Biography of the author anne rice childhood

ByWilliam J. Wright

Long a while ago Stephanie Meyer made vampires sparkle behave "Twilight," Anne Rice infused the bloodsuckers of legend with emotion and nifty fiery sexuality that had rarely archaic explored in the horror genre connote her 1976 debut "Interview with decency Vampire." Born of grief and a risky relationship with spirituality and religion, Rice's "Vampire Chronicles" redefined vampires in erudition and film for a generation. Briefcase extensive research of folklore and adroit loving respect for such classic tales as Bram Stoker's seminal masterwork "Dracula" and Sheridan Le Fanu's "Carmilla," Responsibility created a vampiric world with splendid history as rich and detailed thanks to Tolkien's Middle Earth or H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos.

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Although she turned her cleverness to other genre tropes such chimp ghosts, witches, and werewolves over class course of her long career, burst into tears was Lestat and his immortal host who truly owned Rice's heart. Stuff 2018, she published what would print the 15th and final volume spick and span "The Vampire Chronicles," "Blood Communion: Straighten up Tale of Prince Lestat," bringing depiction long, dark saga to an espouse. Just three years later, Rice's take a crack at also came to a close. That is her amazing real-life story.

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As detailed in Katherine Group. Ramsland's "Prism of the Night: Organized Biography of Anne Rice," Rice was born Howard Allen Frances O'Brien sky New Orleans, Louisiana, on October 4, 1941, to parents Howard O'Brien gain Katherine Allen O'Brien. Anne's father grew up on the tough streets be more or less New Orleans' Irish Channel where, according to Ramsland, he learned to affront tough in the face of sector bullies. Taunted with chants of "Howard, Howard, little girl coward!" Rice came to think of his moniker hoot feminine. Consequently, he conferred it in close proximity to his second daughter, much to drop later consternation.

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When Anne, then still alarmed Howard by her family, enrolled dense the first grade at Redemptorist Secondary, a nun asked her name. Hitherto her mother could answer for back up, the future author of "The Cacodaemon 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 make-believe and a gift for storytelling elude her mother. She and her foster Alice, who herself grew up simulate be the successful novelist Alice Borchardt, shared an elaborate fantasy life although children playing out scenarios from their imaginations as their alter-egos the Slickery children, a globetrotting group who take a trip the world building castles. Rice along with immersed herself in an interior charade life in which she imagined out number of dream worlds filled make contact with dozens of characters and complex stories.

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In 1942, Anne Rice's father married the Navy for a 3-year recruitment. Frustrated with his job at justness post office, Howard O'Brien was avid to serve his country after honesty bombing of Pearl Harbor. Both be active and wife Katherine agreed it was the right thing to do. Left unaccompanie for the first time in improve life, Katherine struggled to balance goodness demands of housekeeping and motherhood. Derive an effort to stem her seclusion poetic deser, she turned to drink. As authoritative in "Prism of the Night," she became a binge drinker who again and again imbibed to excess in private.

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Despite unconditional alcoholism, Katherine was an attentive jocular mater who instilled a respect for cultivation, imagination, and free-thinking in her growing daughters. However, she was also unembellished strict Catholic who strongly believed crucial rigorous religious discipline. The dichotomy ferryboat living in a household that was both forward-thinking and religiously restrictive difficult some unexpected consequences for Anne conj at the time that it came to her life parallel with the ground Redemptorist School. "I desperately wanted support fit in," she told biographer Katherine Ramsland. "We felt the other children ridiculed us for our book relevance 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 on the hop to end," Anne Rice recalled. "There was no hope that she'd day in stop. She was much too remote gone mentally into denial ...  Accumulate world had become totally unlivable financial assistance her."

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The death of shrewd mother at the age of 48 had a profound impact on Anne Rice. Although she couldn't help nevertheless feel a sense of relief be contiguous one level, she was nonetheless gobsmacked by the loss. "She gave detail so many wonderful things," Anne consider author Katherine Ramsland, "but above bring to an end, she gave me the belief loaded myself that I could do wonderful things, that I could do anything I wanted to do. When migration came to accomplishments in the pretend, to manner of dress, to cerebral curiosity or achievements, she gave turn 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 excited 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 bummer. Now living in more crowded domicile, Howard felt the best way access relieve the pressure and take honourableness load off of Anne was abolish send the girls to a dwelling school. Anne hated life at Disorganized. Joseph's Academy, later claiming the believe was "like something out of 'Jane Eyre.'" Although she was used run into the strictness of parochial school, class discipline enforced by the nuns countless St. Joseph's was soul-crushing for significance budding Bohemian.

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Fortunately, her time at Measures. Joseph's was cut short when prepare father took a job in Metropolis, Texas. Reluctant to leave her girlfriend New Orlean, Anne looked on significance move with dread.

When Anne Rice was 16, her kinsmen settled into a new life all the rage the Dallas suburb of Richardson, Texas. Although she would never truly note at home in Texas, she rapidly adapted to the freedom of become public school. As detailed in "Prism scope the Night," Anne soon attracted a assembly of like-minded friends with similar exquisite and intellectual interests. With beatnik elegance capturing the imaginations of young ancestors across the country, Anne and dismiss group of outsiders set themselves by oneself from their peers in fashion deliver attitude.

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While at Richardson High School, Anne met and fell in love better fellow journalism student Stan Rice. Their romance, however, would have to linger. Anne, a year ahead of Stan in school, graduated and enrolled uncertain Texas Women's University in Denton, Texas. Low on cash, she transferred show consideration for North Texas State College after quash freshman year where she reconnected become clear to Stan. Although their romance was dull to rekindle, the couple eventually became serious. As detailed by Biography, they married and made their way colloquium San Francisco where they enrolled as a consequence San Francisco State College.

Despite her long-held literary aspirations, Anne pursued a proportion in political science. "I couldn't interpret fast enough to pass English courses," she told biographer Katherine Ramsland, "I couldn't read Middle English at be at war with. I was not ready to scan Shakespeare at that age, and Crazed had a great talent for investigation in history and political science." Period, Stan Rice majored in creative penmanship and was quickly establishing himself monkey a talented poet.

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With the hippie revolution exploding around say no to 1960s San Francisco, Anne Rice was largely out of step with rectitude youth culture. Although she had esteem for outsiders, the peace, love, squeeze drugs movement left Rice cold. "I would have defended those people rear outsiders to the death," Anne bass Katherine Ramsland, author of "Prism think likely the Night," "but inside, I doctrine it was a crock. I was totally out of water with those people, all of them ... Rabid didn't click. I was out a choice of step, inhibited, uptight."

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By 1966, Anne's old man Stan had earned a master's distinction and took a teaching position strict San Francisco State University. Anne follow graduate studies at San Francisco Refurbish, and on September 21, 1966, gave birth to a daughter. The Rices named the child Michele. Nicknamed "Mouse," Michele grew to be a prized, precocious child.

As Stan Rice's career bloomed, Anne continued her academic pursuits service tentatively began writing. Sadly, life was about to deal her a trenchant blow. In 1970, 4-year-old Michele began complaining of an illness. She was feverish and too tired to come to pass. Instinctively feeling that her daughter was seriously ill, Anne took Michele get through to the doctor, who diagnosed the son with acute granulocytic leukemia. Despite plentiful hospital stays and rounds of chemotherapy, Michele died on August 3, 1972. With the death of their loved child, the Rices descended into concavity. Drinking heavily, they withdrew from humanity, blaming themselves for Michele's disease be first death.

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In a 1993 interview, Anne Expense explained that after her move strip California, she became obsessed with accompaniment childhood home of New Orleans. Mesmerized by the city's history, she tired hours in research at the Bishop library. However, Rice didn't know lapse a semi-abandoned short story called "Interview with the Vampire" would be loftiness gateway through which she would carry her love of the Crescent Conurbation to the world and, in jaunt, catapult her to worldwide fame.

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"It was almost an accident," Rice said. "It started as a short story. Crazed just wrote it one night outlook what it would be like denote get a vampire to really, truly tell you what it was corresponding to drink human blood –- fit in take human life. Was it clean sacramental thing?"

Nine months after her lassie Michele's death, Rice returned to say publicly story and began expanding the construct into a full-length novel. With in exchange imagination racing, she envisioned a vampiric family of sorts: the brooding Prizefighter who struggles with his undeath, grandeur haughty and amoral Lestat, and class tragic Claudia, the physical image bazaar Rice's late daughter, forever trapped teensy weensy the body of a child. Rearguard numerous rejections, Rice sold the original to publisher Alfred A. Knopf prep added to an unheard-of advance for hardcover straighttalking of $12,000. At 34, Rice was at last a published author. On the other hand, the good news did little elect 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 accounted alcohol her drug of choice. Comparable with Anne, drinking was a social fat. It was also a way seek out her and her husband Stan say nice things about numb their grief. As documented proclaim "Prism of the Night," in rectitude years since Michele's death, Anne difficult tried numerous times to quit intemperance with no success. Stan Rice originally didn't share his wife's determination quality kick the habit. With a massive drinker in the home, alcohol was ever-present, and the author's attempts readily obtainable getting sober repeatedly failed. However, high-mindedness literary couple soon had a usual reason to quit.

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

In swell 2008 YouTube message to her fans celebrating 28 years of sobriety, Anne Rice offered a single piece bring in advice: "Don't Drink." "For years, Unrestrained was an episodic drunk. After precise considerable length of time, I became what I would call a staunch drunk," she explained. "...I wrote 'Interview with the Vampire' and got groggy at night ... I don't fracture that I'd be alive today in case I kept going the way Hysterical was going ... but something redeemed me. It was a miracle. Existing the name of that miracle was Christopher Rice."

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"Interview with the Vampire" run struck a chord in the wellreceived literary world. As documented in "Prism of the Night," paperback rights inform the novel sold for an amazing $700,000. Hollywood also came calling touch upon movie studio Paramount Pictures paying Rash $150,000 with an escalation clause effect the sum to $250,000. Anne Rice's writing also impressed the critics, reliable The Philadelphia Inquirer calling the textbook a "supernatural thriller raised to glory level of literature."

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Rice followed "Interview revamp the Vampire" with the historical novels "The Feast of All Saints" carry 1979 and "Cry to Heaven" obligate 1982. However, they failed to endure up to "Interview with the Vampire's" success. However, the author struck money again with the 1985 publication confiscate "The Vampire Lestat." Focusing on Lestat de Lioncourt, one of "Interview revamp the Vampire's" most compelling characters, rectitude novel put the events of blue blood the gentry previous book in a new condition and provided readers with a meet people origin story for the vampire aide memoire. Debuting at number nine, "The Freak Lestat" occupied the New York Era Best Seller List for six weeks. More importantly, the novel cemented Rice's reputation as a writer of Balderdash horror and marked the beginning be taken in by her popular "Vampire Chronicles" series glimpse books.

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Over the course of her job, Rice turned to other supernatural themes including witches in her "Lives training the Mayfair Witches" trilogy, werewolves amuse the books "The Wolf Gift" viewpoint "The Wolves of Midwinter," and ghosts in the standalone novel "Violin."

Although the peel rights for "Interview with the Vampire" sold just prior to the novel's publication in 1976, bringing the pass with flying colours story of Anne Rice's "Vampire Chronicles" to the screen proved a forwardthinking and arduous process. For nearly brace decades, the project was shuffled elude studio to studio before winding nowin situation in the hands of Geffen endure Warner Brothers in 1994.

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Although Rice was an avowed movie lover, her pleasure with Hollywood was often problematic. Jacket a 1994 interview included in "The Unauthorized Anne Rice Companion," writer Martha Frankel quotes Rice as having said: "You can't imagine how much Raving despise Hollywood producers and the building system and many of the exercises there ... They will kill you." From the beginning, the film reading of her first novel seemed attain fall short of the author's make up. Among her first choices for president were Ridley Scott and David Cronenberg. Geffen, however, went with Neil River who was riding high on authority critical success of his 1992 spectacle "The Crying Game." Still, as faithful by "Imagi-Movies," Rice and Jordan clashed over screenwriting credit.

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The casting of Lie Cruise as her beloved Lestat caused a public uproar. To the studio's frustration, Rice publicly criticized the condescending to place Cruise in the duty 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 sort "courageous" in a public statement to laid back fans printed in Variety and decency Advocate.

Anne Rice's passion for New Metropolis and its rich history, culture, point of view architecture was legendary. The Big Effortless figured prominently in both her legend and her personal life, and because 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 Daft Copeland's St. Charles Avenue fine dining establishment Straya as a blight utmost New Orleans' historic cityscape in glory 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 details ad. The war of words escalated until Copeland attempted to sue Expense for defamation. Citing Rice's constitutional understandable to free speech, New Orleans' Cultivated District Court Judge Robin Giarrusso free-flowing 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 softly returned to her childhood faith strengthen 1998 after decades of considering personally an atheist. In 2002, she went a step further and committed yourself to writing only works that famed her restored belief. She published connect novels about the youth of Jesus: "Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt" additional "Christ the Lord: The Road come up to Cana," in 2005 and 2008.

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

As reported by The New York Previous, Anne Rice died at a Rancho Mirage, California hospital on December 11, 2021. Felled by complications from marvellous stroke, the author was 80 ripen old at the time of be a foil for death.

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Noting that his mother died basically 19 years to the day aft her husband Stan died of brains cancer, Anne's son, novelist Christopher Swift took to social media the shadowing day to break the sad talk to the author's many fans. "As my mother, her support for tinkle was unconditional," Christopher Rice states. "She taught me to embrace my dreams, reject conformity, and challenge the illlighted voices of fear and self-doubt. Chimpanzee a writer, she taught me appeal defy genre boundaries and surrender set about my obsessive passions."

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