BIOGRAPHY:

Among writers who have become famous for their works of a mystical nature, perhaps the brightest place is occupied by Stephen King. It is no coincidence that this American novelist and screenwriter is called the king of horror. An amazing gift for painting about something chilling, creating stories where characters are endowed with supernatural powers and at the same time close and understandable to a wide audience, allowed the author to remain at the top of his fame for many decades.

Childhood and youth:

Stephen Edwin King was born in the fall of 1941 in the American state of Maine, in the city of Portland. Nellie Ruth Pillsbury, the mother of the future writer, was diagnosed by doctors with infertility. And when the woman married the captain of the merchant ship Donald Edward King for the second time, the couple decided to adopt the boy. They named their adopted son David Victor. And two years later, Nellie unexpectedly became pregnant.

But the common child could not make the parents’ marriage strong; Donald was burdened by family life. When Stephen was two years old, his father disappeared from his life. The man left the house to buy cigarettes and disappeared. Mom announced to her sons that dad was kidnapped by Martians. According to some sources, the woman guessed that the “Martians” could be a pretty waitress from Connecticut.

Looking ahead, let’s say that the film crew of one of the American television channels, working on a documentary film about the biography of Stephen King in the 1990s, found his negligent parent. As it turned out, he lived nearby, in the neighboring state of Pennsylvania, with his Brazilian wife and four children.

After her husband’s escape, Ruth, a pianist by training, had a hard time. She took on any low-paying job just to feed her sons. A woman moved from state to state in search of good money. In the end, she stopped for a long time in the town of West Durham in Maine. Stephen saw how hard it was for his mother, although she never complained. Even in his youth, he realized that a society of equal opportunities is a myth for naive people.

Frequent moves undermined Stephen King’s already poor health. He suffered from measles especially hard. Then acute pharyngitis happened, which turned into a form of ear infection that is incurable with antibiotics. Three times the boy experienced hellish pain when his eardrum was pierced. Due to illness, King spent two years in first grade.

Perhaps all these life difficulties shaped the guy’s gloomy perception of reality and tastes. He loved horror films. The horror films “Creature from the Black Lagoon”, “Asylum”, “I Was a Teenage Werewolf”, “The Palace of Montezuma” and “Sands of Iwo Jima” had an indelible impression on his psyche. Stephen was so impressionable in his youth that even watching the cartoon “Bambi” with a forest fire scene caused painful nightmares. The writer later admitted that he liked the feeling of fear and “the feeling of a complete loss of control over the senses.”

To escape from constant illnesses, the boy, encouraged by his mother, began to write. I tried my hand at writing at the age of seven. Stephen wrote a short story about the adventures of Captain Casey. The source of inspiration was a comic book about a brave captain. The boy simply retold what he had read. Mom praised the work, but at the same time noted that Steve could well create something of his own. Soon the future writer presented her with four short stories about a white rabbit. For each of them, his mother paid him the first “fee” of 25 cents.

Career start:

From that moment on, Stephen King created without stopping. His first “bestseller” was a story written based on the film “The Well and the Pendulum.” The guy printed 40 copies of his own work on a hectograph.

In 1959, 18-year-old Stephen and his brother David began publishing an information newsletter called Dave’s Leaflet. The guys distributed it using an old mimeograph machine and sold it for 5 cents to friends, neighbors and relatives. David wrote local news, and Steve wrote movie reviews and his own short stories. At the same time, King first read the works of Howard Phillips Lovecraft. He became the guy’s favorite author. According to him, after becoming acquainted with the ominous stories of the collection “Lurking in the Shadows,” he felt a sense of “coming home.”

In high school, the young man could not decide what to do next: go to university or volunteer in Vietnam to collect bright material for future creativity. He no longer doubted that his future life would be connected with writing. The mother convinced her son, who also had vision problems, to refuse a trip to Vietnam.

King became a college student, where he began to prepare to enter the university, and also got a job at a weaving factory. Work was necessary to earn money for studies. Stephen glued packaging for goods and put them in containers. In between work, I drove away the clouds of aggressive rats that lived in the basement. Later, these impressions became the basis for the story “Night Shift.”

In August 1966, King entered the University of Maine, majoring in English literature. At the same time, the young man studied at a pedagogical college. Steve and Dave had a hard time, because their mother sent her sons only $5 a week for pocket money, while she herself was starving.

As a young man, after graduating from college with a bachelor’s degree, Stephen decided to make a living as a writer. But it did not generate income. In the fall of 1971, the young man got a job as an English teacher at one of the Hampden schools in Maine. He continued to write, but seemed to begin to lose confidence in his literary abilities. One day, his wife found the manuscript of the novel “Carrie” thrown out by Steve in the trash bin. He threw out the draft without finishing the work. The wife read the novel and begged her husband to finish it.

In 1974, one of the publishing houses began publishing Carrie and paid the writer a fee of $2,500. Unexpectedly for Steve, readers liked the novel. Publisher Doubleday sold the copyright to the work to another, larger publishing house, NAL, for $400 thousand. Stephen King received half the amount. The writer left teaching and moved to the neighboring state of Colorado. His second successful novel, The Shining, was created here in Boulder.

In the late 1970s, Stephen worked under the pseudonym Richard Bachman. Some biographers of the writer claim that the publication of books under an assumed name was dictated by his lack of self-confidence. The book “Rage” was published under the authorship of Richard Bachman. But King withdrew the work from sale after the novel was found in the possession of a juvenile offender who shot his classmates in Kansas. King had to give up his “double” after he was exposed by an attentive salesman in one of the bookstores in Washington. Then the novelist announced that Bachmann had died of cancer.

Stephen King’s worldwide fame:

The best Stephen King books appeared in the 80s and 90s. First of all, this is the novel “The Shooter,” which became the first in the “Dark Tower” series. In 1982, King wrote the 300-page “The Running Man” in a record 10 days. A year later, “Christina” was born, the main character of the work was the Plymouth Fury car, endowed by the author with human qualities. Later, this heroine appeared in other works by the king of horror, in particular in “11/22/63,” which tells about a character traveling through time and trying to prevent the assassination of John F. Kennedy , and in “It.”

Also in 1983, “The Werewolf Cycle” was published, written in the genre of Gothic literature. It was originally planned that King would create 12 stories about the metamorphoses of heroes, which would represent a kind of calendar. However, the plan changed, and the writer published the essay as a separate book.

A year later, in collaboration with Peter Straub, the king of horror created the fantasy novel “The Talisman” (another title is “Worlds in Collision”), which tells about the incredible adventures of a teenager named Jack Sawyer. The book was a success with the public. And in 2001, the writers decided to take on the continuation of the story of the matured hero in the novel “The Black House”.

In 1996, the book “The Green Mile” was published. This is one of King’s most beloved novels. A year later, the writer entered into a contract with the publishing house Simon and Schuster, which paid him an advance of $8 million for the novel Bag of Bones, and also pledged to give 50% of the proceeds from the sale.

In 2004, the last part of the epic “The Dark Tower” was released. And two years later, the novelist presented readers with a new work called “Lisey’s Story.” In 2006, mystery aficionado Stephen King announced that he had found Bachman’s unpublished novel Blaze. In fact, it was his own manuscript from his student days that he found, which had been kept at the university all this time.

From 2008 to 2016, Stephen King pleased readers with the collection of short stories “After Sunset” and the novels “Duma Key”, “Under the Dome” and others. In the summer of 2016, the king of horror presented the third part of the novel “Mr. Mercedes,” called “The Post Passed.” In the same year, fans of the writer’s talent enjoyed watching a literary evening on the screens with the participation of two famous writers – Stephen King and George Martin . The meeting took place in Albuquerque.

In the spring of 2022, the king of horror pleased fans with the news of expanding his bibliography with a new book, “Billy Summers.” This time, King turned to a genre uncharacteristic of his work – a crime thriller with a slight touch of mysticism. The main character is a former Marine, who, by the will of fate, is forced to change the image of a protector to the role of a professional killer. However, not everyone becomes a contracted victim of an ex-military.

Literary critics have already noted that the work, despite the new genre, was no exception in terms of creating the image of the central character. Like other King heroes, Billy has a history of psychological trauma, and he also demonstrates writing talent, like the characters in The Shining and Misery. In addition, the book reflected the writer’s negative perception of former US President Donald Trump – his name sounds with negative messages on many pages.

In September 2022, King published a fantasy book, The Tale. Its plot revolves around teenager Charlie Reed and a dog named Radar, who fall through a portal into a fairy-tale world. Exactly a year later, Stephen released a new book called “Holly,” which became the third in a series of novels about the adventures of detective Gibney.

Movies

King’s works have been filmed many times. The first transfer to the screen in 1976 was the novel “ Carrie ,” directed by Brian De Palma , and the main character played by Sissy Spacek . Four years later, viewers were treated to another film masterpiece – Stanley Kubrick directed The Shining . The writer himself was dissatisfied with the film, saying in an interview that the director, who decided to make a horror film about a mysterious hotel, did not have an accurate idea of ​​the specifics of the chosen genre.

The film Pet Sematary , in which the writer authored the script and also played a cameo role as a priest, gained popularity among viewers . King’s appearance in films based on his own works soon became a tradition. For example, fans appreciated the work of the king of horror in the series “Sons of Anarchy ,” in which the writer brought to life the image of biker Dick Bachman, a “cleaner.” The filmography based on the works of the American writer continues to expand even now. Among the most famous in recent years are the film ” It ” and the sequel ” It 2 ”

Personal life:

The novelist met his future wife Tabitha Spruce at the university. During those difficult years, their son Joseph and daughter Naomi were born. Later a second son, Owen, appeared. Tabitha is no stranger to literary activity; the woman also tried to create, but her nine novels were not in great demand. Stephen King’s personal life with his beloved wife was happy, as evidenced by family photos.

Together with his wife, Stephen King owns three estates: in Bangor, Lovell and Sarasota. The family visits the latter in winter. It is located on the Gulf Coast in Florida. The writer and his wife have four grandchildren.

King’s sons also took their first steps in writing. Daughter Naomi is not interested in literary activities. In his free time, Stephen attends games of his favorite baseball team, the Boston Red Sox. In the 1990s, the couple sponsored the construction of Mansfield Stadium.

Health status:

Since childhood, the writer’s unstable health worsened after an incident that occurred on June 19, 1999. That day, King was walking with his dog, and the driver of a passing minibus, Brian Smith, was distracted by the animal, as a result of which he hit the king of horrors. From the impact, Stephen flew several meters away and rolled into a hole.

Arriving doctors diagnosed the victim with multiple fractures of the right leg, a hip fracture, and head and lung injuries. The leg was barely saved from amputation. For a long time, the novelist could sit for no more than 40 minutes, after which the pain in his broken hip became excruciating. This event formed the basis of the seventh part of the Dark Tower series of novels, and was also reflected in one of the films in the Royal Hospital series.