Stephen King
From CreepshowCreeps.com's ''CreepWiki''
Stephen King biography written for CreepshowCreeps.com by Jordy Verrill (John Brandon)
Some call him a genius. Some call him a hack. Whatever one might say about the modern day master of the literary macabre, his influence on young horror writers and filmmakers alike is substantial. Stephen Edwin King was born to Donald and Nellie Ruth in Portland, Maine on a chilly day in September 1947. He has one older brother (David) who lived with he and his mother in an overcrowded house in Durham, Maine. He and his brother were primarily raised by his mother and aunts after his father passed away. Stephen King’s mother worked for the nearby mental hospital as a cook/cleaner for slave wages and implanted the first seed in young Stephen as to the value of an honest day’s work. King to this day maintains the same work ethic and value in perseverence. There are few rags to riches stories filled with more trepidation than King’s. Although, King as a child had always had a love for escaping into the world of books and anything else he could read (inparticularly EC comic books), he never really set his sights higher than that of being an English professor. Stephen King graduated from Lisbon Falls High school in Durham, Maine 1966 and was accepted to the University of Maine at Orono the following year. Some may have looked at King’s long hair and eccentricities and called him a hippie, at one time King was so poor he couldn’t afford shoes and had to wrap garbage bags around his feet to walk around in. However, they couldn’t have been further from the truth. Stephen King in fact was, is, and always will be a true conservative. Not necessarily republican, but conservative. King objected to the Vietnam war on the grounds it wasn’t constitutional to force people to fight a war. King also remained active working on the school paper (naturally), and working various work study jobs around the campus. This is where he met his soon wife to be, Tabitha Spruce, who thought King was crazy when she first met him. She eventually married the crazy man in January of 1971 and is herself a writer. King was kept out of Vietnam due to certain physical ailments and thank goodness for that because it was during the height of the war that King sold his first short story. Although Stephen continued to sell short stories to various horror and even some mainstream publications, the checks were by no means paying the bills. Stephen took refuge as a teacher, caretaker (ala “The Shining”), and even worked for the laundry service for a whopping $10 a week. At one time the King’s were so poor that they would get the phone turned off unless they were expecting a phone call. Stephen sunk into a serious depression and was ready to give up writing altogether after receiving a collection of rejection letters from every publishing company you can name and then some. In fact, he had thrown his original manuscript for his novel “Carrie” in the garbage in disgust of the whole preconceived notion of being a writer. Tabitha took it out of the trash and sent it to DoubleDay publishing. Stephen King’s life was changed over night. And so began the career of the twenty-something century Edgar Allen Poe (who was also called a hack in his time). Stephen King and Tabitha King, along with their new additions to the family moved around Maine and other places for a while before finally settling in Bangor, Maine near where he grew up. Stephen King quickly became the curator of the ‘Danse Macabre’ as we know it with every book receiving higher praise and garnering more wealth and attention for King’s work. Along this time Stephen receives a random phone call (Stephen’s phone is always on now) from a fan named George Romero who wanted to know if he could adapt a short story from ‘Gallery’ magazine into a shooting script. King expressed his admiration for Romero’s directing talent and like sensibility. And “Creepshow” was born. Stephen’s son Joe (who is now also a writer) even had a cameo role in the film as Billy (the kid with the voodoo doll). Stephen King and George A. Romero couldn’t be better suited for the EC comics domain. They both grew up on the original comics and both love to make fun of the scariest things. Along with playing Jordy Verrill in the film, Stephen also had a cameo in Romero’s “Knightriders”. Some other classic filmmakers who have been attracted to King’s work are Tobe Hooper (“Salems' Lot”), John Carpenter (“Christine”), Brian DePalma (“Carrie”), Stanley Kubrick (“The Shining”), Rob Reiner (“Misery”) and Frank Darabont (“The Shawshank Redemption”, “The Green Mile”) just to name a few. I could go through a comprehensive list of King’s work, but we all have CreepshowCreeps.com's "CreepWiki", right kiddies? Besides, its much more fun discovering his work on your own. Stephen King today lives with his wife Tabitha in a Victorian mansion in Center Lovell, Maine. Their three children, Naomi, Joe, and Owen-Philip are all grown up and have children of their own. Stephen King used to play in a band with noted other contemporary pop culture heavyweights (when he finds the time), and loves the Boston Red Sox and the punk group, The Ramones. Stephen King has been the recipient of numerous writing honors and his books remain at the top of the New York Times bestseller list to this day. When asked what he considers a real writer to be, King responded, “Someone writes something. Someone else buys it. They get a check for it. They pay their electric bill.”
