Stephen King is one of the most famous and popular writers of the 20-21 centuries, working in the genre of horror, thriller, drama, science fiction. He was not for nothing called the “king of horrors”, because his books really inspire fear in the reader. He is a master of his work in the field of terrifying stories, and those that stretch over thousands of pages and do not make the audience bored. Despite the universally recognized talent of Stephen King, he is still more popular with the younger generation, as often an adult audience does not take his books seriously and considers them frivolous and useless. There are many opinions on this subject, but the fact remains: Stephen King is very popular, he is read and filmed, every second, if not the first in the world knows his name and will name at least 3 of his works.
Origin and formation
Stephen King was born on September 21, 1947 in the United States, namely in the city of Portland, Maine. He was born literally by a lucky chance, because his mother, Nelly Ruth Pillsbury, was diagnosed with infertility, and in 1945 she and her husband, Donald Edward King, adopted a child - David Victor. And two years later, Stephen was born, despite the terrible forecasts of doctors. When he was two years old, his father left the family, and his mother with two children was left alone. King recalls his childhood with sadness, because they lived very hard, he and his brother and mother did not know any excesses and indulgence. Stephen remained in first grade in his second year due to an ear disease that did not respond to antibiotic treatment, and he suffered hellish pain when he visited the otolaryngologist.
As a child, Stephen King was fond of reading books and comics about superheroes, horror films, in general, he liked to tickle his nerves with frightening stories. His mother actively supported this hobby. She even made up a whole fantastic story to explain the disappearance of her father when he left the family for a waitress from a neighboring state. According to her, the man was taken by aliens from Mars.
History of success
First steps
The first samples of the pen of the future writer were expressed in stories about the rabbit and three of his friends who traveled around the city in search of children in need. Stephen wrote 5 stories about it and received his first fee - 25 cents per story. Later, he and his brother decided to create their own Dave Leaf newspaper, which they sold to West Durham residents at 5 cents per copy.
At the age of 14, Stephen was suspended from school, because the director believed that the boy at his age should not read anything, much less write in the horror genre. The reason for this was the story “The Well and the Pendulum,” written by the boy in the film of the same name. He brought the manuscripts to school and sold classmates a quarter for a copy. In 1960, Stephen moved to Durham High School. King's attitude to primary education was not the best, he believed that this was a useless stage in life, not only did it bring nothing good, it also destroys the psyche of children. In the spring of 1962, Stephen graduated from eighth grade and went to Lisbon High School. There, the guy was appointed the chief editor of the school newspaper "Drum", which under his patronage turned into an annual, but at the same time, King wrote several stories about teachers using black humor. Because of this, one of the teachers insisted that Stephen be expelled from school, but he got off with a “slight fright”, and on the day of his graduation all the teachers breathed a sigh of relief.
Then Stephen went to college. In parallel with this, he earned extra money. In August 1966, he went to Orono, enrolling at the University of Maine at the Faculty of English Literature, as well as at teacher training courses at the college. At the University, he met his future wife - Tabitha Spruce. During his training, Stephen published some stories and at the end left a memory of himself among teachers and students. In 1970, King graduated from the undergraduate university, and he was found unfit for military service due to a long-standing hearing problem.
First novel and first film adaptation
After graduation, King and his wife went through difficult times: they did not have enough money, they lived on his wife’s scholarship and on Stephen’s fees, at this time they had a daughter and a son: Naomi and Joseph. In 1971, King married Tabitha. In the fall of the same year, he began working as an English teacher at a school in Hampden, Maine. Once his wife found King’s unfinished novel “Carrie” and insisted that he finish it. By the way, some events from this work were inspired by the writer during his school years, when he watched the girls who were not liked in his own and in other classes. In 1974, publishers began to pay Stephen King for the novel "Carrie", which allowed him not to work at school. In the fall of 1974, the writer moved to Colorado, the city of Boulder, and wrote his novel The Shining. Then, King decided to withdraw this book from sale, as real cases of shooting at school began, and one of the criminals found a copy of the aforementioned work.
Around 1977, when the writer began to receive offers from senior cinematography students about the film adaptation of one of his little stories, Stephen introduced the concept of a “dollar deal”. This meant that he was ready to provide any student director with the opportunity to film his story, but he could release it in a wide format only with the consent of the author, and Stephen sold this right to a student for $ 1. This year, the writer had another son, Owen King.
The heyday of creativity and recognition
In the late 70s, King published under the pseudonym Richard Bachman books "Rage", "Long Walk", "Road Works" and others. The writer also had other pseudonyms under which he published his books. This was justified by the fact that at that time it was forbidden to publish more than one book per year from one author. In 1982, the book Shooter was published, the first novel from the Dark Tower series. In the same year he wrote the novel “Running Man”. The legendary Green Mile was written in 1996.
In 1999, the writer underwent several operations due to an accident in which he was hit by a minibus. After all the operations, Stephen could not walk, and the opportunity to sit was given him only 40 minutes. Despite this, he tried to write, although the pain was unbearable. In 2001, after the death of the driver who hit him, King announced that he would no longer write. Apparently, this was due to physical pain, due to which he could not sit for long. However, from 2001 to 2015, Stephen’s many novels are published, such as The Dream Catcher, The History of Lizzie, Dume Key, Under the Dome, 11/22/63, Doctor Sleep, and Country of Joy "," Mr. Mercedes "and" Renaissance "," Whoever finds it, takes it for himself. " In the summer of 2016, the third part of “Mr. Mercedes” was released, entitled “Post Passed”. In addition, throughout his career, Stephen King participated in the cinematic art as an actor, screenwriter, author and even director.
Interesting Facts
- In childhood, Stephen witnessed the death of his peer, who fell under a freight train - a circumstance about which Steve himself, in his own words, completely forgot, having suffered a shock state, but remembered a few years later when he was told about it. Some sources suggested that this event may have subconsciously inspired the writer.
- Comic book authors often used the message: “Dear Reader,” then King later used the greeting “Regular Reader” in his works, since he was very fond of reading comics in childhood.
- The writer considered his native state Men the most mysterious in America, and almost all the actions in his works take place here.
- Once, when Stephen was 2 years old, his father went out for cigarettes and did not return. Later it turned out that he simply went to another woman with whom he lived very close to his first family. However, the mother explained this disappearance by the abduction of aliens. In fact, the woman simply did not want to advertise her husband's bigamy, because for this he could be sent to prison, and this fact could adversely affect the children.
- Stephen King has a rule - write at least 2,000 words every day. If today he can’t cope with it, tomorrow is catching up. He singled out this feature of the work from Balzac.
- The writer almost became disabled after he was hit by a minibus. Suffering terrible pains, he almost decided on suicide. A loving family saved him from this decision.
- Stephen King once had a drug and alcohol addiction. Once in 1999, a letter was published in The Onion newspaper, where King allegedly stated that he could not remember how he wrote some novels. In 2000, the writer admitted that he really does not remember how he wrote some novels. After that, the author’s family “rummaged through” all the garbage cans, shelves, tables, etc. in search of evidence of King’s addictions and showed him. He soon turned to doctors and since the 1980s has remained independent of bad habits.
Personal life
Stephen King met his future wife as a student. Tabitha turned out to be a loyal and strong woman who supported the gifted one in everything. She gave birth to her husband several children, was actively engaged in his health. Not only did the writer from childhood suffer from the complications of advanced otitis media, he was also addicted to drugs, alcohol, etc. Getting rid of these misfortunes, Mrs. King faced an even more terrible trouble - her husband was in a car accident. After that, he almost could not move on his own, constantly suffered pain. But here Tabitha did not leave him, showing care, patience and love.
Tabitha King has published nine of her own novels. King Owen's first son published his first storybook in 2005, "We're All Together: Tales and Stories." Joseph King, who writes under the pseudonym Joe Hill, published a short story collection called Ghosts of the 20th Century that same year. His first novel, Heart-shaped Box, was published in 2007 and will be filmed.
In addition to literature, Stephen King is interested in sports, in particular, baseball. He also devoted a lot of time and effort to studying cinema in order to write novels suitable for film adaptation.
Our days
Soon a series called Castle Rock will appear on the screens. The screenwriter will be Stephen King himself, in the role of director - Jeffrey Jacob Abrams. The series will be a kind of collection of several works of the writer. In the storyline, the fates of the heroes that appear in King's novels are intertwined. The actions of the characters will take place in the city of Castle Rock. A trailer for this series has already appeared on the network; in July this year, a pilot on the Hulu streaming video service will be released.
After the dizzying premiere of the film adaptation of Stephen King’s novel “It” in 2017, Hollywood decided to film another writer novel called “A Long Walk”. The writer of the new project will be James Vanderbilt.
In the summer of 2017, the series “Mr. Mercedes” based on the work of Stephen King was released. On October 10, 2017, the series was extended for the second season, which will premiere in 2018.
Now Stephen King still lives in the city of Bangor, Maine. On June 5 this year, a new author’s book is due out in the USA, which is called “The outsider” in the original, an approximate translation of the name into Russian is “Outcast”.
