“Thank you…for gracing my life with your lovely presence, for adding the sweet measure of your soul to my existence.” 
― Richard Matheson, What Dreams May Come

Richard Matheson was born in 1926 in Brooklyn. As a youngster, he claims to have desired to be a composer or writer. After realizing that composing would be too hard, he set out to be a writer. His first published work was “Born of Man and Woman” in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction in 1950.

Matheson has been called “one of the most important writers of the 20th century” by Ray Bradbury, and his work has inspired many other notable authors. Stephen King cites Matheson as “the author who influenced me most as a writer,” and Dean Koontz says, “We’re all a lot richer to have Richard Matheson among us.” His work had had a tremendous  impact on the popular consciousness, and if  if you’ve never heard of him, you’ve almost certainly seen his work.

In addition to novels in the mystery, science fiction, horror, fantasy, and western genres, Matheson has been a prolific writer of film and television scripts. He wrote the script for episodes of The Twilight Zone,including “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet” (where William Shatner sees a gremlin on the wing of the plane …), “The Invaders,” and “Little Girl Lost.” He also wrote episodes of Have Gun, Will Travel, Night Gallery, and Star Trek (among them “The Enemy Within,” in which Kirk is split into good and evil halves).

Several of Matheson’s novels and stories have been made into films, including The Shrinking Man (1957), I Am Legend (1964 & 1971), and Bid Time Return (filmed as “Somewhere in Time” starring Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour in 1980). Matheson also wrote the scripts for Stephen Spielberg’s first feature film, Duel (1971); the TV-movie The Night Stalker, which drew a record 75 million viewers on its first broadcast; and several of Roger Corman’s Edgar Allan Poe films, including House of Usher (1960), The Pit and the Pendulum (1961), and The Raven (1963).

While writing in five decades, Matheson has won numerable awards over his career, including the World Fantasy Convention’s Life Achievement Award, the Bram Stoker Award for Life Achievement, the Hugo Award, the Edgar Allan Poe Award, the Golden Spur Award, and the Writer’s Guild Award. In 1984, Matheson was presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award by the World Fantasy Convention.

RIP, June 23rd, 2013