Ray Douglas Bradbury (born August 22 1920) is an
American literary, fantasy, horror, science
fiction, and mystery writer best known for The Martian Chronicles, a 1950 book which has been described both as a short story collection and a novel, and his 1953 dystopian novel
Fahrenheit 451, is widely considered to be one of the greatest and most popular
American writers of fiction during the twentieth century.
Beginnings
Ray Bradbury was born in Waukegan, Illinois, to a Swedish immigrant mother and a
father who was a power and telephone lineman.[1] His paternal grandfather and great-grandfather were newspaper publishers.[2]
Ray Bradbury was a reader and writer throughout his youth, spending much time in the Carnegie Library in Waukegan. He used this library as a setting for much of his novel
Something Wicked This Way Comes, and depicted Waukegan
as "Green Town" in some of his other semi-autobiographical novels — Dandelion
Wine, Farewell Summer — 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 throughout his career.
Ray Bradbury attributes his lifelong habit of writing every day, with no known exceptions since he was 12 years old, to an
incident in 1932 when a carnival entertainer, Mr. Electrico, touched him with an electrified sword, made his hair stand on end, and shouted, "Live
forever!"
The Bradbury family lived in Tucson, Arizona, in 1926–27 and 1932–33 as his father
pursued employment, each time returning to Waukegan, and eventually settled in Los
Angeles in 1934, when Ray was thirteen.
Bradbury graduated from Los Angeles High School in 1938 but chose not to
attend college. Instead, he sold newspapers at the corner of South Norton Avenue and Olympic Boulevard. He continued to educate
himself at the local library, and having been influenced by science fiction heroes like
Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers, he began to publish
science fiction stories in fanzines in 1938. Ray was invited by Forrest J Ackerman to attend the now legendary Clifton’s Cafeteria Science Fiction Club. Here Ray met
the writers Robert A. Heinlein, Fredric Brown,
Henry Kuttner, Leigh Brackett, and
Jack Williamson. Launching his own fanzine in 1939, titled Futuria Fantasia, he
wrote most of its four issues, each limited to under a hundred copies. Bradbury's first paid piece was for the pulp magazine Super Science Stories in 1941, for which he earned $15.[3] He became a full-time writer by the end of 1942. His first book,
Dark Carnival, a collection of short works, was published in 1947 by
Arkham House, a firm owned by writer August Derleth.
A chance encounter in a Los Angeles bookstore with the British expatriate writer Christopher Isherwood gave Bradbury the opportunity to put The Martian Chronicles into the hands of a respected critic. Isherwood's glowing review
followed and substantially boosted Bradbury's career.
Ray Bradbury married Marquerite McClure (1922-2003) in 1947, and they had four daughters.
Works
Although he is often described as a science fiction writer, Bradbury does not box
himself into a particular narrative categorization:
First of all, I don't write science fiction. I've only done one science fiction book and that's Fahrenheit 451, based on reality. Science fiction is a depiction of the real. Fantasy is a depiction
of the unreal. So Martian Chronicles is not science fiction, it's fantasy.
It couldn't happen, you see? That's the reason it's going to be around a long time—because it's a Greek myth, and myths have
staying power.[4]
Besides his fiction work, Bradbury has written many short essays on
the arts and culture, attracting the attention of critics in this field. Bradbury was a consultant for the American Pavilion at
the 1964 New York World's Fair and the original exhibit housed in
Epcot's Spaceship Earth geosphere at
Walt Disney World [5][6][7].
Short story collections
In addition to these collections, many of the stories have been published in multi-author anthologies. Almost 50 additional
Bradbury stories have never been collected anywhere after their initial publication in periodicals.[8]
Plays
|
Screenplays and teleplays
This list does not include adaptations by others of Bradbury's published stories.
|
Radio
This list does not include adaptations by others of Bradbury's published stories.
Poetry
- (1975) When Elephants Last in the Dooryard Bloomed
- (1977) Where Robot Mice and Robot Men Run Round in Robot Towns
- (1980) The Ghosts of Forever
- (1981) The Haunted Computer and the Android Pope
- (2002) They Have Not Seen the Stars: The Collected Poetry of Ray Bradbury
|
Children
- (1955) Switch on the Night
- (1997) With Cat for Comforter
- (1997) Dogs Think That Every Day Is Christmas
Fable
- (1998) Ahmed and the Oblivion Machines
- (1981) The Golden Kite the Silver Wind
Anthologies
- (1952) Timeless Stories for Today and Tomorrow
- (1956) The Circus of Dr. Lao and Other Improbable Stories
Non-fiction
|
Adaptations of his work
Many of Bradbury's stories and novels have been adapted to films, radio, television, theater
and comic books. From 1951 to 1954, 27 of Bradbury's stories were adapted by Al Feldstein
for EC Comics, and 16 of these were collected in the paperbacks, The Autumn People
(1965) and Tomorrow Midnight (1966).
Also in the early 1950s, adaptations of Bradbury's stories were televised on a variety of shows including Tales of
Tomorrow, Lights Out, Out There, Suspense, CBS Television Workshop, Jane Wyman's Fireside
Theatre, Star Tonight, Windows and Alfred Hitchcock Presents. "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.
In 1969, The Illustrated Man was brought to the big screen, starring Oscar winner Rod Steiger, Claire Bloom & Robert
Drivas. Contaning the prologue, and 3 short stories from the book, the film received mediocre reviews, and was largely considered
of interest, but dull.
From 1985 to 1992 Bradbury hosted a syndicated anthology television series,
The Ray Bradbury Theater, 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.
The Martian Chronicles became a three-part TV
miniseries starring Rock Hudson which was first
broadcast by NBC in 1980.
In 1984, Michael McDonough of Brigham Young University produced "Bradbury 13," a series of thirteen audio adaptations of
famous Ray Bradbury stories, in conjunction with National Public Radio. The full-cast dramatizations featured adaptations of "The
Man," "The Ravine," "Night Call, Collect," "The Veldt," "Kaleidoscope," "There Was an Old Woman," "Here There Be Tygers," "Dark
They Were, and Golden Eyed," "The Wind," "The Fox and the Forest," "The Happiness Machine," "The Screaming Woman" and "The Sound
of Thunder". Famed voiceover actor Paul Frees provided narration, while Bradbury himself was
responsible for the opening voiceover; Greg Hansen and Roger Hoffman scored the episodes. The series won a Peabody award as well
as two Gold Cindy awards. The series has not yet been released on CD but is heavily traded by fans of "old time radio".
Director Jack Arnold first brought Bradbury to movie theaters in 1953 with
It Came from Outer Space, a Harry
Essex screenplay developed from Bradbury's screen treatment, "The Meteor". Three weeks later, Eugène Lourié's The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms
(1953), based on Bradbury's "The Fog Horn," about a sea monster mistaking the sound of a
fog horn for the mating cry of a female, was released. Bradbury's close friend Ray
Harryhausen 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.
Recently, Peter Hyams' film version of Bradbury's 1953 story, A Sound of Thunder
(2005), brought an almost unanimous negative reaction from film critics. Reviewing for The New York Times, A.O. Scott observed that "it illustrates the dangers of turning a lean,
elegant short story into a loud, noisy, incoherent B movie."
Oskar Werner and Julie Christie starred in
Fahrenheit 451 (1966), an adaptation of Bradbury's novel by
François Truffaut. A new film version of
Fahrenheit 451 is being planned by director Frank Darabont. 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
video game for Commodore 64 based on Fahrenheit
451.[1] 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 Veldt" and "To the Chicago Abyss."
Five episodes of the USSR 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.[9] And a Soviet adaptation of "The Veldt" was filmed in 1987. [10]
Honors and awards
- For his contribution to the motion picture industry, Ray Bradbury was given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6644 Hollywood Blvd.
- An asteroid is named in his honor, "9766 Bradbury," along
with a crater on the moon called "Dandelion Crater" (named after his novel, Dandelion
Wine.)
- On April 16, 2007, Bradbury received a special citation from The Pulitzer Board,
"for his distinguished, prolific, and deeply influential career as an unmatched author of science fiction and fantasy."[11]
- On November 17, 2004, Bradbury was the recipient of the
National Medal of Arts, presented by President George W. Bush and Laura Bush. Bradbury has also received the
World Fantasy Award life achievement, Stoker Award
life achievement, SFWA Grand Master, SF Hall of Fame Living
Inductee, and First Fandom Award. He received an Emmy Award for his work on
The Halloween Tree.
- The "About the Author" sections in several of his published works claim that he has been nominated for an Academy Award. A search of the Academy's awards database proves this to be incorrect.[12] One short film he worked on, Icarus
Montgolfier Wright[13] was nominated for an
Academy Award, but Bradbury himself has not been.
- Honorary doctorate from Woodbury University in 2003. Bradbury presents the Ray Bradbury Creativity Award each year at
Woodbury University. Winners include sculptor Robert Graham, actress Anjelica Huston, Cosmo editor Helen Gurley Brown, director
Irvin Kershner, humorist Stan Freberg, and architect Jon A. Jerde.
- Distinguished Contribution to American Letters Award for 2000 from the National Book Foundation. [14]
Controversy over Fahrenheit 9/11
In 2004 it was reported that Bradbury was extremely upset with filmmaker Michael Moore
for using the title Fahrenheit 9/11, which is an allusion to Bradbury's
Fahrenheit 451, for his documentary about the George W. Bush administration. Bradbury called Moore "a horrible human being," but stated
that his resentment was not politically motivated.[15]
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 "stolen" name, but to no avail. Moore called Bradbury two weeks before the film's release in 2004 to
apologize, saying that the film's marketing was set in motion a long time ago, and it was too late to change the title. [16]
Bradbury himself is the author of several works with appropriated titles including Something Wicked This Way Comes (a
quote from Macbeth), Beyond 1984
(1984), and Another Tale of Two Cities (Tale of Two Cities). Bradbury, however, is always careful to give credit to those from whom he
appropriates. His objection to Michael Moore was that he was not publicly given credit by Mr. Moore that he felt was his
due.[citation needed]
Further reading
- William F. Nolan, The Ray Bradbury Companion: A Life and Career History,
Photolog, and Comprehensive Checklist of Writings, Gale Research (1975). Hardcover, 339 pages. ISBN 0-8103-0930-0
- Donn Albright, Bradbury Bits & Pieces: The Ray Bradbury Bibliography, 1974-88, Starmont House (1990). ISBN
155742151X
- Robin Anne Reid, Ray Bradbury: A Critical Companion, Greenwood Press (2000). 133 pages. ISBN 0313309019
- Jerry Weist, Bradbury, an Illustrated Life: A Journey to Far Metaphor, William Morrow & Company (2002). Hardcover, 208 pages. ISBN 0-06-001182-3
- Jonathan R. Eller and William F. Touponce, Ray Bradbury: The Life of Fiction, Kent State University Press (2004).
Hardcover, 320 pages. ISBN 0-87338-779-1
- Sam Weller, The Bradbury Chronicles: The Life of Ray Bradbury, HarperCollins
(2005). Hardcover, 384 pages. ISBN 0-06-054581-X
Documentaries about Ray Bradbury
- Bradbury's works and approach to writing are documented in Terry Sanders' film Ray
Bradbury: Story of a Writer (1963).
References
General references:
- Tuck, Donald H. (1974). The
Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy. Chicago: Advent, 61-63. ISBN
0-911682-20-1.
Specific references:
- ^ 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."
- ^ Their immigrant ancestor was the royally-descended Thomas Bradbury who
married Mary Perkins of Ipswich, Massachusetts, who was acquitted at the
Salem witch trials.
- ^ http://www.cnn.com/2006/SHOWBIZ/books/08/23/people.bradbury.ap/index.html]
- ^ http://weeklywire.com/ww/09-27-99/alibi_feat1.html
- ^ Ray
Bradbury. "In 1982 he created the interior metaphors for the Spaceship Earth display at Epcot Center, Disney World." http://www.raybradbury.com/bio.html
- ^ Ray
Bradbury. "The images at Spaceship Earth in DisneyWorld's EPCOT Center in Orlando? Well, they are all Bradbury's ideas." http://www.raybradbury.com/articles_town_talk.html
- ^ Ray
Bradbury. "He also serves as a consultant, having collaborated, for example, in the design of a pavilion in the Epcot Center at
Walt Disney World." Referring to Spaceship Earth ...http://www.raybradbury.com/articles_book_mag.html
- ^ Jonathan R. Eller and William F. Touponce, Ray Bradbury: The Life of
Fiction, Kent State University Press (2004). ISBN 0-87338-779-1
- ^ (Russian) State Fund of Television and Radio Programs
- ^ Veld at the Internet Movie Database
- ^ 2007 Special Awards from the Pulitzer Prize
website]
- ^ http://awardsdatabase.oscars.org/ampas_awards/BasicSearchInput.jsp
- ^ Icarus Montgolfier Wright at the Internet Movie
Database
- ^ Distinguished Contribution to American Letters Award with his acceptance speech.
- ^ Ray Bradbury: "Michael Moore is an asshole"
- ^ Weller, Sam (2005). The Bradbury Chronicles: The Life of Ray Bradbury. New York: HarperCollins,
330-331. ISBN 0-06-054581-X.
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