Richard Matheson

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search
For the writer of Scars and Other Distinguishing Marks, Dystopia, and Created By, see Richard Christian Matheson.
Richard Burton Matheson

Richard Matheson in 2008.
Born February 20, 1926 (1926-02-20) (age 83)
Allendale, New Jersey, United States
Pen name Logan Swanson
Occupation Novelist, Short story writer
Nationality American
Writing period 1950–present
Genres Science fiction, Fantasy, Horror

Richard Matheson (born February 20, 1926) is an American author and screenwriter, typically of fantasy, horror, or science fiction.

Born in Allendale, New Jersey to Norwegian immigrant parents, Matheson was raised in Brooklyn and graduated from Brooklyn Technical High School in 1943. He then entered the military and spent World War II as an infantry soldier. In 1949 he earned his bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of Missouri and moved to California in 1951. He married in 1952 and has four children, three of whom (Chris, Richard Christian, and Ali Matheson) are writers of fiction and screenplays.

Contents

[edit] Homages

A character named "Senator Richard Matheson" appeared in several episodes of The X-Files. The series' creator, Chris Carter, was a fan of Matheson's work on two series that influenced The X-Files (The Twilight Zone and Kolchak: The Night Stalker). Also, the TV series adaptation of Honey, I Shrunk the Kids had the Szalinski family relocating to the town of Matheson, Colorado.

In the Babylon 5 TV series, the episode "A Spider in the Web" mentions a ship called the Matheson as one of many requesting permission to leave the station.

The telepath "John Matheson" in Crusade was named in honor of Matheson.

Stephen King has listed Richard Matheson as a creative influence and his novel Cell is dedicated to Matheson, along with filmmaker George A. Romero.

Matheson St. in the Konami game Silent Hill, was named in his honor.

Richard's son, Richard Christian Matheson, penned the screenplay for "Battleground" for the first segment of Stephen King's Nightmares & Dreamscapes. He paid homage to his father by including the Zuni fetish doll from the last segment of Trilogy of Terror in a scene.

In Richard Christian Matheson's novel Created By, the hero's father is named Burt, a reference to Matheson senior's middle name.

Richard Christian Matheson re-wrote his father's short story "Dance of the Dead" for the TV series Masters of Horror. It was directed by Tobe Hooper and starred Robert Englund and Ryan McDonald.

Homage to Matheson is paid daily by Disney Imagineers who distinctly included the chalk markings (which marked the portal wall from The Twilight Zone episode "Little Girl Lost") in the boiler-room area of the famous Disney thrill-ride "The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror."

M. Night Shyamalan's The Happening, about inexplicable mass suicide, has a parallel with Matheson's short story Lemmings, which is also about inexplicable mass suicide.

A villain of the week on Burn Notice was named after Matheson.

[edit] Bibliography

[edit] Novels

[edit] Short stories

  • "Born of Man and Woman" (1950)
  • "Third from the Sun" (1950); adapted as a Twilight Zone episode (1960)
  • "The Waker Dreams" (AKA "When the Waker Sleeps") (1950)
  • "Blood Son" (1951)
  • "Through Channels" (1951)
  • "Clothes Make the Man" (1951)
  • "Return" (1951)
  • "The Thing" (1951)
  • "Witch War" (1951)
  • "Dress of White Silk" (1951)
  • "F---" (AKA "The Foodlegger") (1952)
  • "Shipshape Home" (1952)
  • "SRL Ad" (1952)
  • "Advance Notice" (AKA "Letter to the Editor") (1952)
  • "Lover, When You're Near Me" (1952)
  • "Brother To The Machine" (1952)
  • "To Fit the Crime" (1952)
  • "The Wedding" (1953)
  • "Wet Straw" (1953)
  • "Long Distance Call" (AKA "Sorry, Right Number") (1953)
  • "Slaughter House" (1953)
  • "Mad House" (1953)
  • "The Last Day" (1953)
  • "Lazarus II" (1953)
  • "Legion of Plotters" (1953)
  • "Death Ship" (1953)
  • "Disappearing Act" (1953)
  • "The Disinheritors" (1953)
  • "Dying Room Only" (1953)
  • "Full Circle" (1953)
  • "Mother by Protest" (AKA "Trespass") (1953)
  • "Little Girl Lost" (1953)
  • "Being" (1954)
  • "The Curious Child" (1954)
  • "When Day Is Dun" (1954)
  • "Dance of the Dead" (1954)
  • "The Man Who Made the World (1954)
  • "The Traveller" (1954)
  • "The Test" (1954)
  • "The Conqueror" (1954)
  • "Dear Diary" (1954)
  • "The Doll That Does Everything" (1954)
  • "Descent" (1954)
  • "Miss Stardust" (1955)
  • "The Funeral" (1955)
  • "Too Proud to Lose" (1955)
  • "One for the Books" (1955)
  • "Pattern for Survival" (1955)
  • "A Flourish of Strumpets (1956)
  • "The Splendid Source" (1956)
  • "Steel" (1956)
  • "The Children of Noah" (1957)
  • "A Visit to Santa Claus" (AKA "I'll Make It Look Good," as Logan Swanson) (1957)
  • "The Holiday Man" (1957)
  • "Old Haunts" (1957)
  • "The Distributor" (1958)
  • "The Edge" (1958)
  • "Lemmings" (1958)
  • "Mantage" (1959)
  • "Deadline" (1959)
  • "The Creeping Terror" (AKA "A Touch of Grapefruit") (1959)
  • "No Such Thing as a Vampire" (1959)
  • "Big Surprise" (AKA "What Was In The Box") (1959)
  • "Crickets" (1960)
  • "Day of Reckoning" (AKA "The Faces," "Graveyard Shift") (1960)
  • "First Anniversary" (1960)
  • "From Shadowed Places" (1960)
  • "Finger Prints" (1962)
  • "Mute" (1962)
  • "The Likeness of Julie" (as Logan Swanson) (1962)
  • "The Jazz Machine" (1963)
  • "Crescendo" (AKA "Shock Wave") (1963)
  • "Girl of My Dreams" (1963)
  • "'Tis the Season to Be Jelly" (1963)
  • "Deus Ex Machina" (1963)
  • "Interest" (1965)
  • "A Drink of Water" (1967)
  • "Needle in the Heart" (AKA "Therese") (1969)
  • "Prey" (1969) (Later adapted to the Zuni Fetish Doll, in the Trilogy of Terror)
  • "Button, Button" (1970); (as The Twilight Zone episode in 1986; filmed as The Box (2009)
  • "'Til Death Do Us Part" (1970)
  • "By Appointment Only" (1970)
  • "The Finishing Touches" (1970)
  • "Duel" (1971); filmed as Duel (1971)
  • "Where There's a Will" (with Richard Christian Matheson) (1980)
  • "And Now I'm Waiting" (1983)
  • "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" (as The Twilight Zone episode in 1963; as segment four of Twilight Zone: The Movie, 1983; first published in 1984)
  • "Getting Together" (1986)
  • "Buried Talents" (1987)
  • "The Near Departed" (1987)
  • "Shoo Fly" (1988)
  • "Person to Person" (1989)
  • "Two O'Clock Session" (1991)
  • "The Doll" (as Twilight Zone episode in 1982, published as story in 1993)
  • "Go West, Young Man" (1993)
  • "Gunsight" (1993)
  • "Little Jack Cornered" (1993)
  • "Of Death and Thirty Minutes" (1993)

[edit] Short story collections

  • Born of Man and Woman (1954)
  • The Shores of Space (1957)
  • Shock! (1961)
  • Shock 2 (1964)
  • Shock 3 (1966)
  • Shock Waves (1970) Published as Shock 4 in the UK (1980)
  • Button, Button (1970) being filmed as The Box
  • Richard Matheson: Collected Stories (1989)
  • By the Gun (1993)
  • Nightmare at 20,000 Feet (2000)
  • Pride with Richard Christian Matheson (2002)
  • Duel (2002)
  • Offbeat: Uncollected Stories (2002)
  • Darker Places (2004)
  • Unrealized Dreams (2004)
  • Button, Button: Uncanny Stories (2008) (Tor Books)

[edit] Television

[edit] Nonfiction

  • The Path: Metaphysics for the 90s (1993)

[edit] Additional reading

[edit] References

[edit] External links

Search Wikiquote Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Richard Matheson
v • d • e
The Twilight Zone
Series
Key people
See also
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Matheson"
Personal tools