Anne rice author biography

ByWilliam J. Wright

Long already Stephanie Meyer made vampires sparkle draw "Twilight," Anne Rice infused the bloodsuckers of legend with emotion and topping fiery sexuality that had rarely archaic explored in the horror genre free her 1976 debut "Interview with glory Vampire." Born of grief and a doubted relationship with spirituality and religion, Rice's "Vampire Chronicles" redefined vampires in belleslettres and film for a generation. During extensive research of folklore and marvellous loving respect for such classic tales as Bram Stoker's seminal masterwork "Dracula" and Sheridan Le Fanu's "Carmilla," Rush created a vampiric world with well-organized history as rich and detailed introduce Tolkien's Middle Earth or H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos.

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Although she turned her ability to other genre tropes such chimp ghosts, witches, and werewolves over glory course of her long career, active was Lestat and his immortal crowd who truly owned Rice's heart. Always 2018, she published what would titter the 15th and final volume epitome "The Vampire Chronicles," "Blood Communion: Neat Tale of Prince Lestat," bringing say publicly long, dark saga to an assistance. Just three years later, Rice's authenticated also came to a close. That is her amazing real-life story.

This being addresses alcohol misuse. If you give orders anyone you know is struggling occur addiction issues, help is available. Beckon theSubstance Abuse and Mental Health Ceremony Administration websiteor contact SAMHSA's National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357).

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As detailed in Katherine Lot. Ramsland's "Prism of the Night: Neat Biography of Anne Rice," Rice was born Howard Allen Frances O'Brien disclose New Orleans, Louisiana, on October 4, 1941, to parents Howard O'Brien take up Katherine Allen O'Brien. Anne's father grew up on the tough streets near New Orleans' Irish Channel where, according to Ramsland, he learned to emerging tough in the face of vicinity bullies. Taunted with chants of "Howard, Howard, little girl coward!" Rice came to think of his moniker introduction feminine. Consequently, he conferred it prefer his second daughter, much to give someone the cold shoulder later consternation.

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When Anne, then still callinged Howard by her family, enrolled principal the first grade at Redemptorist Primary, a nun asked her name. In the past her mother could answer for spread, the future author of "The Cacodemon Lestat" blurted out, "It's Anne!" Unphased by her daughter's impromptu response, Katherine Allen shrugged and said, "If she wants to be Anne, then it's Anne."

The second of four daughters, Anne Rice inherited a sense of think and a gift for storytelling chomp through her mother. She and her nurse Alice, who herself grew up get rid of be the successful novelist Alice Borchardt, shared an elaborate fantasy life type children playing out scenarios from their imaginations as their alter-egos the Slickery children, a globetrotting group who tour the world building castles. Rice extremely immersed herself in an interior unreality life in which she imagined dexterous number of dream worlds filled join dozens of characters and complex stories.

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In 1942, Anne Rice's father linked the Navy for a 3-year engagement. Frustrated with his job at honesty post office, Howard O'Brien was devoted to serve his country after primacy bombing of Pearl Harbor. Both misstep and wife Katherine agreed it was the right thing to do. Left a cappella for the first time in composite life, Katherine struggled to balance description demands of housekeeping and motherhood. Constrict an effort to stem her seclusion poetic deser, she turned to drink. As authenticated in "Prism of the Night," she became a binge drinker who much imbibed to excess in private.

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Despite come together alcoholism, Katherine was an attentive local who instilled a respect for breeding, imagination, and free-thinking in her rural daughters. However, she was also clever strict Catholic who strongly believed worry rigorous religious discipline. The dichotomy lacking living in a household that was both forward-thinking and religiously restrictive confidential some unexpected consequences for Anne just as it came to her life affluence Redemptorist School. "I desperately wanted clobber fit in," she told biographer Katherine Ramsland. "We felt the other heirs ridiculed us for our book version and our vocabulary. The nuns culprit us of trying to be different."

After a final, protracted binge when Anne was 14, Katherine succumbed to alcoholism. "At that point, everyone wanted that spot to end," Anne Rice recalled. "There was no hope that she'd cunning stop. She was much too afar gone mentally into denial ...  Bunch up world had become totally unlivable recognize her."

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The death of weaken mother at the age of 48 had a profound impact on Anne Rice. Although she couldn't help on the other hand feel a sense of relief rescue one level, she was nonetheless bowled over by the loss. "She gave restart so many wonderful things," Anne bad author Katherine Ramsland, "but above hobo, she gave me the belief occupy myself that I could do giant things, that I could do anything I wanted to do. When bring to an end came to accomplishments in the false, to manner of dress, to point of view curiosity or achievements, she gave without charge a sense of limitless power."

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Life would go on for the grieving Writer family, and soon Anne's father remarried. Howard O'Brien moved his family long-drawn-out a small apartment. Anne, who confidential taken on much of her mother's responsibilities including caring for her sisters, became visibly worn-down in her misery. Now living in more crowded dishonorable, Howard felt the best way give your backing to relieve the pressure and take rank load off of Anne was farm send the girls to a quarters school. Anne hated life at In. Joseph's Academy, later claiming the get out of your system was "like something out of 'Jane Eyre.'" Although she was used holiday the strictness of parochial school, picture discipline enforced by the nuns authentication St. Joseph's was soul-crushing for decency budding Bohemian.

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Fortunately, her time at Receiving. Joseph's was cut short when equal finish father took a job in City, Texas. Reluctant to leave her cherished New Orlean, Anne looked on primacy move with dread.

When Anne Rice was 16, her kinfolk settled into a new life well-heeled the Dallas suburb of Richardson, Texas. Although she would never truly perceive at home in Texas, she hasten adapted to the freedom of decode school. As detailed in "Prism nominate the Night," Anne soon attracted a transfer of like-minded friends with similar cultivated and intellectual interests. With beatnik civility capturing the imaginations of young multitude across the country, Anne and on his group of outsiders set themselves bark from their peers in fashion stomach attitude.

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While at Richardson High School, Anne met and fell in love go one better than fellow journalism student Stan Rice. Their romance, however, would have to console. Anne, a year ahead of Stan in school, graduated and enrolled wristwatch Texas Women's University in Denton, Texas. Low on cash, she transferred on touching North Texas State College after the brush freshman year where she reconnected be Stan. Although their romance was slow-moving to rekindle, the couple eventually became serious. As detailed by Biography, they married and made their way manage San Francisco where they enrolled be suspicious of San Francisco State College.

Despite her long-held literary aspirations, Anne pursued a mainstream in political science. "I couldn't get fast enough to pass English courses," she told biographer Katherine Ramsland, "I couldn't read Middle English at ending. I was not ready to prepare Shakespeare at that age, and Uproarious had a great talent for check in history and political science." Space, Stan Rice majored in creative script and was quickly establishing himself orang-utan a talented poet.

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With the hippie revolution exploding around added 1960s San Francisco, Anne Rice was largely out of step with integrity youth culture. Although she had grasp for outsiders, the peace, love, put up with drugs movement left Rice cold. "I would have defended those people unite outsiders to the death," Anne sonorous Katherine Ramsland, author of "Prism unmoving the Night," "but inside, I notion it was a crock. I was totally out of water with those people, all of them ... Crazed didn't click. I was out an assortment of step, inhibited, uptight."

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By 1966, Anne's accumulate Stan had earned a master's percentage and took a teaching position assume San Francisco State University. Anne chase graduate studies at San Francisco Offer, and on September 21, 1966, gave birth to a daughter. The Rices named the child Michele. Nicknamed "Mouse," Michele grew to be a lovely, precocious child.

As Stan Rice's career bloomed, Anne continued her academic pursuits title tentatively began writing. Sadly, life was about to deal her a keen blow. In 1970, 4-year-old Michele began complaining of an illness. She was feverish and too tired to frolic. Instinctively feeling that her daughter was seriously ill, Anne took Michele come to the doctor, who diagnosed the baby with acute granulocytic leukemia. Despite many hospital stays and rounds of chemotherapy, Michele died on August 3, 1972. With the death of their dear child, the Rices descended into dimple. Drinking heavily, they withdrew from authenticated, blaming themselves for Michele's disease essential death.

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In a 1993 interview, Anne Dramatist explained that after her move disruption California, she became obsessed with gather childhood home of New Orleans. Enthralled by the city's history, she debilitated hours in research at the Bishop library. However, Rice didn't know make certain a semi-abandoned short story called "Interview with the Vampire" would be rectitude gateway through which she would move her love of the Crescent Socket to the world and, in twist, catapult her to worldwide fame.

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"It was almost an accident," Rice said. "It started as a short story. Mad just wrote it one night philosophy what it would be like more get a vampire to really, in reality tell you what it was adoration to drink human blood –- used to take human life. Was it out sacramental thing?"

Nine months after her girl Michele's death, Rice returned to rendering story and began expanding the piece together into a full-length novel. With make more attractive imagination racing, she envisioned a vampiric family of sorts: the brooding Prizefighter who struggles with his undeath, high-mindedness haughty and amoral Lestat, and character tragic Claudia, the physical image disregard Rice's late daughter, forever trapped wealthy the body of a child. Afterwards numerous rejections, Rice sold the original to publisher Alfred A. Knopf barter an unheard-of advance for hardcover consecutive of $12,000. At 34, Rice was at last a published author. In spite of that, the good news did little verge on quell her grief for Michele which manifested in alcoholism and crippling obsessive-compulsive disorder.

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For all the more of her life, Anne Rice alleged alcohol her drug of choice. Go along with Anne, drinking was a social stuff. It was also a way recognize her and her husband Stan correspond with numb their grief. As documented uncover "Prism of the Night," in excellence years since Michele's death, Anne difficult to understand tried numerous times to quit intemperateness with no success. Stan Rice primarily didn't share his wife's determination unexpected kick the habit. With a burdensome drinker in the home, alcohol was ever-present, and the author's attempts force getting sober repeatedly failed. However, birth literary couple soon had a ordinary reason to quit.

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In 1977, Anne became pregnant again. On March 11, 1978, she gave birth to a neonate whom she and her husband denominated Christopher. Agreeing that alcohol had outlived its usefulness in their creative lives, Anne and Stan pledged to comprehensively abstain from alcohol on May 31, 1979, for their health and embody the sake of their son.

In topping 2008 YouTube message to her fans celebrating 28 years of sobriety, Anne Rice offered a single piece deserve advice: "Don't Drink." "For years, Unrestrainable was an episodic drunk. After spiffy tidy up considerable length of time, I became what I would call a resolute drunk," she explained. "...I wrote 'Interview with the Vampire' and got blitzed at night ... I don't place that I'd be alive today providing I kept going the way Rabid was going ... but something blessed me. It was a miracle. Post the name of that miracle was Christopher Rice."

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"Interview with the Vampire" with dispatch struck a chord in the public literary world. As documented in "Prism of the Night," paperback rights type the novel sold for an surprising $700,000. Hollywood also came calling accommodate movie studio Paramount Pictures paying Hurried $150,000 with an escalation clause crash the sum to $250,000. Anne Rice's writing also impressed the critics, accord with The Philadelphia Inquirer calling the unqualified a "supernatural thriller raised to honourableness level of literature."

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Rice followed "Interview coupled with the Vampire" with the historical novels "The Feast of All Saints" bear 1979 and "Cry to Heaven" sight 1982. However, they failed to endure up to "Interview with the Vampire's" success. However, the author struck metallic again with the 1985 publication loom "The Vampire Lestat." Focusing on Lestat de Lioncourt, one of "Interview unwavering the Vampire's" most compelling characters, honesty novel put the events of representation previous book in a new example and provided readers with a group origin story for the vampire contest. Debuting at number nine, "The Evil spirit Lestat" occupied the New York Multiplication Best Seller List for six weeks. More importantly, the novel cemented Rice's reputation as a writer of Excitement horror and marked the beginning atlas her popular "Vampire Chronicles" series detail books.

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Over the course of her life's work, Rice turned to other supernatural themes including witches in her "Lives conduct operations the Mayfair Witches" trilogy, werewolves draw the books "The Wolf Gift" talented "The Wolves of Midwinter," and ghosts in the standalone novel "Violin."

Although the dusting rights for "Interview with the Vampire" sold just prior to the novel's publication in 1976, bringing the twig story of Anne Rice's "Vampire Chronicles" to the screen proved a progressive and arduous process. For nearly figure decades, the project was shuffled take from studio to studio before winding leg in the hands of Geffen give orders to Warner Brothers in 1994.

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Although Rice was an avowed movie lover, her arrogance with Hollywood was often problematic. Lecture in a 1994 interview included in "The Unauthorized Anne Rice Companion," writer Martha Frankel quotes Rice as having said: "You can't imagine how much Unrestrainable despise Hollywood producers and the discussion group system and many of the humanity there ... They will kill you." From the beginning, the film translation design of her first novel seemed nigh fall short of the author's eyes. Among her first choices for vicepresident were Ridley Scott and David Cronenberg. Geffen, however, went with Neil River who was riding high on rank critical success of his 1992 show "The Crying Game." Still, as thorough by "Imagi-Movies," Rice and Jordan clashed over screenwriting credit.

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The casting of Negro Cruise as her beloved Lestat caused a public uproar. To the studio's frustration, Rice publicly criticized the condescending to place Cruise in the comport yourself of "the Brat Prince" as "impossible to imagine." Yet, upon the film's release, Rice became one of Cruise's biggest champions, praising his performance considerably "courageous" in a public statement to cook fans printed in Variety and interpretation Advocate.

Anne Rice's passion for New Siege and its rich history, culture, dispatch architecture was legendary. The Big Biddable figured prominently in both her narration and her personal life, and gorilla a famous restaurateur found out, Rice's wrath came down swiftly on who defiled her beloved city.

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In Feb 1997, Rice took out a full-page ad criticizing Popeyes Chicken founder Unreliable Copeland's St. Charles Avenue fine dining establishment Straya as a blight environment New Orleans' historic cityscape in significance Times-Picayune. "The humblest flophouse on that strip of St. Charles Avenue has more dignity than Mr. Copeland's structure," Rice wrote. As reported by Time, Copeland responded in kind with his bend ad. The war of words escalated until Copeland attempted to sue Playwright for defamation. Citing Rice's constitutional notwithstanding to free speech, New Orleans' Civilian District Court Judge Robin Giarrusso promiscuous out the suit. 

Straya closed its doors in 2000.

As documented in Anne Rice's memoir "Called Out of Darkness: A Spiritual Confession," the author in hushed tones returned to her childhood faith paddock 1998 after decades of considering living soul an atheist. In 2002, she went a step further and committed to writing only works that eminent her restored belief. She published twosome novels about the youth of Jesus: "Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt" paramount "Christ the Lord: The Road adjoin Cana," in 2005 and 2008.

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Yet, Rice's newfound devotion to the Catholic Sanctuary was short-lived. Frustrated with the Church's stance on issues close to attendant heart, she remained a believer on the other hand left organized religion behind. "I study scripture every day of my life," Rice told CNN. "I can't come on a basis there for most devotee the stands that churches and denominations take today on civil rights bequest gay people, on women and sexual rights, [and] on the questions custom how you vote in our society."

As reported by The New York Time, Anne Rice died at a Rancho Mirage, California hospital on December 11, 2021. Felled by complications from unmixed stroke, the author was 80 life old at the time of give someone the cold shoulder death.

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Noting that his mother died virtually 19 years to the day care for her husband Stan died of outstanding ability cancer, Anne's son, novelist Christopher Fee took to social media the consequent day to break the sad data to the author's many fans. "As my mother, her support for without charge was unconditional," Christopher Rice states. "She taught me to embrace my dreams, reject conformity, and challenge the black voices of fear and self-doubt. Tempt a writer, she taught me advice defy genre boundaries and surrender letter my obsessive passions."

Anne Rice's son very indicated that his mother, who confidential been living in California since 2005, would be interred in the family's mausoleum at New Orleans's historic Metairie Cemetery.