written and directed by Eric Bress and J. Mackye Gruber and starring Ashton Kutcher and Amy Smart...
revolves around the same theory as A Sound of Thunder and contains many references to its inspiration.The Small Assassin is a short story collection by Ray Bradbury. The stories originally appeared in the magazines Dime Mystery Magazine, Weird Tales, Harper's, Mademoiselle and the book Dark Carnival.-Contents:...
were released in 2005 and 2007 respectively.
In 2005, it was reported that Bradbury was upset with filmmaker Michael MooreMichael Francis Moore is an American filmmaker, author, social critic and activist. He is the director and producer of Fahrenheit 9/11, which is the highest-grossing documentary of all time. His films Bowling for Columbine and Sicko also place in the top ten highest-grossing documentaries...
for using the title Fahrenheit 9/11Fahrenheit 9/11 is a 2004 documentary film by American filmmaker and political commentator Michael Moore. The film takes a critical look at the presidency of George W. Bush, the War on Terror, and its coverage in the news media...
, which is an allusion to Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451Fahrenheit 451 is a 1953 dystopian novel by Ray Bradbury. The novel presents a future American society where reading is outlawed and firemen start fires to burn books...
, for his documentary about the George W. Bush administration. Bradbury expressed displeasure with Moore's use of the title but stated that his resentment was not politically motivated. Bradbury asserts that he does not want any of the money made by the movie, nor does he believe that he deserves it. He pressured Moore to change the name, but to no avail. Moore called Bradbury two weeks before the film's release to apologize, saying that the film's marketing had been set in motion a long time ago and it was too late to change the title.
In 2008, the film Ray Bradbury's ChrysalisRay Bradbury's Chrysalis is a 2008 film based on a short story by Ray Bradbury and produced by Roger Lay Jr. The film tells the tale of mankind's struggle for survival in a distant future after the effects of war and carelessness have completely ravaged the environment.The story takes place inside...
was produced by Roger Lay Jr. for Urban Archipelago Films, based upon the short story of the same name. The film won the best feature award at the International Horror and Sci-Fi Film Festival in Phoenix. The film has international distribution by Arsenal Pictures and domestic distribution by Lightning Entertainment.
In 2010, The Martian Chronicles was adapted for radio by Colonial Radio TheatreThe Colonial Radio Theatre on the Air is an award winning radio drama production company based out of Boston, Massachusetts. Officially established in 1995 by Jerry Robbins and Mark Vander Berg, Colonial can be heard nationwide on XM/Sirius Satellite radio...
on the Air.
Bradbury's works and approach to writing are documented in Terry SandersTerry Sanders is an American filmmaker having produced and/or directed more than 70 dramatic features, televisions specials, documentaries and portrait films. He co-heads the American Film Foundation and has produced and photographed the Oscar-winning dramatic short "A Time Out of War"...
' film Ray Bradbury: Story of a Writer (1963).
Honors
- In 2010, Spike TV
Spike is an American cable television channel. It launched on March 7, 1983 as The Nashville Network , a joint venture of WSM, Inc...
Scream AwardsThe Scream Awards is an award show dedicated to the horror, sci-fi, and fantasy genres of feature films, hosted and sponsored by Spike TV. The show was created by executive producers Michael Levitt, Cindy Levitt, and Casey Patterson...
Comic-ConComic-Con, Comic Con or ComiCon may refer to any of the following Comic book conventions, none of them affiliated to any other:*San Diego Comic-Con International, annual fan convention in San Diego held since 1970, also known as Comic-Con or San Diego Comic-Con*Dallas Comic Con, annual fan...
Icon Award went to Ray Bradbury
- In 2010, on occasion of his 90th birthday, Bradbury received Pulsar Award from Sarajevo SF Club PulSar
- In 2007, Bradbury received the French Commandeur Ordre des Arts et des Lettres
The Ordre des Arts et des Lettres is an Order of France, established on 2 May 1957 by the Minister of Culture, and confirmed as part of the Ordre national du Mérite by President Charles de Gaulle in 1963...
medal.
- For his contribution to the motion picture industry, Ray Bradbury was given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
The Hollywood Walk of Fame consists of more than 2,400 five-pointed terrazzo and brass stars embedded in the sidewalks along fifteen blocks of Hollywood Boulevard and three blocks of Vine Street in Hollywood, California...
at 6644 Hollywood Blvd.
- An asteroid
Asteroids are a class of small Solar System bodies in orbit around the Sun. They have also been called planetoids, especially the larger ones...
is named in his honor, "9766 Bradbury9766 Bradbury is a main-belt asteroid discovered on February 24, 1992 by the Spacewatch project at Kitt Peak. It was named after science fiction writer Ray Bradbury, author of The Martian Chronicles and Fahrenheit 451.- External links :*...
", along with a crater on the moon called "Dandelion CraterDandelion Crater is an impact crater on the Moon. The crater was named in 1971 by the Apollo 15 astronauts after the American author Ray Bradbury's 1957 novel Dandelion Wine....
" (named after his novel, Dandelion WineDandelion Wine is a 1957 novel by Ray Bradbury, taking place in the summer of 1928 in the fictional town of Green Town, Illinois — a pseudonym for Bradbury's childhood home of Waukegan, Illinois...
).
- On April 16, 2007, Bradbury received a special citation from The Pulitzer Board
The Pulitzer Prizes for 2007 were announced on April 16, 2007.In November 2006, the Pulitzer Prize Board announced two changes that would apply for the 2007 awards:...
, "for his distinguished, prolific, and deeply influential career as an unmatched author of science fiction and fantasy."[2007 Special Awards from the Pulitzer Prize]The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...
website
- On November 17, 2004, Bradbury was the recipient of the National Medal of Arts
The National Medal of Arts is an award and title created by the United States Congress in 1984, for the purpose of honoring artists and patrons of the arts. It is the highest honor conferred to an individual artist on behalf of the people. Honorees are selected by the National Endowment for the...
, presented by President George W. BushGeorge Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
and Laura BushLaura Lane Welch Bush is the wife of the 43rd President of the United States, George W. Bush. She was the First Lady of the United States from January 20, 2001, to January 20, 2009. She has held a love of books and reading since childhood and her life and education have reflected that interest...
. Bradbury has also received the World Fantasy AwardThe World Fantasy Awards are annual, international awards given to authors and artists who have demonstrated outstanding achievement in the field of fantasy...
life achievement, Stoker Award life achievement, SFWA Grand MasterThe Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award is an award given by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. It is awarded to a living author for lifetime achievement in science fiction and/or fantasy. Officially, it is not a Nebula Award though it is awarded at the Nebula ceremony...
, SF Hall of Fame Living Inductee, and First Fandom AwardFirst Fandom is an association of experienced science fiction fans.In 1958 a number of fans at Midwestcon realized amid table-talk that they all had been active in fandom for more than 20 years. This inspired the creation of an organization for longstanding fans under the initial chairmanship of...
. He received an Emmy AwardAn Emmy Award, often referred to simply as the Emmy, is a television production award, similar in nature to the Peabody Awards but more focused on entertainment, and is considered the television equivalent to the Academy Awards and the Grammy Awards .A majority of Emmys are presented in various...
for his work on The Halloween Tree. He received the Prometheus AwardThe Prometheus Award is an award for libertarian science fiction novels given annually by the Libertarian Futurist Society, which also publishes a quarterly journal Prometheus. L. Neil Smith established the award in 1979, but it was not awarded regularly until the newly founded Libertarian Futurist...
for Fahrenheit 451.
Ray Douglas Bradbury (born August 22, 1920Fantasy is a genre of fiction that commonly uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary element of plot, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic is common...
, horrorHorror fiction also Horror fantasy is a philosophy of literature, which is intended to, or has the capacity to frighten its readers, inducing feelings of horror and terror. It creates an eerie atmosphere. Horror can be either supernatural or non-supernatural...
, science fictionScience fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
, and mystery writer. Best known for his dystopiaA dystopia is the idea of a society in a repressive and controlled state, often under the guise of being utopian, as characterized in books like Brave New World and Nineteen Eighty-Four...
n novel Fahrenheit 451Fahrenheit 451 is a 1953 dystopian novel by Ray Bradbury. The novel presents a future American society where reading is outlawed and firemen start fires to burn books...
(1953) and for the science fiction stories gathered together as The Martian ChroniclesThe Martian Chronicles is a 1950 science fiction short story collection by Ray Bradbury that chronicles the colonization of Mars by humans fleeing from a troubled and eventually atomically devastated Earth, and the conflict between aboriginal Martians and the new colonists...
(1950) and The Illustrated ManThe Illustrated Man is a 1951 book of eighteen science fiction short stories by Ray Bradbury that explores the nature of mankind. While none of the stories has a plot or character connection with the next, a recurring theme is the conflict of the cold mechanics of technology and the psychology of...
(1951), Bradbury is one of the most celebrated among 20th and 21st century American writers of speculative fictionSpeculative fiction is an umbrella term encompassing the more fantastical fiction genres, specifically science fiction, fantasy, horror, supernatural fiction, superhero fiction, utopian and dystopian fiction, apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction, and alternate history in literature as well as...
. Many of Bradbury's works have been adapted into television shows or films.
Early life
Bradbury was born in Waukegan, IllinoisWaukegan is a city and county seat of Lake County, Illinois. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 87,901. The 2010 population was 89,078. It is the ninth-largest city in Illinois by population...
[p.141 Bloom, Harold Ray Bradbury 2010 Infobase Publishing] to Esther Moberg Bradbury, a Swedish immigrantSwedish Americans are Americans of Swedish descent, especially the descendants of about 1.2 million immigrants from Sweden during 1885-1915. Most were Lutherans who affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America ; some were Methodists...
, and Leonard Spaulding Bradbury,[Touponce, William F. "Ray (Douglas) Bradbury." American Writers: A Collection of Literary Biographies, Supplement 4. Ed. A Walton Litz and Molly Weigel. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1996. Literature Resources from Gale. Web. Nov. 16, 2010.] a power and telephone lineman.[Certificate of Birth, Ray Douglas Bradbury, August 22, 1920, Lake County Clerk's Record #4750. Although he was named after Rae Williams, a cousin on his father's side, Ray Bradbury's birth certificate spells his first name as "Ray."] He was the brother of two older twin boys, one of whom died in 1918[Mogen, David. "RAY BRADBURY (1920- )." Columbia Companion to the Twentieth-Century American Short Story (2000): 162-166. EBSCO. Web. Nov. 30, 2010.]. His paternal grandfather and great-grandfather were newspaper publishers.
He is related to the American Shakespeare scholar Douglas Spaulding.[The Spalding Family Memorial, 1899] Ray is also directly descended from Mary BradburyMary Perkins Bradbury was tried, convicted and sentenced to hang as a witch in Salem, Massachusetts in 1692.-Early life:...
who was tried, convicted and sentenced to hang as a witch in Salem, Massachusetts in 1692. She was married to Captain Thomas Bradbury of Salisbury, MassachusettsSalisbury is a town in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 7,827 at the 2000 census. The community is a popular summer resort beach town situated on the Atlantic Ocean north of Boston on the New Hampshire border....
.
Bradbury was a reader and writer throughout his youth, spending much time in the Carnegie library in Waukegan, IllinoisWaukegan is a city and county seat of Lake County, Illinois. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 87,901. The 2010 population was 89,078. It is the ninth-largest city in Illinois by population...
, reading such authors as H.G. Wells, Jules VerneJules Gabriel Verne was a French author who pioneered the science fiction genre. He is best known for his novels Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea , A Journey to the Center of the Earth , and Around the World in Eighty Days...
, and his favorite author, Edgar Rice BurroughsEdgar Rice Burroughs was an American author, best known for his creation of the jungle hero Tarzan and the heroic Mars adventurer John Carter, although he produced works in many genres.-Biography:...
who wrote novels such as Tarzan and Warlord of Mars.[Contemporary Authors Online. Ray Bradbury. Detroit: Gale, 2009. Web.] Bradbury was pushed to writing by his aunt, who read him short stories when he was a child.[Paradowski, Robert J. "Ray Bradbury." Critical Survey of Short Fiction, Second Revised Edition" 2001:1-5. EBSCO. Web. Nov. 8, 2010] He used this library as a setting for much of his novel Something Wicked This Way ComesSomething Wicked This Way Comes is a 1962 novel by Ray Bradbury. It is about two 13-year-old boys, Jim Nightshade and William Halloway, who have a harrowing experience with a nightmarish traveling carnival that comes to their Midwestern town one October. The carnival's leader is the mysterious "Mr...
, and depicted Waukegan as "Green Town" in some of his other semi-autobiographicalAn autobiography is a book about the life of a person, written by that person.-Origin of the term:...
novels—Dandelion WineDandelion Wine is a 1957 novel by Ray Bradbury, taking place in the summer of 1928 in the fictional town of Green Town, Illinois — a pseudonym for Bradbury's childhood home of Waukegan, Illinois...
, Farewell SummerFarewell Summer is a novel by Ray Bradbury, published on October 17, 2006. It is a sequel to his 1957 novel Dandelion Wine, and is set during an Indian summer in October 1929. The story concerns a mock war between the young and the old in Green Town, Illinois, and the sexual awakening of Doug...
—as well as in many of his short stories.[Sites from these works which still exist in Waukegan include his boyhood home, his grandparents' home next door (and their connecting lawns where he and his grandfather gathered dandelions to make wine) and, less than a block away, the famous ravine which Bradbury used as a metaphor]A metaphor is a literary figure of speech that uses an image, story or tangible thing to represent a less tangible thing or some intangible quality or idea; e.g., "Her eyes were glistening jewels." Metaphor may also be used for any rhetorical figures of speech that achieve their effects via...
throughout his career.
He attributes his lifelong habit of writing every day to two incidents. The first, which occurred when he was three years old when his mother took him to Lon Chaney's performance of the Hunchback of Notre Dame,[Paradowski, Robert J. “Ray Bradbury.” Critical Survey of Short Fiction, Second Revised Edition (2001): EBSCO. Web. Nov. 10, 2010.] and the second, which occurred in 1932 when a carnival entertainer, Mr. Electrico,Magic is a performing art that entertains audiences by staging tricks or creating illusions of seemingly impossible or supernatural feats using natural means...
. Magic was his first great love. If he had not discovered writing, he would have become a magician.[Terry Sanders' film Ray Bradbury: Story of a Writer (1963)]
The Bradbury family lived in Tucson, ArizonaTucson is a city in and the county seat of Pima County, Arizona, United States. The city is located 118 miles southeast of Phoenix and 60 miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border. The 2010 United States Census puts the city's population at 520,116 with a metropolitan area population at 1,020,200...
, in 1926–27 and 1932–33 as his father pursued employment, each time returning to Waukegan, but eventually settled in Los Angeles in 1934, when Ray was thirteen.
Bradbury graduated from Los Angeles High SchoolLos Angeles High School is the oldest public high school in the Southern California Region and in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Its colors are blue and white and the teams are called the Romans....
, where he took poetry and short story writing courses that furthered his interest in writing,[Litz, A. Walton, and Molly Weigel, eds. American Writers (Supp. 4, Pt. 1). New York: Macmillian Library Reference. 1996. Print.] but he did not attend college. Instead, he sold newspapers at the corner of South Norton Avenue and Olympic Boulevard. In regard to his education, Bradbury said:
It was in UCLA's Powell LibraryPowell Library is the main college undergraduate library on the campus of the University of California, Los Angeles . It was constructed from 1926 to 1929 and was one of the original four buildings that comprised the UCLA campus in the early period of the university's life...
, in a study room with typewriters for rent, in which Bradbury wrote his classic story of a book-burning future, "Fahrenheit 451."
Career
Ray Bradbury had the freedom of starting his writing career when he was rejected admission into the military (bad eyesight) during World War II. Having been influenced by science fictionScience fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
heroes like Flash GordonFlash Gordon is the hero of a science fiction adventure comic strip originally drawn by Alex Raymond. First published January 7, 1934, the strip was inspired by and created to compete with the already established Buck Rogers adventure strip. Also inspired by these series were comics such as Dash...
and Buck RogersAnthony Rogers is a fictional character that first appeared in Armageddon 2419 A.D. by Philip Francis Nowlan in the August 1928 issue of the pulp magazine Amazing Stories. A sequel, The Airlords of Han, was published in the March 1929 issue....
, Bradbury began to publish science fiction stories in fanzineA fanzine is a nonprofessional and nonofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon for the pleasure of others who share their interest...
s in 1938. Bradbury was invited by Forrest J AckermanForrest J Ackerman was an American collector of science fiction books and movie memorabilia and a science fiction fan...
to attend the Alabama "roll tide", which at the time met at Clifton’s Cafeteria in downtown Los Angeles. This was where he met the writers Robert A. HeinleinRobert Anson Heinlein was an American science fiction writer. Often called the "dean of science fiction writers", he was one of the most influential and controversial authors of the genre. He set a standard for science and engineering plausibility and helped to raise the genre's standards of...
, Emil PetajaEmil Petaja was an American science fiction and fantasy writer whose career spanned seven decades. He was the author of 13 published novels, nearly 150 short stories, numerous poems, and a handful of books and articles on various subjects...
, Fredric BrownFredric Brown was an American science fiction and mystery writer. He was born in Cincinnati.He had two sons: James Ross Brown and Linn Lewis Brown ....
, Henry KuttnerHenry Kuttner was an American author of science fiction, fantasy and horror.-Early life:Henry Kuttner was born in Los Angeles, California in 1915...
, Leigh BrackettLeigh Douglass Brackett was an American author, particularly of science fiction. She was also a screenwriter, known for her work on famous films such as The Big Sleep , Rio Bravo , The Long Goodbye and The Empire Strikes Back .-Life:Leigh Brackett was born and grew up in Los Angeles, California...
, and Jack WilliamsonJohn Stewart Williamson , who wrote as Jack Williamson was a U.S. writer often referred to as the "Dean of Science Fiction" following the death in 1988 of Robert A...
. His first published story was "Hollerbochen's Dilemma", which appeared in the fanzineA fanzine is a nonprofessional and nonofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon for the pleasure of others who share their interest...
Imagination! in January, 1938. Launching his own fanzine in 1939, titled Futuria Fantasia, he wrote most of its four issues, each limited to under 100 copies. Between 1941 and 1947, he was a contributor to Rob Wagner's film magazine, Script.
Bradbury's first paid piece, "Pendulum", written with Henry Hasse, was published in the pulp magazinePulp magazines , also collectively known as pulp fiction, refers to inexpensive fiction magazines published from 1896 through the 1950s. The typical pulp magazine was seven inches wide by ten inches high, half an inch thick, and 128 pages long...
Super Science Stories in November 1941, for which he earned $15.Arkham House is a publishing house specializing in weird fiction founded in Sauk City, Wisconsin in 1939 by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei to preserve in hardcover the best fiction of H.P. Lovecraft. The company's name is derived from Lovecraft's fictional New England city, Arkham. Arkham House...
, a small press in Sauk City, Wis., owned by writer August Derleth.
A chance encounter in a Los Angeles bookstore with the British expatriate writer Christopher IsherwoodChristopher William Bradshaw Isherwood was an English-American novelist.-Early life and work:Born at Wyberslegh Hall, High Lane, Cheshire in North West England, Isherwood spent his childhood in various towns where his father, a Lieutenant-Colonel in the British Army, was stationed...
gave Bradbury the opportunity to put The Martian ChroniclesThe Martian Chronicles is a 1950 science fiction short story collection by Ray Bradbury that chronicles the colonization of Mars by humans fleeing from a troubled and eventually atomically devastated Earth, and the conflict between aboriginal Martians and the new colonists...
into the hands of a respected critic. Isherwood's glowing review followed.
Although he is often described as a science fictionScience fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
writer, Bradbury does not box himself into a particular narrative categorization:
On another occasion, Bradbury observed that the novel touches on the alienation of people by media:
Besides his fiction work, Bradbury has written many short essayAn essay is a piece of writing which is often written from an author's personal point of view. Essays can consist of a number of elements, including: literary criticism, political manifestos, learned arguments, observations of daily life, recollections, and reflections of the author. The definition...
s on the arts and culture, attracting the attention of critics in this field. Bradbury also hosted "The Ray Bradbury Theater" which was based on his short stories. Bradbury was a consultant for the American Pavilion at the 1964 New York World's FairThe 1964/1965 New York World's Fair was the third major world's fair to be held in New York City. Hailing itself as a "universal and international" exposition, the fair's theme was "Peace Through Understanding," dedicated to "Man's Achievement on a Shrinking Globe in an Expanding Universe";...
and the original exhibit housed in EpcotEpcot is a theme park in the Walt Disney World Resort, located near Orlando, Florida. The park is dedicated to the celebration of human achievement, namely international culture and technological innovation. The second park built at the resort, it opened on October 1, 1982 and was initially named...
's Spaceship Earth geosphere at Walt Disney WorldWalt Disney World Resort , is the world's most-visited entertaimental resort. Located in Lake Buena Vista, Florida ; approximately southwest of Orlando, Florida, United States, the resort covers an area of and includes four theme parks, two water parks, 23 on-site themed resort hotels Walt...
.
In the 1980s, he moved his writings to detective fiction.[Litz, A. Walton., and Molly V. Weigel. American Writers: a Collection of Literary Biographies. New York: Scribner, 1996. Print]
Personal life
Ray Bradbury married Marguerite McClure (1922–2003) in 1947, and they had four daughters. Bradbury has never obtained a driver's licenseA driver's license/licence , or driving licence is an official document which states that a person may operate a motorized vehicle, such as a motorcycle, car, truck or a bus, on a public roadway. Most U.S...
.
Bradbury was a close friend of Charles AddamsCharles "Chas" Samuel Addams was an American cartoonist known for his particularly black humor and macabre characters...
, and Addams illustrated the first of Bradbury's stories about the Elliotts, a family that would resemble Addams' own Addams Family placed in rural IllinoisIllinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...
. Bradbury's first story about them was "Homecoming," published in the 1946 Halloween issue of MademoiselleMademoiselle was an influential women's magazine first published in 1935 by Street and Smith and later acquired by Condé Nast Publications....
, with Addams illustrations. He and Addams planned a larger collaborative work that would tell the family's complete history, but it never materialized, and according to a 2001 interview, they went their separate ways.[Interview with Ray Bradbury in IndieBound, fall 2001.] In October 2001, Bradbury published all the Family stories he had written in one book with a connecting narrative, From the Dust ReturnedFrom the Dust Returned is a fix-up fantasy novel by Ray Bradbury. The novel is largely comprised from a series of short stories which Bradbury had written decades earlier, centering around a family of Illinois-based ghosts named the Elliotts...
, featuring a wraparound Addams cover of the original 'Homecoming' illustration.[Bradbury, Ray, From The Dust Returned: A Novel. William Morrow, 2001.]
Bradbury made regular appearances at science fiction conventions until 2009 when he retired from the circuit on the grounds of old age and lack of energy.
Despite the numerous (and often prescient) technological predictions of his novels, he has expressed scepticism about the value of the Internet to society, stating that it has reduced people's ability to communicate and hold conversations with each other. He has also exhibited scepticism with regard to modern technology by resisting the conversion of his work into e-bookAn electronic book is a book-length publication in digital form, consisting of text, images, or both, and produced on, published through, and readable on computers or other electronic devices. Sometimes the equivalent of a conventional printed book, e-books can also be born digital...
s and stating that
Critical reception
Critical opinion of Bradbury's work is sharply divided. In his review of The Martian Chronicles, Christopher IsherwoodChristopher William Bradshaw Isherwood was an English-American novelist.-Early life and work:Born at Wyberslegh Hall, High Lane, Cheshire in North West England, Isherwood spent his childhood in various towns where his father, a Lieutenant-Colonel in the British Army, was stationed...
wrote:
... the sheer lift and power of a truly original imagination exhilarates... His is a very great and unusual talent.
At the other extreme, science fiction author and critic Damon KnightDamon Francis Knight was an American science fiction author, editor, critic and fan. His forte was short stories and he is widely acknowledged as having been a master of the genre.-Biography:...
wrote:
Although [Bradbury] has a large following among science fiction readers, there is at least an equally large contingent of people who cannot stomach his work at all... His imagination is mediocre; he borrows nearly all his backgrounds and props, and distorts them badly; wherever he is required to invent anything—a planet, a Martian, a machine—the image is flat and unconvincing.
Adaptations to other media
From 1951 to 1954, 27 of Bradbury's stories were adapted by Al FeldsteinAlbert B. Feldstein is an American writer, editor, and artist, best known for his work at EC Comics and, from 1956 to 1985, as the editor of the satirical magazine Mad. Since retiring from Mad, Feldstein has concentrated on American paintings of Western wildlife...
for EC ComicsEntertaining Comics, more commonly known as EC Comics, was an American publisher of comic books specializing in horror fiction, crime fiction, satire, military fiction and science fiction from the 1940s through the mid-1950s, notably the Tales from the Crypt series...
, and 16 of these were collected in the paperbacks, The Autumn PeopleThe Autumn People is a mass-market paperback collection of comic adaptations of eight short horror and crime stories by Ray Bradbury, gathered from the pages of the EC Comics comic books of the 1950s...
(1965) and Tomorrow MidnightTomorrow Midnight is a mass-market paperback collection of comic adaptations of eight short science fiction stories by Ray Bradbury, gathered from the pages of the EC Comics comic books of the 1950s...
(1966), both published by Ballantine BooksBallantine Books is a major book publisher located in the United States, founded in 1952 by Ian Ballantine with his wife, Betty Ballantine. It was acquired by Random House in 1973, which in turn was acquired by Bertelsmann AG in 1998 and remains part of that company today. Ballantine's logo is a...
with cover illustrations by Frank FrazettaFrank Frazetta was an American fantasy and science fiction artist, noted for work in comic books, paperback book covers, paintings, posters, LP record album covers and other media...
.
Also in the early 1950s, adaptations of Bradbury's stories were televised on a variety of an anthology shows, including Tales of TomorrowTales of Tomorrow is an American anthology science fiction series that was performed and broadcast live on ABC from 1951 to 1953. The series covered such stories as Frankenstein, starring Lon Chaney, Jr., 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea starring Thomas Mitchell as Captain Nemo, and many others...
, Lights OutLights Out is an extremely popular American old-time radio program, an early example of a network series devoted mostly to horror and the supernatural, predating Suspense and Inner Sanctum...
, Out There, Suspense-Production background:One of the premier drama programs of the Golden Age of Radio, was subtitled "radio's outstanding theater of thrills" and focused on suspense thriller-type scripts, usually featuring leading Hollywood actors of the era...
, CBS Television WorkshopCBS Television Workshop was a 1952 television series famous for an early appearance of Audrey Hepburn and James Dean.On 13 January 1952, in the very first episode, a dramatized 30 minute version of Don Quixote starring Boris Karloff and directed by Sidney Lumet, Grace Kelly made an appearance as...
, Jane Wyman's Fireside TheatreFireside Theater is an American anthology drama series that ran from on NBC from 1949 to 1958, and was the first successful filmed series on American television. Stories were low budget and often based on public domain stories or written by freelance writers such as Rod Serling. While it was panned...
, Star TonightStar Tonight, an American television anthology series, aired on ABC from February 1955 to August 1956.-Adaptations and actors:It consisted of 80 total episodes, 30 from 1955 and 50 from 1956. Each episode was a self-contained story, usually adapted from famous plays, short-stories or novels by some...
, Windows and Alfred Hitchcock PresentsAlfred Hitchcock Presents is an American television anthology series hosted by Alfred Hitchcock. The series featured dramas, thrillers, and mysteries. By the premiere of the show on October 2, 1955, Hitchcock had been directing films for over three decades...
. "The Merry-Go-Round," a half-hour film adaptation of Bradbury's "The Black Ferris," praised by Variety, was shown on Starlight Summer Theater in 1954 and NBC's Sneak Preview in 1956. During that same period, several stories were adapted for radio drama, notably on the science fiction anthologies Dimension XDimension X was an NBC radio program broadcast on an unsponsored, sustaining basis from April 8, 1950 to September 29, 1951. The first 13 episodes were broadcast live, and the remainder were pre-recorded...
and its successor X Minus OneX Minus One was a half-hour science fiction radio drama series broadcast from April 24, 1955 to January 9, 1958 in various timeslots on NBC.-Overview:...
.
Producer William Alland first brought Bradbury to movie theaters in 1953 with It Came from Outer SpaceIt Came from Outer Space is a 1953 science fiction 3-D film directed by Jack Arnold, and starring Richard Carlson, Barbara Rush, and Charles Drake. It was Universal's first film to be filmed in 3-D.- Plot :...
, a Harry EssexHarry Essex was a prolific American screenwriter. He was born on 29 November 1910 in New York City. He died on 5 February 1997 in Los Angeles. His career spanned more than fifty years...
screenplay developed from Bradbury's screen treatment "Atomic Monster". Three weeks later came the release of Eugène Lourié's The Beast from 20,000 FathomsThe Beast from 20,000 Fathoms is a 1953 science fiction film directed by Eugène Lourié and stars Paul Christian, Paula Raymond and Cecil Kellaway with visual effects by Ray Harryhausen. The film is about an atomic bomb test in the Arctic Circle that unfreezes a hibernating fictional dinosaur, a...
(1953), which featured one scene based on Bradbury's "The Fog Horn"The Fog Horn" is a 1951 science fiction short story by Ray Bradbury, and the first in his collection The Golden Apples of the Sun. The story was the basis for the 1953 film The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms.-Plot summary:...
", about a sea monster mistaking the sound of a fog horn for the mating cry of a female. Bradbury's close friend Ray HarryhausenRay Harryhausen is an American film producer and special effects creator...
produced the stop-motion animation of the creature. Bradbury would later return the favor by writing a short story, "Tyrannosaurus Rex", about a stop-motion animator who strongly resembled Harryhausen. Over the next 50 years, more than 35 features, shorts, and TV movies were based on Bradbury's stories or screenplays.
Bradbury was hired in 1953 by director John HustonJohn Marcellus Huston was an American film director, screenwriter and actor. He wrote most of the 37 feature films he directed, many of which are today considered classics: The Maltese Falcon , The Treasure of the Sierra Madre , Key Largo , The Asphalt Jungle , The African Queen , Moulin Rouge...
to work on the screenplay for the 1956 film Moby DickMoby Dick is a 1956 film adaptation of Herman Melville's novel Moby-Dick. It was directed by John Huston with a screenplay by Ray Bradbury and the director. The film starred Gregory Peck, Richard Basehart, and Leo Genn...
, which was faithfully based on the novel by Herman MelvilleHerman Melville was an American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet. He is best known for his novel Moby-Dick and the posthumous novella Billy Budd....
and starred Gregory PeckEldred Gregory Peck was an American actor.One of 20th Century Fox's most popular film stars from the 1940s to the 1960s, Peck continued to play important roles well into the 1980s. His notable performances include that of Atticus Finch in the 1962 film To Kill a Mockingbird, for which he won an...
as Captain Ahab, Richard BasehartJohn Richard Basehart was an American actor. He starred in the 1960s television science fiction drama Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, in the role of Admiral Harriman Nelson.-Career:...
as Ishmael, and Orson WellesGeorge Orson Welles , best known as Orson Welles, was an American film director, actor, theatre director, screenwriter, and producer, who worked extensively in film, theatre, television and radio...
as Father Mapple. A significant result of the film was Bradbury's book Green Shadows, White WhaleGreen Shadows, White Whale is a 1992 novel by Ray Bradbury. It gives a fictionalized account of his journey to Ireland in 1953-1954 to write a screen adaptation of the novel Moby-Dick with director John Huston. Bradbury has said he wrote it after reading actress Katharine Hepburn's account of...
, a semi-fictionalized account of the making of the film, including Bradbury's dealings with Huston and his time in IrelandIreland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
, where exterior scenes that were set in New Bedford, MassachusettsNew Bedford is a city in Bristol County, Massachusetts, United States, located south of Boston, southeast of Providence, Rhode Island, and about east of Fall River. As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 95,072, making it the sixth-largest city in Massachusetts...
, were filmed.
Bradbury's short story I Sing the Body ElectricI Sing the Body Electric! is a 1969 collection of short stories by Ray Bradbury. The book takes its name from a line in Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman.-Contents:The collection includes these stories:* "The Kilimanjaro Device"...
(from the book of the same name) was adapted for the 100th episode of The Twilight Zone"I Sing the Body Electric" is the 100th episode of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone.The script was written by Ray Bradbury, and based on his short story of the same name, itself named after a Walt Whitman poem. Although Bradbury contributed several scripts to The Twilight...
. The episode was first aired on May 18, 1962.
Oskar Werner-Early life:Born Oskar Josef Bschließmayer in Vienna, Werner spent much of his childhood in the care of his grandmother, who entertained him with stories about the Burgtheater, the Austrian state theatre, where he was accepted at the age of eighteen by Lothar Müthel. He was the youngest person ever...
and Julie ChristieJulie Frances Christie is a British actress. Born in British India to English parents, at the age of six Christie moved to England, where she attended boarding school....
starred in Fahrenheit 451Fahrenheit 451 is a 1966 film directed by François Truffaut, in his first colour film as well as his only English-language film. It is based on the novel of the same name by Ray Bradbury....
(1966), an adaptation of Bradbury's novel directed by François TruffautFrançois Roland Truffaut was an influential film critic and filmmaker and one of the founders of the French New Wave. In a film career lasting over a quarter of a century, he remains an icon of the French film industry. He was also a screenwriter, producer, and actor working on over twenty-five...
.
In 1966 Bradbury helped Lynn GarrisonLynn Garrison is a Canadian pilot and political adviser. He was an RCAF fighter pilot from the 403 City of Calgary Squadron, commercial pilot, film producer, director and mercenary...
create AVIAN, a specialist aviation magazine. For the first issue Bradbury wrote a poem – Planes that land on grass.
In 1969, The Illustrated ManThe Illustrated Man is a 1951 book of eighteen science fiction short stories by Ray Bradbury that explores the nature of mankind. While none of the stories has a plot or character connection with the next, a recurring theme is the conflict of the cold mechanics of technology and the psychology of...
was brought to the big screen, starring Rod SteigerRodney Stephen "Rod" Steiger was an Academy Award-winning American actor known for his performances in such films as On the Waterfront, The Big Knife, Oklahoma!, The Harder They Fall, Across the Bridge, The Pawnbroker, Doctor Zhivago, In the Heat of the Night, and Waterloo as well as the...
, Claire BloomClaire Bloom is an English film and stage actress.-Early life:Bloom was born in the North London suburb of Finchley, the daughter of Elizabeth and Edward Max Blume, who worked in sales...
and Robert DrivasRobert Drivas was an American actor and theatre director.Drivas was born Robert Choromokos in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Hariklia and James Peter Choromokos. Drivas studied at the University of Chicago and the University of Miami...
. Containing the prologue and three short stories from the book, the film received mediocre reviews.
The Martian ChroniclesThe Martian Chronicles is a television miniseries based on Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles and dealing with the exploration of Mars and the inhabitants there. The series starred Rock Hudson, Darren McGavin, Bernadette Peters, Roddy McDowall, Barry Morse, and Maria Schell...
became a three-part TV miniseriesA miniseries , in a serial storytelling medium, is a television show production which tells a story in a limited number of episodes. The exact number is open to interpretation; however, they are usually limited to fewer than a whole season. The term "miniseries" is generally a North American term...
starring Rock HudsonRoy Harold Scherer, Jr., later Roy Harold Fitzgerald , known professionally as Rock Hudson, was an American film and television actor, recognized as a romantic leading man during the 1950s and 1960s, most notably in several romantic comedies with Doris Day.Hudson was voted "Star of the Year",...
which was first broadcast by NBCThe National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
in 1980. Bradbury found the miniseries "just boring".
The 1983 horror film Something Wicked This Way ComesSomething Wicked This Way Comes is a 1983 film based on the Ray Bradbury novel of the same name, starring Jason Robards and Jonathan Pryce. Directed by Jack Clayton from a screenplay written by Bradbury himself, the movie suffered from offscreen conflicts of vision...
, starring Jason RobardsJason Nelson Robards, Jr. was an American actor on stage, and in film and television, and a winner of the Tony Award , two Academy Awards and the Emmy Award...
and Jonathan PryceJonathan Pryce, CBE is a Welsh stage and film actor and singer. After studying at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and meeting his longtime partner English actress Kate Fahy in 1974, he began his career as a stage actor in the 1970s...
, is based on the Bradbury novel of the same nameSomething Wicked This Way Comes is a 1962 novel by Ray Bradbury. It is about two 13-year-old boys, Jim Nightshade and William Halloway, who have a harrowing experience with a nightmarish traveling carnival that comes to their Midwestern town one October. The carnival's leader is the mysterious "Mr...
.
In 1984, Michael McDonough of Brigham Young University produced "Bradbury 13," a series of 13 audio adaptations of famous Ray Bradbury stories, in conjunction with National Public Radio. The full-cast dramatizations featured adaptations of "The Ravine," "Night Call, Collect," "The Veldt"The Veldt" is a short story written by Ray Bradbury that was published originally as "The World the Children Made" in the September 23, 1950 issue of The Saturday Evening Post, later republished in the anthology The Illustrated Man in 1951...
", "There Was an Old Woman," "Kaleidoscope," "Dark They Were, and Golden-Eyed"Dark They Were, and Golden-Eyed" is a science fiction short story by Ray Bradbury. It was originally published in the magazine Thrilling Wonder Stories in August 1949...
", "The Screaming Woman," "A Sound of Thunder“A Sound of Thunder” is a science fiction short story by Ray Bradbury, first published in Collier’s magazine in 1952. As of 1984 it was the most re-published science fiction story up to the present time...
," "The Man," "The Wind," "The Fox and the Forest," "Here There Be Tygers"Here There Be Tygers" is a short story written by Ray Bradbury, originally published in the anthology New Tales of Space and Time in 1951. It was later collected in Bradbury's short story collections R is for Rocket and The Golden Apples of the Sun...
" and "The Happiness Machine". Voiceover actor Paul FreesPaul Frees was an American voice actor and character actor.-Biography:He was born Solomon Hersh Frees in Chicago...
provided narration, while Bradbury himself was responsible for the opening voiceover; Greg Hansen and Roger Hoffman scored the episodes. The series won a Peabody AwardThe George Foster Peabody Awards recognize distinguished and meritorious public service by radio and television stations, networks, producing organizations and individuals. In 1939, the National Association of Broadcasters formed a committee to recognize outstanding achievement in radio broadcasting...
as well as two Gold Cindy awards and was released on CD on May 1, 2010. The series began airing on BBC Radio 4 Extra on June 12, 2011.
From 1985 to 1992 Bradbury hosted a syndicated anthology television series, The Ray Bradbury TheaterThe Ray Bradbury Theater is an anthology series that ran for two seasons on HBO, three episodes per season from 1985 to 1986, and four additional seasons on USA Network from 1988 to 1992. It was later shown in reruns on the Sci Fi Channel...
, for which he adapted 65 of his stories. Each episode would begin with a shot of Bradbury in his office, gazing over mementoes of his life, which he states (in narrative) are used to spark ideas for stories. During the first two seasons, Bradbury also provided additional voiceover narration specific to the featured story and appeared on screen.
Five episodes of the USSRThe Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
science fiction TV series This Fantastic World adapted Ray Bradbury's stories I Sing The Body Electric, Fahrenheit 451, A Piece of Wood, To the Chicago Abyss, and Forever and the Earth.The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
adaptation of "The Veldt" was filmed in 1987.
The 1998 film The Wonderful Ice Cream SuitThe Wonderful Ice Cream Suit is a 1998 film set in East Los Angeles directed by Stuart Gordon, written by Ray Bradbury and starring Edward James Olmos, Joe Mantegna, Esai Morales, Clifton Collins Jr. , Sid Caesar, Howard Morris and Gregory Sierra...
, released by Touchstone PicturesTouchstone Pictures is an American film production label and is one of several film labels of the Walt Disney Motion Pictures Group. Established in 1984, its releases typically feature more mature themes and darker tones than those that are released under the Walt Disney Pictures banner.Touchstone...
, was written by Ray Bradbury. It was based on his story "The Magic White Suit" originally published in The Saturday Evening PostThe Saturday Evening Post is a bimonthly American magazine. It was published weekly under this title from 1897 until 1969, and quarterly and then bimonthly from 1971.-History:...
in 1957. The story had also previously been adapted as a play, a musical, and a 1958 television version.
In 2002, Bradbury's own Pandemonium Theatre Company production of Fahrenheit 451 at Burbank's Falcon Theatre combined live acting with projected digital animation by the Pixel Pups. In 1984, Telarium released a for Commodore 64The Commodore 64 is an 8-bit home computer introduced by Commodore International in January 1982.Volume production started in the spring of 1982, with machines being released on to the market in August at a price of US$595...
based on Fahrenheit 451."The Pedestrian" is a short story by author Ray Bradbury. This story was originally published in 1951 by The Fortnightly Publishing Company. It is included in the collection The Golden Apples of the Sun .-Summary:...
", "The Veldt", and "To the Chicago Abyss."
In 2005, the film A Sound of ThunderA Sound of Thunder is a 2005 science fiction film directed by Peter Hyams. The film was planned originally for a 2002 release. However, flooding in Prague and other financial difficulties—including the bankruptcy of the original production company during post-production—resulted in a delayed...
was released, loosely based upon the short story of the same name. The film The Butterfly EffectThe Butterfly Effect is a 2004 American sci-fi psychological thriller film that is written and directed by Eric Bress and J. Mackye Gruber and starring Ashton Kutcher and Amy Smart...
revolves around the same theory as A Sound of Thunder and contains many references to its inspiration.The Small Assassin is a short story collection by Ray Bradbury. The stories originally appeared in the magazines Dime Mystery Magazine, Weird Tales, Harper's, Mademoiselle and the book Dark Carnival.-Contents:...
were released in 2005 and 2007 respectively.
In 2005, it was reported that Bradbury was upset with filmmaker Michael MooreMichael Francis Moore is an American filmmaker, author, social critic and activist. He is the director and producer of Fahrenheit 9/11, which is the highest-grossing documentary of all time. His films Bowling for Columbine and Sicko also place in the top ten highest-grossing documentaries...
for using the title Fahrenheit 9/11Fahrenheit 9/11 is a 2004 documentary film by American filmmaker and political commentator Michael Moore. The film takes a critical look at the presidency of George W. Bush, the War on Terror, and its coverage in the news media...
, which is an allusion to Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451Fahrenheit 451 is a 1953 dystopian novel by Ray Bradbury. The novel presents a future American society where reading is outlawed and firemen start fires to burn books...
, for his documentary about the George W. Bush administration. Bradbury expressed displeasure with Moore's use of the title but stated that his resentment was not politically motivated. Bradbury asserts that he does not want any of the money made by the movie, nor does he believe that he deserves it. He pressured Moore to change the name, but to no avail. Moore called Bradbury two weeks before the film's release to apologize, saying that the film's marketing had been set in motion a long time ago and it was too late to change the title.
In 2008, the film Ray Bradbury's ChrysalisRay Bradbury's Chrysalis is a 2008 film based on a short story by Ray Bradbury and produced by Roger Lay Jr. The film tells the tale of mankind's struggle for survival in a distant future after the effects of war and carelessness have completely ravaged the environment.The story takes place inside...
was produced by Roger Lay Jr. for Urban Archipelago Films, based upon the short story of the same name. The film won the best feature award at the International Horror and Sci-Fi Film Festival in Phoenix. The film has international distribution by Arsenal Pictures and domestic distribution by Lightning Entertainment.
In 2010, The Martian Chronicles was adapted for radio by Colonial Radio TheatreThe Colonial Radio Theatre on the Air is an award winning radio drama production company based out of Boston, Massachusetts. Officially established in 1995 by Jerry Robbins and Mark Vander Berg, Colonial can be heard nationwide on XM/Sirius Satellite radio...
on the Air.
Bradbury's works and approach to writing are documented in Terry SandersTerry Sanders is an American filmmaker having produced and/or directed more than 70 dramatic features, televisions specials, documentaries and portrait films. He co-heads the American Film Foundation and has produced and photographed the Oscar-winning dramatic short "A Time Out of War"...
' film Ray Bradbury: Story of a Writer (1963).
Honors
- In 2010, Spike TV
Spike is an American cable television channel. It launched on March 7, 1983 as The Nashville Network , a joint venture of WSM, Inc...
Scream AwardsThe Scream Awards is an award show dedicated to the horror, sci-fi, and fantasy genres of feature films, hosted and sponsored by Spike TV. The show was created by executive producers Michael Levitt, Cindy Levitt, and Casey Patterson...
Comic-ConComic-Con, Comic Con or ComiCon may refer to any of the following Comic book conventions, none of them affiliated to any other:*San Diego Comic-Con International, annual fan convention in San Diego held since 1970, also known as Comic-Con or San Diego Comic-Con*Dallas Comic Con, annual fan...
Icon Award went to Ray Bradbury
- In 2010, on occasion of his 90th birthday, Bradbury received Pulsar Award from Sarajevo SF Club PulSar
- In 2007, Bradbury received the French Commandeur Ordre des Arts et des Lettres
The Ordre des Arts et des Lettres is an Order of France, established on 2 May 1957 by the Minister of Culture, and confirmed as part of the Ordre national du Mérite by President Charles de Gaulle in 1963...
medal.
- For his contribution to the motion picture industry, Ray Bradbury was given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
The Hollywood Walk of Fame consists of more than 2,400 five-pointed terrazzo and brass stars embedded in the sidewalks along fifteen blocks of Hollywood Boulevard and three blocks of Vine Street in Hollywood, California...
at 6644 Hollywood Blvd.
- An asteroid
Asteroids are a class of small Solar System bodies in orbit around the Sun. They have also been called planetoids, especially the larger ones...
is named in his honor, "9766 Bradbury9766 Bradbury is a main-belt asteroid discovered on February 24, 1992 by the Spacewatch project at Kitt Peak. It was named after science fiction writer Ray Bradbury, author of The Martian Chronicles and Fahrenheit 451.- External links :*...
", along with a crater on the moon called "Dandelion CraterDandelion Crater is an impact crater on the Moon. The crater was named in 1971 by the Apollo 15 astronauts after the American author Ray Bradbury's 1957 novel Dandelion Wine....
" (named after his novel, Dandelion WineDandelion Wine is a 1957 novel by Ray Bradbury, taking place in the summer of 1928 in the fictional town of Green Town, Illinois — a pseudonym for Bradbury's childhood home of Waukegan, Illinois...
).
- On April 16, 2007, Bradbury received a special citation from The Pulitzer Board
The Pulitzer Prizes for 2007 were announced on April 16, 2007.In November 2006, the Pulitzer Prize Board announced two changes that would apply for the 2007 awards:...
, "for his distinguished, prolific, and deeply influential career as an unmatched author of science fiction and fantasy."[2007 Special Awards from the Pulitzer Prize]The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...
website
- On November 17, 2004, Bradbury was the recipient of the National Medal of Arts
The National Medal of Arts is an award and title created by the United States Congress in 1984, for the purpose of honoring artists and patrons of the arts. It is the highest honor conferred to an individual artist on behalf of the people. Honorees are selected by the National Endowment for the...
, presented by President George W. BushGeorge Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
and Laura BushLaura Lane Welch Bush is the wife of the 43rd President of the United States, George W. Bush. She was the First Lady of the United States from January 20, 2001, to January 20, 2009. She has held a love of books and reading since childhood and her life and education have reflected that interest...
. Bradbury has also received the World Fantasy AwardThe World Fantasy Awards are annual, international awards given to authors and artists who have demonstrated outstanding achievement in the field of fantasy...
life achievement, Stoker Award life achievement, SFWA Grand MasterThe Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award is an award given by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. It is awarded to a living author for lifetime achievement in science fiction and/or fantasy. Officially, it is not a Nebula Award though it is awarded at the Nebula ceremony...
, SF Hall of Fame Living Inductee, and First Fandom AwardFirst Fandom is an association of experienced science fiction fans.In 1958 a number of fans at Midwestcon realized amid table-talk that they all had been active in fandom for more than 20 years. This inspired the creation of an organization for longstanding fans under the initial chairmanship of...
. He received an Emmy AwardAn Emmy Award, often referred to simply as the Emmy, is a television production award, similar in nature to the Peabody Awards but more focused on entertainment, and is considered the television equivalent to the Academy Awards and the Grammy Awards .A majority of Emmys are presented in various...
for his work on The Halloween Tree. He received the Prometheus AwardThe Prometheus Award is an award for libertarian science fiction novels given annually by the Libertarian Futurist Society, which also publishes a quarterly journal Prometheus. L. Neil Smith established the award in 1979, but it was not awarded regularly until the newly founded Libertarian Futurist...
for Fahrenheit 451.
-
From 1951 to 1954, 27 of Bradbury's stories were adapted by Al FeldsteinAlbert B. Feldstein is an American writer, editor, and artist, best known for his work at EC Comics and, from 1956 to 1985, as the editor of the satirical magazine Mad. Since retiring from Mad, Feldstein has concentrated on American paintings of Western wildlife...
for EC ComicsEntertaining Comics, more commonly known as EC Comics, was an American publisher of comic books specializing in horror fiction, crime fiction, satire, military fiction and science fiction from the 1940s through the mid-1950s, notably the Tales from the Crypt series...
, and 16 of these were collected in the paperbacks, The Autumn PeopleThe Autumn People is a mass-market paperback collection of comic adaptations of eight short horror and crime stories by Ray Bradbury, gathered from the pages of the EC Comics comic books of the 1950s...
(1965) and Tomorrow MidnightTomorrow Midnight is a mass-market paperback collection of comic adaptations of eight short science fiction stories by Ray Bradbury, gathered from the pages of the EC Comics comic books of the 1950s...
(1966), both published by Ballantine BooksBallantine Books is a major book publisher located in the United States, founded in 1952 by Ian Ballantine with his wife, Betty Ballantine. It was acquired by Random House in 1973, which in turn was acquired by Bertelsmann AG in 1998 and remains part of that company today. Ballantine's logo is a...
with cover illustrations by Frank FrazettaFrank Frazetta was an American fantasy and science fiction artist, noted for work in comic books, paperback book covers, paintings, posters, LP record album covers and other media...
.
Also in the early 1950s, adaptations of Bradbury's stories were televised on a variety of an anthology shows, including Tales of TomorrowTales of Tomorrow is an American anthology science fiction series that was performed and broadcast live on ABC from 1951 to 1953. The series covered such stories as Frankenstein, starring Lon Chaney, Jr., 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea starring Thomas Mitchell as Captain Nemo, and many others...
, Lights OutLights Out is an extremely popular American old-time radio program, an early example of a network series devoted mostly to horror and the supernatural, predating Suspense and Inner Sanctum...
, Out There, Suspense-Production background:One of the premier drama programs of the Golden Age of Radio, was subtitled "radio's outstanding theater of thrills" and focused on suspense thriller-type scripts, usually featuring leading Hollywood actors of the era...
, CBS Television WorkshopCBS Television Workshop was a 1952 television series famous for an early appearance of Audrey Hepburn and James Dean.On 13 January 1952, in the very first episode, a dramatized 30 minute version of Don Quixote starring Boris Karloff and directed by Sidney Lumet, Grace Kelly made an appearance as...
, Jane Wyman's Fireside TheatreFireside Theater is an American anthology drama series that ran from on NBC from 1949 to 1958, and was the first successful filmed series on American television. Stories were low budget and often based on public domain stories or written by freelance writers such as Rod Serling. While it was panned...
, Star TonightStar Tonight, an American television anthology series, aired on ABC from February 1955 to August 1956.-Adaptations and actors:It consisted of 80 total episodes, 30 from 1955 and 50 from 1956. Each episode was a self-contained story, usually adapted from famous plays, short-stories or novels by some...
, Windows and Alfred Hitchcock PresentsAlfred Hitchcock Presents is an American television anthology series hosted by Alfred Hitchcock. The series featured dramas, thrillers, and mysteries. By the premiere of the show on October 2, 1955, Hitchcock had been directing films for over three decades...
. "The Merry-Go-Round," a half-hour film adaptation of Bradbury's "The Black Ferris," praised by Variety, was shown on Starlight Summer Theater in 1954 and NBC's Sneak Preview in 1956. During that same period, several stories were adapted for radio drama, notably on the science fiction anthologies Dimension XDimension X was an NBC radio program broadcast on an unsponsored, sustaining basis from April 8, 1950 to September 29, 1951. The first 13 episodes were broadcast live, and the remainder were pre-recorded...
and its successor X Minus OneX Minus One was a half-hour science fiction radio drama series broadcast from April 24, 1955 to January 9, 1958 in various timeslots on NBC.-Overview:...
.
Producer William Alland first brought Bradbury to movie theaters in 1953 with It Came from Outer SpaceIt Came from Outer Space is a 1953 science fiction 3-D film directed by Jack Arnold, and starring Richard Carlson, Barbara Rush, and Charles Drake. It was Universal's first film to be filmed in 3-D.- Plot :...
, a Harry EssexHarry Essex was a prolific American screenwriter. He was born on 29 November 1910 in New York City. He died on 5 February 1997 in Los Angeles. His career spanned more than fifty years...
screenplay developed from Bradbury's screen treatment "Atomic Monster". Three weeks later came the release of Eugène Lourié's The Beast from 20,000 FathomsThe Beast from 20,000 Fathoms is a 1953 science fiction film directed by Eugène Lourié and stars Paul Christian, Paula Raymond and Cecil Kellaway with visual effects by Ray Harryhausen. The film is about an atomic bomb test in the Arctic Circle that unfreezes a hibernating fictional dinosaur, a...
(1953), which featured one scene based on Bradbury's "The Fog Horn"The Fog Horn" is a 1951 science fiction short story by Ray Bradbury, and the first in his collection The Golden Apples of the Sun. The story was the basis for the 1953 film The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms.-Plot summary:...
", about a sea monster mistaking the sound of a fog horn for the mating cry of a female. Bradbury's close friend Ray HarryhausenRay Harryhausen is an American film producer and special effects creator...
produced the stop-motion animation of the creature. Bradbury would later return the favor by writing a short story, "Tyrannosaurus Rex", about a stop-motion animator who strongly resembled Harryhausen. Over the next 50 years, more than 35 features, shorts, and TV movies were based on Bradbury's stories or screenplays.
Bradbury was hired in 1953 by director John HustonJohn Marcellus Huston was an American film director, screenwriter and actor. He wrote most of the 37 feature films he directed, many of which are today considered classics: The Maltese Falcon , The Treasure of the Sierra Madre , Key Largo , The Asphalt Jungle , The African Queen , Moulin Rouge...
to work on the screenplay for the 1956 film Moby DickMoby Dick is a 1956 film adaptation of Herman Melville's novel Moby-Dick. It was directed by John Huston with a screenplay by Ray Bradbury and the director. The film starred Gregory Peck, Richard Basehart, and Leo Genn...
, which was faithfully based on the novel by Herman MelvilleHerman Melville was an American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet. He is best known for his novel Moby-Dick and the posthumous novella Billy Budd....
and starred Gregory PeckEldred Gregory Peck was an American actor.One of 20th Century Fox's most popular film stars from the 1940s to the 1960s, Peck continued to play important roles well into the 1980s. His notable performances include that of Atticus Finch in the 1962 film To Kill a Mockingbird, for which he won an...
as Captain Ahab, Richard BasehartJohn Richard Basehart was an American actor. He starred in the 1960s television science fiction drama Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, in the role of Admiral Harriman Nelson.-Career:...
as Ishmael, and Orson WellesGeorge Orson Welles , best known as Orson Welles, was an American film director, actor, theatre director, screenwriter, and producer, who worked extensively in film, theatre, television and radio...
as Father Mapple. A significant result of the film was Bradbury's book Green Shadows, White WhaleGreen Shadows, White Whale is a 1992 novel by Ray Bradbury. It gives a fictionalized account of his journey to Ireland in 1953-1954 to write a screen adaptation of the novel Moby-Dick with director John Huston. Bradbury has said he wrote it after reading actress Katharine Hepburn's account of...
, a semi-fictionalized account of the making of the film, including Bradbury's dealings with Huston and his time in IrelandIreland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
, where exterior scenes that were set in New Bedford, MassachusettsNew Bedford is a city in Bristol County, Massachusetts, United States, located south of Boston, southeast of Providence, Rhode Island, and about east of Fall River. As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 95,072, making it the sixth-largest city in Massachusetts...
, were filmed.
Bradbury's short story I Sing the Body ElectricI Sing the Body Electric! is a 1969 collection of short stories by Ray Bradbury. The book takes its name from a line in Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman.-Contents:The collection includes these stories:* "The Kilimanjaro Device"...
(from the book of the same name) was adapted for the 100th episode of The Twilight Zone"I Sing the Body Electric" is the 100th episode of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone.The script was written by Ray Bradbury, and based on his short story of the same name, itself named after a Walt Whitman poem. Although Bradbury contributed several scripts to The Twilight...
. The episode was first aired on May 18, 1962.
Oskar Werner-Early life:Born Oskar Josef Bschließmayer in Vienna, Werner spent much of his childhood in the care of his grandmother, who entertained him with stories about the Burgtheater, the Austrian state theatre, where he was accepted at the age of eighteen by Lothar Müthel. He was the youngest person ever...
and Julie ChristieJulie Frances Christie is a British actress. Born in British India to English parents, at the age of six Christie moved to England, where she attended boarding school....
starred in Fahrenheit 451Fahrenheit 451 is a 1966 film directed by François Truffaut, in his first colour film as well as his only English-language film. It is based on the novel of the same name by Ray Bradbury....
(1966), an adaptation of Bradbury's novel directed by François TruffautFrançois Roland Truffaut was an influential film critic and filmmaker and one of the founders of the French New Wave. In a film career lasting over a quarter of a century, he remains an icon of the French film industry. He was also a screenwriter, producer, and actor working on over twenty-five...
.
In 1966 Bradbury helped Lynn GarrisonLynn Garrison is a Canadian pilot and political adviser. He was an RCAF fighter pilot from the 403 City of Calgary Squadron, commercial pilot, film producer, director and mercenary...
create AVIAN, a specialist aviation magazine. For the first issue Bradbury wrote a poem – Planes that land on grass.
In 1969, The Illustrated ManThe Illustrated Man is a 1951 book of eighteen science fiction short stories by Ray Bradbury that explores the nature of mankind. While none of the stories has a plot or character connection with the next, a recurring theme is the conflict of the cold mechanics of technology and the psychology of...
was brought to the big screen, starring Rod SteigerRodney Stephen "Rod" Steiger was an Academy Award-winning American actor known for his performances in such films as On the Waterfront, The Big Knife, Oklahoma!, The Harder They Fall, Across the Bridge, The Pawnbroker, Doctor Zhivago, In the Heat of the Night, and Waterloo as well as the...
, Claire BloomClaire Bloom is an English film and stage actress.-Early life:Bloom was born in the North London suburb of Finchley, the daughter of Elizabeth and Edward Max Blume, who worked in sales...
and Robert DrivasRobert Drivas was an American actor and theatre director.Drivas was born Robert Choromokos in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Hariklia and James Peter Choromokos. Drivas studied at the University of Chicago and the University of Miami...
. Containing the prologue and three short stories from the book, the film received mediocre reviews.
The Martian ChroniclesThe Martian Chronicles is a television miniseries based on Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles and dealing with the exploration of Mars and the inhabitants there. The series starred Rock Hudson, Darren McGavin, Bernadette Peters, Roddy McDowall, Barry Morse, and Maria Schell...
became a three-part TV miniseriesA miniseries , in a serial storytelling medium, is a television show production which tells a story in a limited number of episodes. The exact number is open to interpretation; however, they are usually limited to fewer than a whole season. The term "miniseries" is generally a North American term...
starring Rock HudsonRoy Harold Scherer, Jr., later Roy Harold Fitzgerald , known professionally as Rock Hudson, was an American film and television actor, recognized as a romantic leading man during the 1950s and 1960s, most notably in several romantic comedies with Doris Day.Hudson was voted "Star of the Year",...
which was first broadcast by NBCThe National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
in 1980. Bradbury found the miniseries "just boring".
The 1983 horror film Something Wicked This Way ComesSomething Wicked This Way Comes is a 1983 film based on the Ray Bradbury novel of the same name, starring Jason Robards and Jonathan Pryce. Directed by Jack Clayton from a screenplay written by Bradbury himself, the movie suffered from offscreen conflicts of vision...
, starring Jason RobardsJason Nelson Robards, Jr. was an American actor on stage, and in film and television, and a winner of the Tony Award , two Academy Awards and the Emmy Award...
and Jonathan PryceJonathan Pryce, CBE is a Welsh stage and film actor and singer. After studying at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and meeting his longtime partner English actress Kate Fahy in 1974, he began his career as a stage actor in the 1970s...
, is based on the Bradbury novel of the same nameSomething Wicked This Way Comes is a 1962 novel by Ray Bradbury. It is about two 13-year-old boys, Jim Nightshade and William Halloway, who have a harrowing experience with a nightmarish traveling carnival that comes to their Midwestern town one October. The carnival's leader is the mysterious "Mr...
.
In 1984, Michael McDonough of Brigham Young University produced "Bradbury 13," a series of 13 audio adaptations of famous Ray Bradbury stories, in conjunction with National Public Radio. The full-cast dramatizations featured adaptations of "The Ravine," "Night Call, Collect," "The Veldt"The Veldt" is a short story written by Ray Bradbury that was published originally as "The World the Children Made" in the September 23, 1950 issue of The Saturday Evening Post, later republished in the anthology The Illustrated Man in 1951...
", "There Was an Old Woman," "Kaleidoscope," "Dark They Were, and Golden-Eyed"Dark They Were, and Golden-Eyed" is a science fiction short story by Ray Bradbury. It was originally published in the magazine Thrilling Wonder Stories in August 1949...
", "The Screaming Woman," "A Sound of Thunder“A Sound of Thunder” is a science fiction short story by Ray Bradbury, first published in Collier’s magazine in 1952. As of 1984 it was the most re-published science fiction story up to the present time...
," "The Man," "The Wind," "The Fox and the Forest," "Here There Be Tygers"Here There Be Tygers" is a short story written by Ray Bradbury, originally published in the anthology New Tales of Space and Time in 1951. It was later collected in Bradbury's short story collections R is for Rocket and The Golden Apples of the Sun...
" and "The Happiness Machine". Voiceover actor Paul FreesPaul Frees was an American voice actor and character actor.-Biography:He was born Solomon Hersh Frees in Chicago...
provided narration, while Bradbury himself was responsible for the opening voiceover; Greg Hansen and Roger Hoffman scored the episodes. The series won a Peabody AwardThe George Foster Peabody Awards recognize distinguished and meritorious public service by radio and television stations, networks, producing organizations and individuals. In 1939, the National Association of Broadcasters formed a committee to recognize outstanding achievement in radio broadcasting...
as well as two Gold Cindy awards and was released on CD on May 1, 2010. The series began airing on BBC Radio 4 Extra on June 12, 2011.
From 1985 to 1992 Bradbury hosted a syndicated anthology television series, The Ray Bradbury TheaterThe Ray Bradbury Theater is an anthology series that ran for two seasons on HBO, three episodes per season from 1985 to 1986, and four additional seasons on USA Network from 1988 to 1992. It was later shown in reruns on the Sci Fi Channel...
, for which he adapted 65 of his stories. Each episode would begin with a shot of Bradbury in his office, gazing over mementoes of his life, which he states (in narrative) are used to spark ideas for stories. During the first two seasons, Bradbury also provided additional voiceover narration specific to the featured story and appeared on screen.
Five episodes of the USSRThe Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
science fiction TV series This Fantastic World adapted Ray Bradbury's stories I Sing The Body Electric, Fahrenheit 451, A Piece of Wood, To the Chicago Abyss, and Forever and the Earth.The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
adaptation of "The Veldt" was filmed in 1987.
The 1998 film The Wonderful Ice Cream SuitThe Wonderful Ice Cream Suit is a 1998 film set in East Los Angeles directed by Stuart Gordon, written by Ray Bradbury and starring Edward James Olmos, Joe Mantegna, Esai Morales, Clifton Collins Jr. , Sid Caesar, Howard Morris and Gregory Sierra...
, released by Touchstone PicturesTouchstone Pictures is an American film production label and is one of several film labels of the Walt Disney Motion Pictures Group. Established in 1984, its releases typically feature more mature themes and darker tones than those that are released under the Walt Disney Pictures banner.Touchstone...
, was written by Ray Bradbury. It was based on his story "The Magic White Suit" originally published in The Saturday Evening PostThe Saturday Evening Post is a bimonthly American magazine. It was published weekly under this title from 1897 until 1969, and quarterly and then bimonthly from 1971.-History:...
in 1957. The story had also previously been adapted as a play, a musical, and a 1958 television version.
In 2002, Bradbury's own Pandemonium Theatre Company production of Fahrenheit 451 at Burbank's Falcon Theatre combined live acting with projected digital animation by the Pixel Pups. In 1984, Telarium released a for Commodore 64The Commodore 64 is an 8-bit home computer introduced by Commodore International in January 1982.Volume production started in the spring of 1982, with machines being released on to the market in August at a price of US$595...
based on Fahrenheit 451."The Pedestrian" is a short story by author Ray Bradbury. This story was originally published in 1951 by The Fortnightly Publishing Company. It is included in the collection The Golden Apples of the Sun .-Summary:...
", "The Veldt", and "To the Chicago Abyss."
In 2005, the film A Sound of ThunderA Sound of Thunder is a 2005 science fiction film directed by Peter Hyams. The film was planned originally for a 2002 release. However, flooding in Prague and other financial difficulties—including the bankruptcy of the original production company during post-production—resulted in a delayed...
was released, loosely based upon the short story of the same name. The film The Butterfly EffectThe Butterfly Effect is a 2004 American sci-fi psychological thriller film that is written and directed by Eric Bress and J. Mackye Gruber and starring Ashton Kutcher and Amy Smart...
revolves around the same theory as A Sound of Thunder and contains many references to its inspiration.The Small Assassin is a short story collection by Ray Bradbury. The stories originally appeared in the magazines Dime Mystery Magazine, Weird Tales, Harper's, Mademoiselle and the book Dark Carnival.-Contents:...
were released in 2005 and 2007 respectively.
In 2005, it was reported that Bradbury was upset with filmmaker Michael MooreMichael Francis Moore is an American filmmaker, author, social critic and activist. He is the director and producer of Fahrenheit 9/11, which is the highest-grossing documentary of all time. His films Bowling for Columbine and Sicko also place in the top ten highest-grossing documentaries...
for using the title Fahrenheit 9/11Fahrenheit 9/11 is a 2004 documentary film by American filmmaker and political commentator Michael Moore. The film takes a critical look at the presidency of George W. Bush, the War on Terror, and its coverage in the news media...
, which is an allusion to Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451Fahrenheit 451 is a 1953 dystopian novel by Ray Bradbury. The novel presents a future American society where reading is outlawed and firemen start fires to burn books...
, for his documentary about the George W. Bush administration. Bradbury expressed displeasure with Moore's use of the title but stated that his resentment was not politically motivated. Bradbury asserts that he does not want any of the money made by the movie, nor does he believe that he deserves it. He pressured Moore to change the name, but to no avail. Moore called Bradbury two weeks before the film's release to apologize, saying that the film's marketing had been set in motion a long time ago and it was too late to change the title.
In 2008, the film Ray Bradbury's ChrysalisRay Bradbury's Chrysalis is a 2008 film based on a short story by Ray Bradbury and produced by Roger Lay Jr. The film tells the tale of mankind's struggle for survival in a distant future after the effects of war and carelessness have completely ravaged the environment.The story takes place inside...
was produced by Roger Lay Jr. for Urban Archipelago Films, based upon the short story of the same name. The film won the best feature award at the International Horror and Sci-Fi Film Festival in Phoenix. The film has international distribution by Arsenal Pictures and domestic distribution by Lightning Entertainment.
In 2010, The Martian Chronicles was adapted for radio by Colonial Radio TheatreThe Colonial Radio Theatre on the Air is an award winning radio drama production company based out of Boston, Massachusetts. Officially established in 1995 by Jerry Robbins and Mark Vander Berg, Colonial can be heard nationwide on XM/Sirius Satellite radio...
on the Air.
Bradbury's works and approach to writing are documented in Terry SandersTerry Sanders is an American filmmaker having produced and/or directed more than 70 dramatic features, televisions specials, documentaries and portrait films. He co-heads the American Film Foundation and has produced and photographed the Oscar-winning dramatic short "A Time Out of War"...
' film Ray Bradbury: Story of a Writer (1963).
Honors
- In 2010, Spike TV
Spike is an American cable television channel. It launched on March 7, 1983 as The Nashville Network , a joint venture of WSM, Inc...
Scream AwardsThe Scream Awards is an award show dedicated to the horror, sci-fi, and fantasy genres of feature films, hosted and sponsored by Spike TV. The show was created by executive producers Michael Levitt, Cindy Levitt, and Casey Patterson...
Comic-ConComic-Con, Comic Con or ComiCon may refer to any of the following Comic book conventions, none of them affiliated to any other:*San Diego Comic-Con International, annual fan convention in San Diego held since 1970, also known as Comic-Con or San Diego Comic-Con*Dallas Comic Con, annual fan...
Icon Award went to Ray Bradbury
- In 2010, on occasion of his 90th birthday, Bradbury received Pulsar Award from Sarajevo SF Club PulSar
- In 2007, Bradbury received the French Commandeur Ordre des Arts et des Lettres
The Ordre des Arts et des Lettres is an Order of France, established on 2 May 1957 by the Minister of Culture, and confirmed as part of the Ordre national du Mérite by President Charles de Gaulle in 1963...
medal.
- For his contribution to the motion picture industry, Ray Bradbury was given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
The Hollywood Walk of Fame consists of more than 2,400 five-pointed terrazzo and brass stars embedded in the sidewalks along fifteen blocks of Hollywood Boulevard and three blocks of Vine Street in Hollywood, California...
at 6644 Hollywood Blvd.
- An asteroid
Asteroids are a class of small Solar System bodies in orbit around the Sun. They have also been called planetoids, especially the larger ones...
is named in his honor, "9766 Bradbury9766 Bradbury is a main-belt asteroid discovered on February 24, 1992 by the Spacewatch project at Kitt Peak. It was named after science fiction writer Ray Bradbury, author of The Martian Chronicles and Fahrenheit 451.- External links :*...
", along with a crater on the moon called "Dandelion CraterDandelion Crater is an impact crater on the Moon. The crater was named in 1971 by the Apollo 15 astronauts after the American author Ray Bradbury's 1957 novel Dandelion Wine....
" (named after his novel, Dandelion WineDandelion Wine is a 1957 novel by Ray Bradbury, taking place in the summer of 1928 in the fictional town of Green Town, Illinois — a pseudonym for Bradbury's childhood home of Waukegan, Illinois...
).
- On April 16, 2007, Bradbury received a special citation from The Pulitzer Board
The Pulitzer Prizes for 2007 were announced on April 16, 2007.In November 2006, the Pulitzer Prize Board announced two changes that would apply for the 2007 awards:...
, "for his distinguished, prolific, and deeply influential career as an unmatched author of science fiction and fantasy."[2007 Special Awards from the Pulitzer Prize]The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...
website
- On November 17, 2004, Bradbury was the recipient of the National Medal of Arts
The National Medal of Arts is an award and title created by the United States Congress in 1984, for the purpose of honoring artists and patrons of the arts. It is the highest honor conferred to an individual artist on behalf of the people. Honorees are selected by the National Endowment for the...
, presented by President George W. BushGeorge Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
and Laura BushLaura Lane Welch Bush is the wife of the 43rd President of the United States, George W. Bush. She was the First Lady of the United States from January 20, 2001, to January 20, 2009. She has held a love of books and reading since childhood and her life and education have reflected that interest...
. Bradbury has also received the World Fantasy AwardThe World Fantasy Awards are annual, international awards given to authors and artists who have demonstrated outstanding achievement in the field of fantasy...
life achievement, Stoker Award life achievement, SFWA Grand MasterThe Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award is an award given by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. It is awarded to a living author for lifetime achievement in science fiction and/or fantasy. Officially, it is not a Nebula Award though it is awarded at the Nebula ceremony...
, SF Hall of Fame Living Inductee, and First Fandom AwardFirst Fandom is an association of experienced science fiction fans.In 1958 a number of fans at Midwestcon realized amid table-talk that they all had been active in fandom for more than 20 years. This inspired the creation of an organization for longstanding fans under the initial chairmanship of...
. He received an Emmy AwardAn Emmy Award, often referred to simply as the Emmy, is a television production award, similar in nature to the Peabody Awards but more focused on entertainment, and is considered the television equivalent to the Academy Awards and the Grammy Awards .A majority of Emmys are presented in various...
for his work on The Halloween Tree. He received the Prometheus AwardThe Prometheus Award is an award for libertarian science fiction novels given annually by the Libertarian Futurist Society, which also publishes a quarterly journal Prometheus. L. Neil Smith established the award in 1979, but it was not awarded regularly until the newly founded Libertarian Futurist...
for Fahrenheit 451.
Ray Douglas Bradbury (born August 22, 1920Fantasy is a genre of fiction that commonly uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary element of plot, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic is common...
, horrorHorror fiction also Horror fantasy is a philosophy of literature, which is intended to, or has the capacity to frighten its readers, inducing feelings of horror and terror. It creates an eerie atmosphere. Horror can be either supernatural or non-supernatural...
, science fictionScience fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
, and mystery writer. Best known for his dystopiaA dystopia is the idea of a society in a repressive and controlled state, often under the guise of being utopian, as characterized in books like Brave New World and Nineteen Eighty-Four...
n novel Fahrenheit 451Fahrenheit 451 is a 1953 dystopian novel by Ray Bradbury. The novel presents a future American society where reading is outlawed and firemen start fires to burn books...
(1953) and for the science fiction stories gathered together as The Martian ChroniclesThe Martian Chronicles is a 1950 science fiction short story collection by Ray Bradbury that chronicles the colonization of Mars by humans fleeing from a troubled and eventually atomically devastated Earth, and the conflict between aboriginal Martians and the new colonists...
(1950) and The Illustrated ManThe Illustrated Man is a 1951 book of eighteen science fiction short stories by Ray Bradbury that explores the nature of mankind. While none of the stories has a plot or character connection with the next, a recurring theme is the conflict of the cold mechanics of technology and the psychology of...
(1951), Bradbury is one of the most celebrated among 20th and 21st century American writers of speculative fictionSpeculative fiction is an umbrella term encompassing the more fantastical fiction genres, specifically science fiction, fantasy, horror, supernatural fiction, superhero fiction, utopian and dystopian fiction, apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction, and alternate history in literature as well as...
. Many of Bradbury's works have been adapted into television shows or films.
Early life
Bradbury was born in Waukegan, IllinoisWaukegan is a city and county seat of Lake County, Illinois. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 87,901. The 2010 population was 89,078. It is the ninth-largest city in Illinois by population...
[p.141 Bloom, Harold Ray Bradbury 2010 Infobase Publishing] to Esther Moberg Bradbury, a Swedish immigrantSwedish Americans are Americans of Swedish descent, especially the descendants of about 1.2 million immigrants from Sweden during 1885-1915. Most were Lutherans who affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America ; some were Methodists...
, and Leonard Spaulding Bradbury,[Touponce, William F. "Ray (Douglas) Bradbury." American Writers: A Collection of Literary Biographies, Supplement 4. Ed. A Walton Litz and Molly Weigel. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1996. Literature Resources from Gale. Web. Nov. 16, 2010.] a power and telephone lineman.[Certificate of Birth, Ray Douglas Bradbury, August 22, 1920, Lake County Clerk's Record #4750. Although he was named after Rae Williams, a cousin on his father's side, Ray Bradbury's birth certificate spells his first name as "Ray."] He was the brother of two older twin boys, one of whom died in 1918[Mogen, David. "RAY BRADBURY (1920- )." Columbia Companion to the Twentieth-Century American Short Story (2000): 162-166. EBSCO. Web. Nov. 30, 2010.]. His paternal grandfather and great-grandfather were newspaper publishers.
He is related to the American Shakespeare scholar Douglas Spaulding.[The Spalding Family Memorial, 1899] Ray is also directly descended from Mary BradburyMary Perkins Bradbury was tried, convicted and sentenced to hang as a witch in Salem, Massachusetts in 1692.-Early life:...
who was tried, convicted and sentenced to hang as a witch in Salem, Massachusetts in 1692. She was married to Captain Thomas Bradbury of Salisbury, MassachusettsSalisbury is a town in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 7,827 at the 2000 census. The community is a popular summer resort beach town situated on the Atlantic Ocean north of Boston on the New Hampshire border....
.
Bradbury was a reader and writer throughout his youth, spending much time in the Carnegie library in Waukegan, IllinoisWaukegan is a city and county seat of Lake County, Illinois. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 87,901. The 2010 population was 89,078. It is the ninth-largest city in Illinois by population...
, reading such authors as H.G. Wells, Jules VerneJules Gabriel Verne was a French author who pioneered the science fiction genre. He is best known for his novels Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea , A Journey to the Center of the Earth , and Around the World in Eighty Days...
, and his favorite author, Edgar Rice BurroughsEdgar Rice Burroughs was an American author, best known for his creation of the jungle hero Tarzan and the heroic Mars adventurer John Carter, although he produced works in many genres.-Biography:...
who wrote novels such as Tarzan and Warlord of Mars.[Contemporary Authors Online. Ray Bradbury. Detroit: Gale, 2009. Web.] Bradbury was pushed to writing by his aunt, who read him short stories when he was a child.[Paradowski, Robert J. "Ray Bradbury." Critical Survey of Short Fiction, Second Revised Edition" 2001:1-5. EBSCO. Web. Nov. 8, 2010] He used this library as a setting for much of his novel Something Wicked This Way ComesSomething Wicked This Way Comes is a 1962 novel by Ray Bradbury. It is about two 13-year-old boys, Jim Nightshade and William Halloway, who have a harrowing experience with a nightmarish traveling carnival that comes to their Midwestern town one October. The carnival's leader is the mysterious "Mr...
, and depicted Waukegan as "Green Town" in some of his other semi-autobiographicalAn autobiography is a book about the life of a person, written by that person.-Origin of the term:...
novels—Dandelion WineDandelion Wine is a 1957 novel by Ray Bradbury, taking place in the summer of 1928 in the fictional town of Green Town, Illinois — a pseudonym for Bradbury's childhood home of Waukegan, Illinois...
, Farewell SummerFarewell Summer is a novel by Ray Bradbury, published on October 17, 2006. It is a sequel to his 1957 novel Dandelion Wine, and is set during an Indian summer in October 1929. The story concerns a mock war between the young and the old in Green Town, Illinois, and the sexual awakening of Doug...
—as well as in many of his short stories.[Sites from these works which still exist in Waukegan include his boyhood home, his grandparents' home next door (and their connecting lawns where he and his grandfather gathered dandelions to make wine) and, less than a block away, the famous ravine which Bradbury used as a metaphor]A metaphor is a literary figure of speech that uses an image, story or tangible thing to represent a less tangible thing or some intangible quality or idea; e.g., "Her eyes were glistening jewels." Metaphor may also be used for any rhetorical figures of speech that achieve their effects via...
throughout his career.
He attributes his lifelong habit of writing every day to two incidents. The first, which occurred when he was three years old when his mother took him to Lon Chaney's performance of the Hunchback of Notre Dame,[Paradowski, Robert J. “Ray Bradbury.” Critical Survey of Short Fiction, Second Revised Edition (2001): EBSCO. Web. Nov. 10, 2010.] and the second, which occurred in 1932 when a carnival entertainer, Mr. Electrico,Magic is a performing art that entertains audiences by staging tricks or creating illusions of seemingly impossible or supernatural feats using natural means...
. Magic was his first great love. If he had not discovered writing, he would have become a magician.[Terry Sanders' film Ray Bradbury: Story of a Writer (1963)]
The Bradbury family lived in Tucson, ArizonaTucson is a city in and the county seat of Pima County, Arizona, United States. The city is located 118 miles southeast of Phoenix and 60 miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border. The 2010 United States Census puts the city's population at 520,116 with a metropolitan area population at 1,020,200...
, in 1926–27 and 1932–33 as his father pursued employment, each time returning to Waukegan, but eventually settled in Los Angeles in 1934, when Ray was thirteen.
Bradbury graduated from Los Angeles High SchoolLos Angeles High School is the oldest public high school in the Southern California Region and in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Its colors are blue and white and the teams are called the Romans....
, where he took poetry and short story writing courses that furthered his interest in writing,[Litz, A. Walton, and Molly Weigel, eds. American Writers (Supp. 4, Pt. 1). New York: Macmillian Library Reference. 1996. Print.] but he did not attend college. Instead, he sold newspapers at the corner of South Norton Avenue and Olympic Boulevard. In regard to his education, Bradbury said:
It was in UCLA's Powell LibraryPowell Library is the main college undergraduate library on the campus of the University of California, Los Angeles . It was constructed from 1926 to 1929 and was one of the original four buildings that comprised the UCLA campus in the early period of the university's life...
, in a study room with typewriters for rent, in which Bradbury wrote his classic story of a book-burning future, "Fahrenheit 451."
Career
Ray Bradbury had the freedom of starting his writing career when he was rejected admission into the military (bad eyesight) during World War II. Having been influenced by science fictionScience fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
heroes like Flash GordonFlash Gordon is the hero of a science fiction adventure comic strip originally drawn by Alex Raymond. First published January 7, 1934, the strip was inspired by and created to compete with the already established Buck Rogers adventure strip. Also inspired by these series were comics such as Dash...
and Buck RogersAnthony Rogers is a fictional character that first appeared in Armageddon 2419 A.D. by Philip Francis Nowlan in the August 1928 issue of the pulp magazine Amazing Stories. A sequel, The Airlords of Han, was published in the March 1929 issue....
, Bradbury began to publish science fiction stories in fanzineA fanzine is a nonprofessional and nonofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon for the pleasure of others who share their interest...
s in 1938. Bradbury was invited by Forrest J AckermanForrest J Ackerman was an American collector of science fiction books and movie memorabilia and a science fiction fan...
to attend the Alabama "roll tide", which at the time met at Clifton’s Cafeteria in downtown Los Angeles. This was where he met the writers Robert A. HeinleinRobert Anson Heinlein was an American science fiction writer. Often called the "dean of science fiction writers", he was one of the most influential and controversial authors of the genre. He set a standard for science and engineering plausibility and helped to raise the genre's standards of...
, Emil PetajaEmil Petaja was an American science fiction and fantasy writer whose career spanned seven decades. He was the author of 13 published novels, nearly 150 short stories, numerous poems, and a handful of books and articles on various subjects...
, Fredric BrownFredric Brown was an American science fiction and mystery writer. He was born in Cincinnati.He had two sons: James Ross Brown and Linn Lewis Brown ....
, Henry KuttnerHenry Kuttner was an American author of science fiction, fantasy and horror.-Early life:Henry Kuttner was born in Los Angeles, California in 1915...
, Leigh BrackettLeigh Douglass Brackett was an American author, particularly of science fiction. She was also a screenwriter, known for her work on famous films such as The Big Sleep , Rio Bravo , The Long Goodbye and The Empire Strikes Back .-Life:Leigh Brackett was born and grew up in Los Angeles, California...
, and Jack WilliamsonJohn Stewart Williamson , who wrote as Jack Williamson was a U.S. writer often referred to as the "Dean of Science Fiction" following the death in 1988 of Robert A...
. His first published story was "Hollerbochen's Dilemma", which appeared in the fanzineA fanzine is a nonprofessional and nonofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon for the pleasure of others who share their interest...
Imagination! in January, 1938. Launching his own fanzine in 1939, titled Futuria Fantasia, he wrote most of its four issues, each limited to under 100 copies. Between 1941 and 1947, he was a contributor to Rob Wagner's film magazine, Script.
Bradbury's first paid piece, "Pendulum", written with Henry Hasse, was published in the pulp magazinePulp magazines , also collectively known as pulp fiction, refers to inexpensive fiction magazines published from 1896 through the 1950s. The typical pulp magazine was seven inches wide by ten inches high, half an inch thick, and 128 pages long...
Super Science Stories in November 1941, for which he earned $15.Arkham House is a publishing house specializing in weird fiction founded in Sauk City, Wisconsin in 1939 by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei to preserve in hardcover the best fiction of H.P. Lovecraft. The company's name is derived from Lovecraft's fictional New England city, Arkham. Arkham House...
, a small press in Sauk City, Wis., owned by writer August Derleth.
A chance encounter in a Los Angeles bookstore with the British expatriate writer Christopher IsherwoodChristopher William Bradshaw Isherwood was an English-American novelist.-Early life and work:Born at Wyberslegh Hall, High Lane, Cheshire in North West England, Isherwood spent his childhood in various towns where his father, a Lieutenant-Colonel in the British Army, was stationed...
gave Bradbury the opportunity to put The Martian ChroniclesThe Martian Chronicles is a 1950 science fiction short story collection by Ray Bradbury that chronicles the colonization of Mars by humans fleeing from a troubled and eventually atomically devastated Earth, and the conflict between aboriginal Martians and the new colonists...
into the hands of a respected critic. Isherwood's glowing review followed.
Although he is often described as a science fictionScience fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
writer, Bradbury does not box himself into a particular narrative categorization:
On another occasion, Bradbury observed that the novel touches on the alienation of people by media:
Besides his fiction work, Bradbury has written many short essayAn essay is a piece of writing which is often written from an author's personal point of view. Essays can consist of a number of elements, including: literary criticism, political manifestos, learned arguments, observations of daily life, recollections, and reflections of the author. The definition...
s on the arts and culture, attracting the attention of critics in this field. Bradbury also hosted "The Ray Bradbury Theater" which was based on his short stories. Bradbury was a consultant for the American Pavilion at the 1964 New York World's FairThe 1964/1965 New York World's Fair was the third major world's fair to be held in New York City. Hailing itself as a "universal and international" exposition, the fair's theme was "Peace Through Understanding," dedicated to "Man's Achievement on a Shrinking Globe in an Expanding Universe";...
and the original exhibit housed in EpcotEpcot is a theme park in the Walt Disney World Resort, located near Orlando, Florida. The park is dedicated to the celebration of human achievement, namely international culture and technological innovation. The second park built at the resort, it opened on October 1, 1982 and was initially named...
's Spaceship Earth geosphere at Walt Disney WorldWalt Disney World Resort , is the world's most-visited entertaimental resort. Located in Lake Buena Vista, Florida ; approximately southwest of Orlando, Florida, United States, the resort covers an area of and includes four theme parks, two water parks, 23 on-site themed resort hotels Walt...
.
In the 1980s, he moved his writings to detective fiction.[Litz, A. Walton., and Molly V. Weigel. American Writers: a Collection of Literary Biographies. New York: Scribner, 1996. Print]
Personal life
Ray Bradbury married Marguerite McClure (1922–2003) in 1947, and they had four daughters. Bradbury has never obtained a driver's licenseA driver's license/licence , or driving licence is an official document which states that a person may operate a motorized vehicle, such as a motorcycle, car, truck or a bus, on a public roadway. Most U.S...
.
Bradbury was a close friend of Charles AddamsCharles "Chas" Samuel Addams was an American cartoonist known for his particularly black humor and macabre characters...
, and Addams illustrated the first of Bradbury's stories about the Elliotts, a family that would resemble Addams' own Addams Family placed in rural IllinoisIllinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...
. Bradbury's first story about them was "Homecoming," published in the 1946 Halloween issue of MademoiselleMademoiselle was an influential women's magazine first published in 1935 by Street and Smith and later acquired by Condé Nast Publications....
, with Addams illustrations. He and Addams planned a larger collaborative work that would tell the family's complete history, but it never materialized, and according to a 2001 interview, they went their separate ways.[Interview with Ray Bradbury in IndieBound, fall 2001.] In October 2001, Bradbury published all the Family stories he had written in one book with a connecting narrative, From the Dust ReturnedFrom the Dust Returned is a fix-up fantasy novel by Ray Bradbury. The novel is largely comprised from a series of short stories which Bradbury had written decades earlier, centering around a family of Illinois-based ghosts named the Elliotts...
, featuring a wraparound Addams cover of the original 'Homecoming' illustration.[Bradbury, Ray, From The Dust Returned: A Novel. William Morrow, 2001.]
Bradbury made regular appearances at science fiction conventions until 2009 when he retired from the circuit on the grounds of old age and lack of energy.
Despite the numerous (and often prescient) technological predictions of his novels, he has expressed scepticism about the value of the Internet to society, stating that it has reduced people's ability to communicate and hold conversations with each other. He has also exhibited scepticism with regard to modern technology by resisting the conversion of his work into e-bookAn electronic book is a book-length publication in digital form, consisting of text, images, or both, and produced on, published through, and readable on computers or other electronic devices. Sometimes the equivalent of a conventional printed book, e-books can also be born digital...
s and stating that
Critical reception
Critical opinion of Bradbury's work is sharply divided. In his review of The Martian Chronicles, Christopher IsherwoodChristopher William Bradshaw Isherwood was an English-American novelist.-Early life and work:Born at Wyberslegh Hall, High Lane, Cheshire in North West England, Isherwood spent his childhood in various towns where his father, a Lieutenant-Colonel in the British Army, was stationed...
wrote:
... the sheer lift and power of a truly original imagination exhilarates... His is a very great and unusual talent.
At the other extreme, science fiction author and critic Damon KnightDamon Francis Knight was an American science fiction author, editor, critic and fan. His forte was short stories and he is widely acknowledged as having been a master of the genre.-Biography:...
wrote:
Although [Bradbury] has a large following among science fiction readers, there is at least an equally large contingent of people who cannot stomach his work at all... His imagination is mediocre; he borrows nearly all his backgrounds and props, and distorts them badly; wherever he is required to invent anything—a planet, a Martian, a machine—the image is flat and unconvincing.
Adaptations to other media
From 1951 to 1954, 27 of Bradbury's stories were adapted by Al FeldsteinAlbert B. Feldstein is an American writer, editor, and artist, best known for his work at EC Comics and, from 1956 to 1985, as the editor of the satirical magazine Mad. Since retiring from Mad, Feldstein has concentrated on American paintings of Western wildlife...
for EC ComicsEntertaining Comics, more commonly known as EC Comics, was an American publisher of comic books specializing in horror fiction, crime fiction, satire, military fiction and science fiction from the 1940s through the mid-1950s, notably the Tales from the Crypt series...
, and 16 of these were collected in the paperbacks, The Autumn PeopleThe Autumn People is a mass-market paperback collection of comic adaptations of eight short horror and crime stories by Ray Bradbury, gathered from the pages of the EC Comics comic books of the 1950s...
(1965) and Tomorrow MidnightTomorrow Midnight is a mass-market paperback collection of comic adaptations of eight short science fiction stories by Ray Bradbury, gathered from the pages of the EC Comics comic books of the 1950s...
(1966), both published by Ballantine BooksBallantine Books is a major book publisher located in the United States, founded in 1952 by Ian Ballantine with his wife, Betty Ballantine. It was acquired by Random House in 1973, which in turn was acquired by Bertelsmann AG in 1998 and remains part of that company today. Ballantine's logo is a...
with cover illustrations by Frank FrazettaFrank Frazetta was an American fantasy and science fiction artist, noted for work in comic books, paperback book covers, paintings, posters, LP record album covers and other media...
.
Also in the early 1950s, adaptations of Bradbury's stories were televised on a variety of an anthology shows, including Tales of TomorrowTales of Tomorrow is an American anthology science fiction series that was performed and broadcast live on ABC from 1951 to 1953. The series covered such stories as Frankenstein, starring Lon Chaney, Jr., 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea starring Thomas Mitchell as Captain Nemo, and many others...
, Lights OutLights Out is an extremely popular American old-time radio program, an early example of a network series devoted mostly to horror and the supernatural, predating Suspense and Inner Sanctum...
, Out There, Suspense-Production background:One of the premier drama programs of the Golden Age of Radio, was subtitled "radio's outstanding theater of thrills" and focused on suspense thriller-type scripts, usually featuring leading Hollywood actors of the era...
, CBS Television WorkshopCBS Television Workshop was a 1952 television series famous for an early appearance of Audrey Hepburn and James Dean.On 13 January 1952, in the very first episode, a dramatized 30 minute version of Don Quixote starring Boris Karloff and directed by Sidney Lumet, Grace Kelly made an appearance as...
, Jane Wyman's Fireside TheatreFireside Theater is an American anthology drama series that ran from on NBC from 1949 to 1958, and was the first successful filmed series on American television. Stories were low budget and often based on public domain stories or written by freelance writers such as Rod Serling. While it was panned...
, Star TonightStar Tonight, an American television anthology series, aired on ABC from February 1955 to August 1956.-Adaptations and actors:It consisted of 80 total episodes, 30 from 1955 and 50 from 1956. Each episode was a self-contained story, usually adapted from famous plays, short-stories or novels by some...
, Windows and Alfred Hitchcock PresentsAlfred Hitchcock Presents is an American television anthology series hosted by Alfred Hitchcock. The series featured dramas, thrillers, and mysteries. By the premiere of the show on October 2, 1955, Hitchcock had been directing films for over three decades...
. "The Merry-Go-Round," a half-hour film adaptation of Bradbury's "The Black Ferris," praised by Variety, was shown on Starlight Summer Theater in 1954 and NBC's Sneak Preview in 1956. During that same period, several stories were adapted for radio drama, notably on the science fiction anthologies Dimension XDimension X was an NBC radio program broadcast on an unsponsored, sustaining basis from April 8, 1950 to September 29, 1951. The first 13 episodes were broadcast live, and the remainder were pre-recorded...
and its successor X Minus OneX Minus One was a half-hour science fiction radio drama series broadcast from April 24, 1955 to January 9, 1958 in various timeslots on NBC.-Overview:...
.
Producer William Alland first brought Bradbury to movie theaters in 1953 with It Came from Outer SpaceIt Came from Outer Space is a 1953 science fiction 3-D film directed by Jack Arnold, and starring Richard Carlson, Barbara Rush, and Charles Drake. It was Universal's first film to be filmed in 3-D.- Plot :...
, a Harry EssexHarry Essex was a prolific American screenwriter. He was born on 29 November 1910 in New York City. He died on 5 February 1997 in Los Angeles. His career spanned more than fifty years...
screenplay developed from Bradbury's screen treatment "Atomic Monster". Three weeks later came the release of Eugène Lourié's The Beast from 20,000 FathomsThe Beast from 20,000 Fathoms is a 1953 science fiction film directed by Eugène Lourié and stars Paul Christian, Paula Raymond and Cecil Kellaway with visual effects by Ray Harryhausen. The film is about an atomic bomb test in the Arctic Circle that unfreezes a hibernating fictional dinosaur, a...
(1953), which featured one scene based on Bradbury's "The Fog Horn"The Fog Horn" is a 1951 science fiction short story by Ray Bradbury, and the first in his collection The Golden Apples of the Sun. The story was the basis for the 1953 film The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms.-Plot summary:...
", about a sea monster mistaking the sound of a fog horn for the mating cry of a female. Bradbury's close friend Ray HarryhausenRay Harryhausen is an American film producer and special effects creator...
produced the stop-motion animation of the creature. Bradbury would later return the favor by writing a short story, "Tyrannosaurus Rex", about a stop-motion animator who strongly resembled Harryhausen. Over the next 50 years, more than 35 features, shorts, and TV movies were based on Bradbury's stories or screenplays.
Bradbury was hired in 1953 by director John HustonJohn Marcellus Huston was an American film director, screenwriter and actor. He wrote most of the 37 feature films he directed, many of which are today considered classics: The Maltese Falcon , The Treasure of the Sierra Madre , Key Largo , The Asphalt Jungle , The African Queen , Moulin Rouge...
to work on the screenplay for the 1956 film Moby DickMoby Dick is a 1956 film adaptation of Herman Melville's novel Moby-Dick. It was directed by John Huston with a screenplay by Ray Bradbury and the director. The film starred Gregory Peck, Richard Basehart, and Leo Genn...
, which was faithfully based on the novel by Herman MelvilleHerman Melville was an American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet. He is best known for his novel Moby-Dick and the posthumous novella Billy Budd....
and starred Gregory PeckEldred Gregory Peck was an American actor.One of 20th Century Fox's most popular film stars from the 1940s to the 1960s, Peck continued to play important roles well into the 1980s. His notable performances include that of Atticus Finch in the 1962 film To Kill a Mockingbird, for which he won an...
as Captain Ahab, Richard BasehartJohn Richard Basehart was an American actor. He starred in the 1960s television science fiction drama Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, in the role of Admiral Harriman Nelson.-Career:...
as Ishmael, and Orson WellesGeorge Orson Welles , best known as Orson Welles, was an American film director, actor, theatre director, screenwriter, and producer, who worked extensively in film, theatre, television and radio...
as Father Mapple. A significant result of the film was Bradbury's book Green Shadows, White WhaleGreen Shadows, White Whale is a 1992 novel by Ray Bradbury. It gives a fictionalized account of his journey to Ireland in 1953-1954 to write a screen adaptation of the novel Moby-Dick with director John Huston. Bradbury has said he wrote it after reading actress Katharine Hepburn's account of...
, a semi-fictionalized account of the making of the film, including Bradbury's dealings with Huston and his time in IrelandIreland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
, where exterior scenes that were set in New Bedford, MassachusettsNew Bedford is a city in Bristol County, Massachusetts, United States, located south of Boston, southeast of Providence, Rhode Island, and about east of Fall River. As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 95,072, making it the sixth-largest city in Massachusetts...
, were filmed.
Bradbury's short story I Sing the Body ElectricI Sing the Body Electric! is a 1969 collection of short stories by Ray Bradbury. The book takes its name from a line in Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman.-Contents:The collection includes these stories:* "The Kilimanjaro Device"...
(from the book of the same name) was adapted for the 100th episode of The Twilight Zone"I Sing the Body Electric" is the 100th episode of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone.The script was written by Ray Bradbury, and based on his short story of the same name, itself named after a Walt Whitman poem. Although Bradbury contributed several scripts to The Twilight...
. The episode was first aired on May 18, 1962.
Oskar Werner-Early life:Born Oskar Josef Bschließmayer in Vienna, Werner spent much of his childhood in the care of his grandmother, who entertained him with stories about the Burgtheater, the Austrian state theatre, where he was accepted at the age of eighteen by Lothar Müthel. He was the youngest person ever...
and Julie ChristieJulie Frances Christie is a British actress. Born in British India to English parents, at the age of six Christie moved to England, where she attended boarding school....
starred in Fahrenheit 451Fahrenheit 451 is a 1966 film directed by François Truffaut, in his first colour film as well as his only English-language film. It is based on the novel of the same name by Ray Bradbury....
(1966), an adaptation of Bradbury's novel directed by François TruffautFrançois Roland Truffaut was an influential film critic and filmmaker and one of the founders of the French New Wave. In a film career lasting over a quarter of a century, he remains an icon of the French film industry. He was also a screenwriter, producer, and actor working on over twenty-five...
.
In 1966 Bradbury helped Lynn GarrisonLynn Garrison is a Canadian pilot and political adviser. He was an RCAF fighter pilot from the 403 City of Calgary Squadron, commercial pilot, film producer, director and mercenary...
create AVIAN, a specialist aviation magazine. For the first issue Bradbury wrote a poem – Planes that land on grass.
In 1969, The Illustrated ManThe Illustrated Man is a 1951 book of eighteen science fiction short stories by Ray Bradbury that explores the nature of mankind. While none of the stories has a plot or character connection with the next, a recurring theme is the conflict of the cold mechanics of technology and the psychology of...
was brought to the big screen, starring Rod SteigerRodney Stephen "Rod" Steiger was an Academy Award-winning American actor known for his performances in such films as On the Waterfront, The Big Knife, Oklahoma!, The Harder They Fall, Across the Bridge, The Pawnbroker, Doctor Zhivago, In the Heat of the Night, and Waterloo as well as the...
, Claire BloomClaire Bloom is an English film and stage actress.-Early life:Bloom was born in the North London suburb of Finchley, the daughter of Elizabeth and Edward Max Blume, who worked in sales...
and Robert DrivasRobert Drivas was an American actor and theatre director.Drivas was born Robert Choromokos in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Hariklia and James Peter Choromokos. Drivas studied at the University of Chicago and the University of Miami...
. Containing the prologue and three short stories from the book, the film received mediocre reviews.
The Martian ChroniclesThe Martian Chronicles is a television miniseries based on Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles and dealing with the exploration of Mars and the inhabitants there. The series starred Rock Hudson, Darren McGavin, Bernadette Peters, Roddy McDowall, Barry Morse, and Maria Schell...
became a three-part TV miniseriesA miniseries , in a serial storytelling medium, is a television show production which tells a story in a limited number of episodes. The exact number is open to interpretation; however, they are usually limited to fewer than a whole season. The term "miniseries" is generally a North American term...
starring Rock HudsonRoy Harold Scherer, Jr., later Roy Harold Fitzgerald , known professionally as Rock Hudson, was an American film and television actor, recognized as a romantic leading man during the 1950s and 1960s, most notably in several romantic comedies with Doris Day.Hudson was voted "Star of the Year",...
which was first broadcast by NBCThe National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
in 1980. Bradbury found the miniseries "just boring".
The 1983 horror film Something Wicked This Way ComesSomething Wicked This Way Comes is a 1983 film based on the Ray Bradbury novel of the same name, starring Jason Robards and Jonathan Pryce. Directed by Jack Clayton from a screenplay written by Bradbury himself, the movie suffered from offscreen conflicts of vision...
, starring Jason RobardsJason Nelson Robards, Jr. was an American actor on stage, and in film and television, and a winner of the Tony Award , two Academy Awards and the Emmy Award...
and Jonathan PryceJonathan Pryce, CBE is a Welsh stage and film actor and singer. After studying at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and meeting his longtime partner English actress Kate Fahy in 1974, he began his career as a stage actor in the 1970s...
, is based on the Bradbury novel of the same nameSomething Wicked This Way Comes is a 1962 novel by Ray Bradbury. It is about two 13-year-old boys, Jim Nightshade and William Halloway, who have a harrowing experience with a nightmarish traveling carnival that comes to their Midwestern town one October. The carnival's leader is the mysterious "Mr...
.
In 1984, Michael McDonough of Brigham Young University produced "Bradbury 13," a series of 13 audio adaptations of famous Ray Bradbury stories, in conjunction with National Public Radio. The full-cast dramatizations featured adaptations of "The Ravine," "Night Call, Collect," "The Veldt"The Veldt" is a short story written by Ray Bradbury that was published originally as "The World the Children Made" in the September 23, 1950 issue of The Saturday Evening Post, later republished in the anthology The Illustrated Man in 1951...
", "There Was an Old Woman," "Kaleidoscope," "Dark They Were, and Golden-Eyed"Dark They Were, and Golden-Eyed" is a science fiction short story by Ray Bradbury. It was originally published in the magazine Thrilling Wonder Stories in August 1949...
", "The Screaming Woman," "A Sound of Thunder“A Sound of Thunder” is a science fiction short story by Ray Bradbury, first published in Collier’s magazine in 1952. As of 1984 it was the most re-published science fiction story up to the present time...
," "The Man," "The Wind," "The Fox and the Forest," "Here There Be Tygers"Here There Be Tygers" is a short story written by Ray Bradbury, originally published in the anthology New Tales of Space and Time in 1951. It was later collected in Bradbury's short story collections R is for Rocket and The Golden Apples of the Sun...
" and "The Happiness Machine". Voiceover actor Paul FreesPaul Frees was an American voice actor and character actor.-Biography:He was born Solomon Hersh Frees in Chicago...
provided narration, while Bradbury himself was responsible for the opening voiceover; Greg Hansen and Roger Hoffman scored the episodes. The series won a Peabody AwardThe George Foster Peabody Awards recognize distinguished and meritorious public service by radio and television stations, networks, producing organizations and individuals. In 1939, the National Association of Broadcasters formed a committee to recognize outstanding achievement in radio broadcasting...
as well as two Gold Cindy awards and was released on CD on May 1, 2010. The series began airing on BBC Radio 4 Extra on June 12, 2011.
From 1985 to 1992 Bradbury hosted a syndicated anthology television series, The Ray Bradbury TheaterThe Ray Bradbury Theater is an anthology series that ran for two seasons on HBO, three episodes per season from 1985 to 1986, and four additional seasons on USA Network from 1988 to 1992. It was later shown in reruns on the Sci Fi Channel...
, for which he adapted 65 of his stories. Each episode would begin with a shot of Bradbury in his office, gazing over mementoes of his life, which he states (in narrative) are used to spark ideas for stories. During the first two seasons, Bradbury also provided additional voiceover narration specific to the featured story and appeared on screen.
Five episodes of the USSRThe Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
science fiction TV series This Fantastic World adapted Ray Bradbury's stories I Sing The Body Electric, Fahrenheit 451, A Piece of Wood, To the Chicago Abyss, and Forever and the Earth.The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
adaptation of "The Veldt" was filmed in 1987.
The 1998 film The Wonderful Ice Cream SuitThe Wonderful Ice Cream Suit is a 1998 film set in East Los Angeles directed by Stuart Gordon, written by Ray Bradbury and starring Edward James Olmos, Joe Mantegna, Esai Morales, Clifton Collins Jr. , Sid Caesar, Howard Morris and Gregory Sierra...
, released by Touchstone PicturesTouchstone Pictures is an American film production label and is one of several film labels of the Walt Disney Motion Pictures Group. Established in 1984, its releases typically feature more mature themes and darker tones than those that are released under the Walt Disney Pictures banner.Touchstone...
, was written by Ray Bradbury. It was based on his story "The Magic White Suit" originally published in The Saturday Evening PostThe Saturday Evening Post is a bimonthly American magazine. It was published weekly under this title from 1897 until 1969, and quarterly and then bimonthly from 1971.-History:...
in 1957. The story had also previously been adapted as a play, a musical, and a 1958 television version.
In 2002, Bradbury's own Pandemonium Theatre Company production of Fahrenheit 451 at Burbank's Falcon Theatre combined live acting with projected digital animation by the Pixel Pups. In 1984, Telarium released a for Commodore 64The Commodore 64 is an 8-bit home computer introduced by Commodore International in January 1982.Volume production started in the spring of 1982, with machines being released on to the market in August at a price of US$595...
based on Fahrenheit 451."The Pedestrian" is a short story by author Ray Bradbury. This story was originally published in 1951 by The Fortnightly Publishing Company. It is included in the collection The Golden Apples of the Sun .-Summary:...
", "The Veldt", and "To the Chicago Abyss."
In 2005, the film A Sound of ThunderA Sound of Thunder is a 2005 science fiction film directed by Peter Hyams. The film was planned originally for a 2002 release. However, flooding in Prague and other financial difficulties—including the bankruptcy of the original production company during post-production—resulted in a delayed...
was released, loosely based upon the short story of the same name. The film The Butterfly EffectThe Butterfly Effect is a 2004 American sci-fi psychological thriller film that is written and directed by Eric Bress and J. Mackye Gruber and starring Ashton Kutcher and Amy Smart...
revolves around the same theory as A Sound of Thunder and contains many references to its inspiration.The Small Assassin is a short story collection by Ray Bradbury. The stories originally appeared in the magazines Dime Mystery Magazine, Weird Tales, Harper's, Mademoiselle and the book Dark Carnival.-Contents:...
were released in 2005 and 2007 respectively.
In 2005, it was reported that Bradbury was upset with filmmaker Michael MooreMichael Francis Moore is an American filmmaker, author, social critic and activist. He is the director and producer of Fahrenheit 9/11, which is the highest-grossing documentary of all time. His films Bowling for Columbine and Sicko also place in the top ten highest-grossing documentaries...
for using the title Fahrenheit 9/11Fahrenheit 9/11 is a 2004 documentary film by American filmmaker and political commentator Michael Moore. The film takes a critical look at the presidency of George W. Bush, the War on Terror, and its coverage in the news media...
, which is an allusion to Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451Fahrenheit 451 is a 1953 dystopian novel by Ray Bradbury. The novel presents a future American society where reading is outlawed and firemen start fires to burn books...
, for his documentary about the George W. Bush administration. Bradbury expressed displeasure with Moore's use of the title but stated that his resentment was not politically motivated. Bradbury asserts that he does not want any of the money made by the movie, nor does he believe that he deserves it. He pressured Moore to change the name, but to no avail. Moore called Bradbury two weeks before the film's release to apologize, saying that the film's marketing had been set in motion a long time ago and it was too late to change the title.
In 2008, the film Ray Bradbury's ChrysalisRay Bradbury's Chrysalis is a 2008 film based on a short story by Ray Bradbury and produced by Roger Lay Jr. The film tells the tale of mankind's struggle for survival in a distant future after the effects of war and carelessness have completely ravaged the environment.The story takes place inside...
was produced by Roger Lay Jr. for Urban Archipelago Films, based upon the short story of the same name. The film won the best feature award at the International Horror and Sci-Fi Film Festival in Phoenix. The film has international distribution by Arsenal Pictures and domestic distribution by Lightning Entertainment.
In 2010, The Martian Chronicles was adapted for radio by Colonial Radio TheatreThe Colonial Radio Theatre on the Air is an award winning radio drama production company based out of Boston, Massachusetts. Officially established in 1995 by Jerry Robbins and Mark Vander Berg, Colonial can be heard nationwide on XM/Sirius Satellite radio...
on the Air.
Bradbury's works and approach to writing are documented in Terry SandersTerry Sanders is an American filmmaker having produced and/or directed more than 70 dramatic features, televisions specials, documentaries and portrait films. He co-heads the American Film Foundation and has produced and photographed the Oscar-winning dramatic short "A Time Out of War"...
' film Ray Bradbury: Story of a Writer (1963).
Honors
- In 2010, Spike TV
Spike is an American cable television channel. It launched on March 7, 1983 as The Nashville Network , a joint venture of WSM, Inc...
Scream AwardsThe Scream Awards is an award show dedicated to the horror, sci-fi, and fantasy genres of feature films, hosted and sponsored by Spike TV. The show was created by executive producers Michael Levitt, Cindy Levitt, and Casey Patterson...
Comic-ConComic-Con, Comic Con or ComiCon may refer to any of the following Comic book conventions, none of them affiliated to any other:*San Diego Comic-Con International, annual fan convention in San Diego held since 1970, also known as Comic-Con or San Diego Comic-Con*Dallas Comic Con, annual fan...
Icon Award went to Ray Bradbury
- In 2010, on occasion of his 90th birthday, Bradbury received Pulsar Award from Sarajevo SF Club PulSar
- In 2007, Bradbury received the French Commandeur Ordre des Arts et des Lettres
The Ordre des Arts et des Lettres is an Order of France, established on 2 May 1957 by the Minister of Culture, and confirmed as part of the Ordre national du Mérite by President Charles de Gaulle in 1963...
medal.
- For his contribution to the motion picture industry, Ray Bradbury was given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
The Hollywood Walk of Fame consists of more than 2,400 five-pointed terrazzo and brass stars embedded in the sidewalks along fifteen blocks of Hollywood Boulevard and three blocks of Vine Street in Hollywood, California...
at 6644 Hollywood Blvd.
- An asteroid
Asteroids are a class of small Solar System bodies in orbit around the Sun. They have also been called planetoids, especially the larger ones...
is named in his honor, "9766 Bradbury9766 Bradbury is a main-belt asteroid discovered on February 24, 1992 by the Spacewatch project at Kitt Peak. It was named after science fiction writer Ray Bradbury, author of The Martian Chronicles and Fahrenheit 451.- External links :*...
", along with a crater on the moon called "Dandelion CraterDandelion Crater is an impact crater on the Moon. The crater was named in 1971 by the Apollo 15 astronauts after the American author Ray Bradbury's 1957 novel Dandelion Wine....
" (named after his novel, Dandelion WineDandelion Wine is a 1957 novel by Ray Bradbury, taking place in the summer of 1928 in the fictional town of Green Town, Illinois — a pseudonym for Bradbury's childhood home of Waukegan, Illinois...
).
- On April 16, 2007, Bradbury received a special citation from The Pulitzer Board
The Pulitzer Prizes for 2007 were announced on April 16, 2007.In November 2006, the Pulitzer Prize Board announced two changes that would apply for the 2007 awards:...
, "for his distinguished, prolific, and deeply influential career as an unmatched author of science fiction and fantasy."[2007 Special Awards from the Pulitzer Prize]The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...
website
- On November 17, 2004, Bradbury was the recipient of the National Medal of Arts
The National Medal of Arts is an award and title created by the United States Congress in 1984, for the purpose of honoring artists and patrons of the arts. It is the highest honor conferred to an individual artist on behalf of the people. Honorees are selected by the National Endowment for the...
, presented by President George W. BushGeorge Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
and Laura BushLaura Lane Welch Bush is the wife of the 43rd President of the United States, George W. Bush. She was the First Lady of the United States from January 20, 2001, to January 20, 2009. She has held a love of books and reading since childhood and her life and education have reflected that interest...
. Bradbury has also received the World Fantasy AwardThe World Fantasy Awards are annual, international awards given to authors and artists who have demonstrated outstanding achievement in the field of fantasy...
life achievement, Stoker Award life achievement, SFWA Grand MasterThe Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award is an award given by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. It is awarded to a living author for lifetime achievement in science fiction and/or fantasy. Officially, it is not a Nebula Award though it is awarded at the Nebula ceremony...
, SF Hall of Fame Living Inductee, and First Fandom AwardFirst Fandom is an association of experienced science fiction fans.In 1958 a number of fans at Midwestcon realized amid table-talk that they all had been active in fandom for more than 20 years. This inspired the creation of an organization for longstanding fans under the initial chairmanship of...
. He received an Emmy AwardAn Emmy Award, often referred to simply as the Emmy, is a television production award, similar in nature to the Peabody Awards but more focused on entertainment, and is considered the television equivalent to the Academy Awards and the Grammy Awards .A majority of Emmys are presented in various...
for his work on The Halloween Tree. He received the Prometheus AwardThe Prometheus Award is an award for libertarian science fiction novels given annually by the Libertarian Futurist Society, which also publishes a quarterly journal Prometheus. L. Neil Smith established the award in 1979, but it was not awarded regularly until the newly founded Libertarian Futurist...
for Fahrenheit 451.
- One short film he worked on, Icarus Montgolfier Wright
- In 1994, Bradbury received the Peggy V. Helmerich Distinguished Author Award. The Helmerich Award
The Peggy V. Helmerich Distinguished Author Award is an American literary prize awarded by the Tulsa Library Trust in Tulsa, Oklahoma. It is bestowed annually upon an "internationally acclaimed" author who has "written a distinguished body of work and made a major contribution to the field of...
is presented annually by the Tulsa Library TrustThe Tulsa City-County Library is the major public library system in Tulsa County, Oklahoma.-Overview:The library system serves those who live, work, go to school in, own land in, or pay property taxes on land in Tulsa County. There are 25 branches in the system: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,...
.
- Ray Bradbury Park was dedicated in Waukegan, Illinois in 1990. The author was present for the ribbon-cutting ceremony. The park contains locations described in "Dandelion Wine", most notably the "113 steps" stairs. In 2009 an interpretive panel designed by artist Michael Pavelich was added to the park detailing the history of Ray Bradbury and Ray Bradbury Park.
- Honorary doctorate from Woodbury University
Woodbury University, founded as "Woodbury Business College", is a private, non-profit, coeducational, nonsectarian university located in Burbank, California.-History:...
in 2003. Bradbury presents the Ray Bradbury Creativity Award each year at Woodbury University. Winners include sculptor Robert GrahamRobert Graham was a sculptor based in the state of California in the United States. His monumental bronzes commemorate the human figure and are featured in public places across America.-Biography:...
, actress Anjelica HustonAnjelica Huston is an American actress. Huston became the third generation of her family to win an Academy Award, for her performance in 1985's Prizzi's Honor, joining her father, director John Huston, and grandfather, actor Walter Huston. She later was nominated in 1989 and 1990 for her acting in...
, Cosmopolitan editor Helen Gurley BrownHelen Gurley Brown , is an author, publisher, and businesswoman. She was editor-in-chief of Cosmopolitan magazine for 32 years.-Personal life and career:...
, director Irvin KershnerIrvin Kershner was an American film director and occasional actor, best known for directing quirky, independent films early in his career, and then Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back. -Background:...
, humorist Stan FrebergStanley Victor "Stan" Freberg is an American author, recording artist, animation voice actor, comedian, radio personality, puppeteer, and advertising creative director whose career began in 1944...
, and architect Jon A. Jerde.
- Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters Award for 2000 from the National Book Foundation.
[Distinguished Contribution to American Letters Award with his acceptance speech.]
- In 2008, he was named SFPA
The Science Fiction Poetry Association was established in 1978 by Suzette Haden Elgin to bring together poets and readers interested in science fiction poetry. The organization administers the Rhysling Award and publishes the journal Star*Line, as well as providing market listings and industry news...
Grandmaster.
- The Ray Bradbury Award, presented by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America
Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, or SFWA is a nonprofit association of professional science fiction and fantasy writers. It was founded in 1965 by Damon Knight under the name Science Fiction Writers of America, Inc. and it retains the acronym SFWA after a very brief use of the SFFWA...
for screenwriting, was named in Bradbury's honor.
- In 2010, musician and comedian Rachel Bloom honored Ray Bradbury with a music video entitled "Fuck Me, Ray Bradbury
"Fuck Me, Ray Bradbury" is a 2010 internet music video. The video features singer and comedian Rachel Bloom performing a sexually explicit song about her lust for nonagenarian writer Ray Bradbury. The music and lyrics were written by Rachel Bloom and the music video was directed by Paul Briganti...
" that was nominated for a 2011 Hugo Award in the category Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form.
External links