Stephen King

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Stephen King (2007)
signature

Stephen Edwin King (born September 21, 1947 in Portland , Maine ) is an American writer . He also wrote under pseudonyms , in 1972 as John Swithen and between 1977 and 1985 as Richard Bachman . He is best known for his horror novels , which make him one of the most widely read and commercially successful authors today. His books had sold over 400 million copies by 2017 and translated into over 50 languages.

Life

childhood

Stephen King was born on September 21, 1947 in Portland, Maine, to Nellie Ruth Pillsbury and her husband Donald Edwin King. His parents married in 1939. After his father left Stephen King, then two, and his family in 1949, his mother raised him and his brother alone. She could hardly feed her family with odd jobs and changed her place of residence more often.

As a child, King saw the death of a close friend who got caught in a train and was killed. Without any memory of this event, his family later told him that he came home “speechless” and “in shock”. Only later did the family find out about his friend's death. Critics suggest that this inspired King psychologically to create his “darker” works. King does not mention this experience in his book Life and Writing . Another traumatic experience is the death of his grandmother, whom he should have looked after while his mother was away.

Stephen King wrote his first stories at the age of seven. In the cinema he often watched science fiction and fantasy films, which is where his predilection for dark fantasy and horror stories comes from. At the age of 19, he published his story, I Was A Teenage Grave Robber, in Comics Review magazine.

Life before the first success

From 1966 to 1970 King studied English at the University of Maine, where he met Tabitha Spruce . The couple married on January 2, 1971. From 1971 - after completing his studies - he taught English in the city of Hampden , Maine. However, his income was barely enough to support his family, which is why he worked as an ironer in a laundry at night. So he had little free time. He used this to write short stories . Although he occasionally managed to sell a story, he was still a long way from being able to earn a living by writing alone. Before his first success King wrote several novels , but the publishers were not accepted. He revised these early works and later published them under the pseudonym "Richard Bachman".

Commercial win

King's home in Bangor, Maine

King began writing his novel Carrie in a rented trailer . As King revealed in Life and Writing , he thought the Carrie manuscript was bad when he read it and threw it in the trash can. His wife found it there, fished it out, and spurred King to complete the novel. King did, and in 1973 Doubleday publisher accepted the novel. Shortly thereafter, the New American Library acquired the paperback rights for the record sum of $ 400,000. Later he decided to give up the teaching profession and devote himself entirely to writing. His third novel, The Shining , also became a bestseller.

In the years that followed, King published many novels and short story collections with great commercial success. Many of his novels were made into films, for example in 1976 Carrie - Des Satan's youngest daughter by Brian De Palma and in 1980 Shining by Stanley Kubrick . His income is approximately $ 45 million a year.

Drug problems

King had started drinking at an early age and, initially without noticing it, became addicted to alcohol . He later began using other drugs such as stimulants and cocaine . Since 1985 he was not only addicted to alcohol, but also addicted to cocaine. At the insistence of his wife, he went to a rehab clinic in 1987 . Since then he has been attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings regularly - as a dry alcoholic .

The musician

The band " Rock Bottom Remainders ", founded in 1992, consists of writers. Among other things besides King and Matt Groening , Kathi Kamen Goldmark , Amy Tan in chorus , Dave Barry on lead guitar , Ridley Pearson on bass , Mitch Albom on keyboards , Josh Kelley on drums and Erasmo Paolo on saxophone members of the "Rock Bottom Remainders" . The band has given hundreds of concerts since its inception, mostly at fundraisers . However, King - who plays guitar in the band and occasionally sings - is not part of all appearances. Former members of the band are Barbara Kingsolver and Al Kooper .

Pseudonym Richard Bachman

Under his pseudonym Richard Bachman , King has published seven novels so far: Amok (1977), Death March (1979), Sprengstoff (1981), Manhunt (1982) (filmed with Arnold Schwarzenegger under the original title The Running Man ), The Curse (1984) (also filmed under the original title Thinner by Tom Holland , who already directed Langoliers ), Regulator (1996) and Qual (2007).

He initially published the books under the pseudonym in order to inundate the market with King books after the successes of Carrie (1974), Burning Salem (1975) and The Shining (1977) and to see if his lyrics were because of the Name on the envelope or because of their quality. The works under his pseudonym were commercially successful; However, after it became known that King was responsible for these works, sales exploded here too.

The bookseller Stephen Brown had taken a closer look at the four previous Bachman books after reading the fifth Bachman novel The Curse . It is due to an oversight by the NAL publishing house that he came across the name "Stephen King" in the copyright documents for Amok . The remaining novels were all registered in the name of "Richard Bachman".

On February 9, 1985, the Bangor Daily News published the news under the headline: "Five King Novels Made a Mystery by a Pseudonym". A short time later, all Bachman books were found in the bestseller lists. The novel Der Fluch alone , which was commercially successful with a print run of 28,000 copies, increased tenfold (280,000 copies sold).

After it became known who was hiding behind the pseudonym, King Richard Bachman let the public die of "pseudonym cancer". In 1996, however, he surprisingly revived Richard Bachman and published two novels about the monster TAK from different perspectives. The king version of the novel was published under the title Desperation , the Bachman version - in the foreword it is noted that the novel is a lost manuscript that the "widow" Bachman found in his estate - under the title Regulator . As with The Green Mile , he was accused of wanting to make more money from the way it was published.

With Regulator , King succeeded in building on the linguistic style of his first four Bachman novels, all of which were written before Carrie and linguistically differed considerably from the style of King's later works. After the pseudonym was exposed, these four novels were published as an anthology under the original title Stephen King: The Bachman Books: Four Early Novels in 1985.

In the third novel of the Castle Rock cycle , Stark - The Dark Half , King addressed the discovery of his own pseudonym and gave the novel a strong autobiographical color. Just like him, the writer Thaddeus Beaumont fared in the novel (commercial success through exposure of the pseudonym) - in the novel, however, the pseudonym and the writer have swapped roles.

Pseudonym John Swithen

King used the pseudonym "John Swithen" only once, for the publication of the short story The Fifth Quarter in April 1972 in the US men's magazine Cavalier . Years later, the story was republished under its real name in the Nightmares short story book and was filmed in the Nightmares & Dreamscapes: Based on the Stories of Stephen King series.

Cooperation with Peter Straub

Together with Peter Straub , King wrote the book Der Talisman , published in 1984 . Steven Spielberg has secured the filming rights for his production company " DreamWorks " for the book, in which the protagonist has to travel across America and through a parallel world to find a talisman . In 2001 the sequel to the talisman was published under the title The Black House .

Problems with fans

In 1991, King ran into problems with Anne Hiltner, who accused him of plagiarism , and Eric Keene, who broke into his house and threatened his wife Tabitha . Especially in Love , he processed his fear of overzealous fans.

Serious car accident

On June 19, 1999, King was struck by a minibus and seriously injured while walking along the roadside of Maine State Route 5 in Lovell . The driver was drunk and said he had been "distracted by his dog". He later publicly apologized for the accident he had caused. King was in a hospital for three weeks and was first falsely pronounced dead by a local newspaper.

While recovering from the consequences of the accident, King wrote the novel Duddits ("Dreamcatcher"). Because the frames on his legs made it impossible for him to sit at a table and use the typewriter, he wrote the entire novel by hand. The car accident is a central part of the seventh volume in the series The Dark Tower .

Social media

Stephen King is very active on social media . On Twitter in particular , King was able to gain a large following. As of February 2020, King had 5.7 million followers on the short message service. In addition to book recommendations, which King makes on Twitter, he regularly expresses himself on topics of US politics. He appears as a staunch opponent of US President Donald Trump . On February 1, 2020, King announced his retirement from Facebook on Twitter . The reason King stated was that he did not feel safe or well informed on the social network.

family

King is married to fellow author Tabitha King . The couple have three children, writers Owen Philip King and Joseph Hillstrom King (who writes under the pseudonym Joe Hill ) and Naomi Rachel King, pastor of the Unitarian Universalist Association .

plant

In total, King has published over 50 novels, more than 100 short stories, numerous novels and several scripts . There are also poems , essays , columns and non-fiction books. He also runs his own publishing house called Philtrum Press .

Most of the short stories translated into German are collected in Night Shift , Im Dawn , The Song of the Dead , The Fornit , Nightmares , Bazaar of Bad Dreams and In the Cabinet of Death . The novellas can be found in Spring, Summer, Autumn and Death , Langoliers and Night . Several have been republished in the special edition The Secretary of Dreams . The People, Places and Things collection remained unpublished.

Novels

King's stories are often about average people who are drawn into horrific and mostly supernatural experiences. King is a connoisseur of the horror genre; with Danse Macabre he has produced a non-fiction book that outlines the development of horror literature and horror films. In another non-fiction book called Life and Writing , he gives insights into his preferred stylistic devices and approaches to writing literary works . The book also includes accounts of the circumstances under which some of his novels were written.

In addition to his horror novels, King also wrote works that contain little or no supernatural elements, e.g. B. the novellas Pin-up and The Corpse from Spring, Summer, Autumn and Death . The films The Condemned and Stand by Me - The Secret of a Summer were nominated for several Academy Awards.

One of the basic motifs in King's horror novels is that the horror he portrays is hidden behind largely trivial and everyday things. Cars, clowns, police officers, St. Bernard dogs, shopkeepers or an invented pseudonym are the vehicles that bring horror into a mostly suburban and sleepy world. His modernity as an author of horror stories lies in the fact that the “horror” not only breaks in from the outside into a seemingly ideal world of figures of integrity, but also lives in the psyche of the people involved.

In Shining , for example , where the first 150 pages or so little or no mention of supernatural events, but of alcoholism, marital problems, violence in the family, the fear of the academically educated ex-college lecturer Jack Torrance of social decline, his lust the self-destruction, his futile attempts to tie in with the first hopeful attempts as a young author. The "Overlook Hotel" may be an ominous place, but only the inner disposition of the Torrance family , the helplessness of Jack as the "head of the family" to find a solution to his problems, his latent madness that breaks out completely in the seclusion of the snowy Rocky Mountains , opens the door to demons and undead. Jack Torrance surrenders himself, his wife Wendy and their son Danny (called "Doc") to the evil spirits because he doesn't know where else to go and because he is afraid of life outside the "Overlook Hotel".

The dark tower

The dark fantasy saga includes eight volumes: Black , Three , Dead , Glass , Wolf Moon , Susannah , The Tower and Wind . The story of the gunslinger ( Gunslinger ) Roland , which is sent through different worlds, represents a fusion of various times, places and stories and was originally with the last Chapter The tower completed of 2004. In 2012 the book Wind was published , which is located chronologically between the fourth and fifth novel.

How many of King's other novels actually contain subplots of the Dark Tower cycle is controversial. The following novels and short stories are at least directly related to the cycle: Burning Must Salem , The Last Battle , The Dragon Eyes , Atlantis , Insomniac , The Image , Desperation , Regulator , Sara , In the Cabinet of Death , Blood , The Talisman , The Buick , The Black House and The Stop .

Since February 2007, appears in the US monthly comic book series The Gunslinger Born is involved but not directly to the King. An anthology in German was published in June 2008.

In 2017, the Dark Tower, a movie based on the book series, was released. King himself was involved in this production as a producer.

Internet publications

In 2000, King caused a stir in another way when he posted his short story Riding the Bullet for download on the Internet. Although more than 700,000 readers took advantage of it and he still got the title of Time magazine , he complained in the foreword to the short story collection In the Cabinet of Death that many people were only interested in the way this story was published, interested, but not in the story itself. Despite the criticism he expressed, a second book was published on the Internet after Riding the Bullet , The Plant . In February 2009 he published the short story Ur , which could only be purchased as an e-book from Amazon USA , but appeared in the short story volume Basar of Bad Dreams in November 2015 .

Own readings

Movies

King also worked as a director : in 1986 he filmed his short story Trucks under the title Rhea M - It began without warning (OT: Maximum Overdrive ) with rather moderate success. For this directorial achievement he was nominated for the Golden Raspberry as worst director. He wrote a script for the music video Ghosts of Michael Jackson . Out of dissatisfaction with the filming of Shining by Stanley Kubrick in 1980, he wrote the script for a remake, which was shown on television as a three-part series.

Several times he played in supporting roles, see King as an actor .

About his work

characters

A large number of protagonists in King's works are writers or have literary inclinations; despite their leading roles, they are often controversial characters who are usually not positively assigned or who suddenly find themselves in a victim role due to external and internal circumstances. Among the best-known representatives of these works are certainly the novella The secret window, the secret garden ( Secret Window, Secret Garden ) and you ( Misery ). It remains unclear whether it is a critical self-view or portraits of colleagues. Similar to many novels of narrative modernism, his predominantly male characters are often “mean heroes” with ambivalent character traits, full of internal conflicts and contradictions.

Inner covers

King's work has many internal references, duplications, nodes and parallels that make his work complex and fascinating beyond individual books (see also: The world of Stephen King or the Castle Rock cycle ). Most of his stories take place in the US state of Maine.

A big theme in King's overall world is The Dark Tower . In addition to the gunslinger Roland and his friends, Jack Sawyer (in the book The Black House ) and Ralph Roberts (in Schlaflos ) must intervene and save the world or the Dark Tower.

There are also a number of other relationships outside of the Dark Tower, for example the fictional city of Derry appears in several stories, such as Insomnia , Es , The Monstrous , Sara , Duddits and The Attack . The main figure Mother Abagail from King's novel The Stand - The Last Stand has the premonition called "Shining" from the book of the same name.

While some of the parallels in some books are intended to be more of a gag, King also processed circumstances of our real world in several of his books. His pseudonym "Richard Bachman" probably gave him the idea of writing Stark - The Dark Half , in which the successful writer Thad Beaumont struggles with his alter ego George Stark , which has become real .

Influences from other writers

The poem Mr. Roland Came To The Dark Tower ( Childe Roland To The Dark Tower Came ) by Robert Browning served King as a loose template for the "Dark Tower". Likewise is Edgar Allan Poe with his story The Masque of the Red Death by him in The Shining is mentioned to single out. The figure of the American with the low voice, William Wilson , in The Dark Tower is also a reminiscence of Poe . The incarnation of evil in the cuddly toy cemetery is based on the story The Wendigo by Algernon Blackwood . In his short stories Letters from Jerusalem and Crouch End in particular , King takes up segments of the myth of the demonic "old men" created by HP Lovecraft . In general, he includes quotes and literary texts from other author colleagues in many of his books . In a certain way he can be described not “only” as a genre author, but as a pop writer in the sense that he has countless elements from trivial myths, themes and texts from popular films, rock music, from the English and American “horror stories” “From the late 18th, 19th and 20th centuries and reassembled them with virtuosity. Giant spiders, vampires, trivialized Indian myths, zombies and other nightmares attack the US middle class.

Influence on horror literature

King's talent as a storyteller is crucial to contemporary horror literature. However, it is controversial among critics. Sunand T. Joshi criticizes that his style is too lengthy and that he is not in a position to frighten his readers in an original way.

Works about King

There are many biographies about King such as: B. The ambitious The Complete Stephen King Encyclopedia by Stephen J. Spignesi or some works by fellow authors George Beahm and Michael R. Collings . Among the German-language publications is the book by Uwe Anton Who is afraid of Stephen King? to mention.

bibliography

Translated into German

Published under the pen name 'Richard Bachman'

Not in German or not yet published in any collection (selection)

  • 1970: Slade (short story and western parody)
  • 1994: Mid-Life Confidential ( Rock Bottom Remainders )
  • 2000: Secret Windows (collection of essays and short stories)
  • 2000: The Plant (serialized novel, unfinished)
  • 2004: Faithful - Two Diehard Boston Red Sox Fans Chronicle the Historic 2004 Season (with Stewart O'Nan )
  • 2006: The Secretary of Dreams - Volume One (Illustrated Special Edition)

Unpublished works (selection)

German audio books

Most of King's works were recorded by voice actors David Nathan and Joachim Kerzel . Other speakers included Klaus Guth ( Schwarz ), Franziska Pigulla ( Carrie ), Jürgen Kluckert ( Salem has to burn and night shifts, together with Joachim Kerzel and Uli Krohm ) and Dietmar Wunder ( Shining ).

Film adaptations

Movies

year title Director main actor
1976 Carrie: Satan's Youngest Daughter
Sequel: Carrie 2 (1999) 		Brian De Palma Sissy Spacek , Piper Laurie , Amy Irving , Nancy Allen , William Katt , John Travolta
1979 Salem Must Burn
Sequel: Salem 2: The Return (1987) 		Tobe Hooper David Soul , Bonnie Bedelia , James Mason , Reggie Nalder
1980 Shining Stanley Kubrick Jack Nicholson , Shelley Duvall , Danny Lloyd , Scatman Crothers
1982 The Weird Witching Hour
Sequels: Creepshow 2 (1987), Creepshow 3 (2006) 		George A. Romero Hal Holbrook , Adrienne Barbeau , Fritz Weaver , Leslie Nielsen , Ed Harris , Ted Danson , Stephen King
1983 Dead Zone - the assassin David Cronenberg Christopher Walken , Martin Sheen
1983 Cujo Lewis Teague Dee Wallace-Stone
1983 Christine John Carpenter Keith Gordon , Harry Dean Stanton
1984 Kinder des Zorns (from night shift )
sequels: Part 2 (1993), Part 3 (1995), Part 4 (1996), Part 5 (1998), Part 6 (1999), Part 7 (2001), Remake (2009) part 8 (2011) 		Fritz Kiersch Linda Hamilton
1984 The Firestarter
sequel: Firestarter 2: Rekindled (2002) 		Mark L. Lester Drew Barrymore , David Keith , Heather Locklear , Martin Sheen , George C. Scott
1985 Cat's eye Lewis Teague Drew Barrymore , James Woods , Robert Hays , Kenneth McMillan
1985 Werewolf from Tarker Mills Daniel Attias Gary Busey , Corey Haim
1986 Stand by Me - The secret of a summer Rob Reiner River Phoenix , Wil Wheaton , Kiefer Sutherland , Jerry O'Connell , Corey Feldman , John Cusack
1986 Rhea M - It started without warning Stephen King Emilio Estevez
1987 Running man Paul Michael Glaser Arnold Schwarzenegger , María Conchita Alonso , Richard Dawson
1989 Cemetery of the Stuffed Animals
Continuation: Cemetery of the Stuffed Animals II (1992) 		Mary Lambert Dale Midkiff , Denise Crosby , Fred Gwynne
1990 It Tommy Lee Wallace Richard Thomas , Jonathan Brandis , Annette O'Toole , Tim Curry
1990 Stories from the world of shadows / Tales From The Darkside George A. Romero Deborah Harry
1990 Night shift Ralph S. Singleton David Andrews , Brad Dourif
1990 Misery Rob Reiner Kathy Bates , James Caan
1991 Sometimes they come back
sequels: Part 2 (1996), Part 3 (1999) 		Tom McLoughlin Tim Matheson
1991 Golden Years Kenneth Fink, Allen Coulter , Michael Gornick, Stephen Tolkin Keith Szarabajka, Felicity Huffman
1992 The Lawnmower Man
sequel: The Lawnmower Man 2 (1996) 		Brett Leonard Jeff Fahey , Pierce Brosnan
1992 Stephen King's sleepwalker Mick Garris Brian Krause , Alice Krige , Girl Amick
1993 Tommyknockers - The monster John Power Jimmy Smits , Marg Helgenberger
1993 In a small town Fraser Clarke Heston Ed Harris , Bonnie Bedelia , Max von Sydow
1993 Stephen King's Strong George A. Romero Timothy Hutton , Michael Rooker
1994 The Stand - The last stand Mick Garris Gary Sinise , Molly Ringwald , Rob Lowe
1994 The condemned Frank Darabont Tim Robbins , Morgan Freeman
1995 Langoliers - lost in the time hole Tom Holland Dean Stockwell , David Morse
1995 The Mangler
sequels: The Mangler 2 (2001), The Mangler Reborn (2005) 		Tobe Hooper Ted Levine , Vanessa Pike , Robert Englund
1995 Dolores Taylor Hackford Kathy Bates , Jennifer Jason Leigh
1996 Thinner - The Curse Tom Holland Robert John Burke , Lucinda Jenney , Michael Constantine
1997 The Shining Mick Garris Steven Weber , Rebecca De Mornay , Melvin Van Peebles , Pat Hingle
1997 Quicksilver Highway Mick Garris Christopher Lloyd
1997 The Night Flier Mark Pavia Miguel Ferrer , Julie Entwisle , Michael H. Moss
1997 Trucks - Out of Control (Remake) Chris Thomson Timothy Busfield , Brenda Bakke
1998 The model student Bryan Singer Ian McKellen , Brad Renfro
1998 The X-Files - The Scary Cases of the FBI S5.10 A Game (US: S5.E10 Chinga ) Kim Manners Gillian Anderson , David Duchovny
1999 The storm of the century Craig R. Baxley Timothy Daly
1999 The Green Mile Frank Darabont Tom Hanks , David Morse , Michael Clarke Duncan
2001 Hearts in Atlantis Scott Hicks Anthony Hopkins , Hope Davis , Anton Yelchin , Mika Boorem
2001 House of Damnation
Prequel : The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer (2003) 		Craig R. Baxley Nancy Travis
2002 Carrie (remake) David Carson Angela Bettis , Patricia Clarkson , Kandyse McClure
2003 Dreamcatcher Lawrence Kasdan Morgan Freeman , Thomas Jane , Tom Sizemore
2004 The secret window David Koepp Johnny Depp , John Turturro
2004 Salem's Lot - Salem Must Burn (Remake) Mikael Salomon Rob Lowe , Donald Sutherland , Samantha Mathis , James Cromwell , Rutger Hauer
2004 Riding the Bullet Mick Garris Jonathan Jackson , David Arquette
2004 Kingdom Hospital (Miniseries) Craig R. Baxley Andrew McCarthy , Bruce Davison , Jodelle Ferland , Diane Ladd
2006 Desperation Mick Garris Ron Perlman
2006 Nightmares & Dreamscapes: Based on the Stories by Stephen King Brian Hanson William Hurt , William H. Macy , Tom Berenger
2007 Room 1408 based on a short story from In the Cabinet of Death Mikael Håfström John Cusack , Samuel L. Jackson
2008 The fog based on a novella from Im Dawn Frank Darabont Thomas Jane , Jeffrey DeMunn
2009 Dolan's Cadillac based on a short story from Nightmares Jeff Beesley Christian Slater , Emmanuelle Vaugier , Wes Bentley
2009 Stephen King's Children of Wrath (Remake) Donald P. Borchers Daniel Newman , David Anders , Kandyse McClure
2011 Bag of Bones Mick Garris Pierce Brosnan , Annabeth Gish , Melissa George
2013 Carrie (2nd remake) Kimberly Peirce Chloë Grace Moretz , Judy Greer , Portia Doubleday , Julianne Moore
2014 A good marriage Peter Askin Joan Allen , Anthony LaPaglia , Stephen Lang , Cara Buono , Kristen Connolly
2014 Big Driver , based on a novel from Between Night and Dark Mikael Salomon Maria Bello , Ann Dowd , Will Harris
2016 Pulse Death Williams John Cusack , Samuel L. Jackson
2017 The dark tower Nikolaj Arcel Idris Elba , Matthew McConaughey
2017 It Andrés Muschietti Bill Skarsgård , Finn Wolfhard
2017 The game Mike Flanagan Carla Gugino , Bruce Greenwood |
2017 1922 , based on a novella from Between Night and Dark Zak Hilditch Thomas Jane , Molly Parker
2019 Cemetery of the Stuffed Animals (Remake) Kevin Koelsch, Dennis Widmyer Jason Clarke , John Lithgow
2019 It - Chapter 2 Andrés Muschietti James McAvoy , Bill Skarsgård , Jessica Chastain , Bill Hader , Jay Ryan
2019 In the tall grass Vincenzo Natali Patrick Wilson , Laysla de Oliveira , Willie Bui Jr. , Avery Whitted , Harrison Gilbertson
2019 Doctor Sleeps awakening Mike Flanagan Ewan McGregor , Rebecca Ferguson , Kyliegh Curran , Cliff Curtis

Series

After the first, more or less successful film adaptation of King's novel Das Assentat ( Dead Zone ) with Christopher Walken and Martin Sheen in the title roles was made in 1983 , a concept was worked out to transform the political episodic novel into a television series . In addition to the former Star Trek producer Michael Piller , King himself also played a key role in establishing the basics and writing some of the scripts for the respective episodes himself. Dead Zone first aired in the USA in summer 2002 and in Germany on August 31, 2005. Since then, the series has held up and has attracted a large number of fans, but production was discontinued after the 6th season in late 2007.

In 2006 it was decided to shoot a miniseries based on short stories by King. The series was named Nightmares & Dreamscapes: After the Stories of Stephen King . The model for this was provided by his collection of short stories, Nightmares , the original title of which was also Nightmares & Dreamscapes . For the main roles of the respective episodes, the makers often won famous actors such as William Hurt and William H. Macy .

From June 2013 to September 2015, CBS broadcast the science fiction series Under the Dome based on King's novel Die Arena . Sometimes it differs considerably from the book, some characters have been written out, while a few new ones have been added and the backgrounds have been adjusted a bit. The ending was also different from the one in the book. The series, initially conceived as a miniseries, was extended by a second and third season due to the continued great success in the USA. The German-language first broadcast took place on September 4, 2013 on ProSieben and ORF eins .

The series Haven , which is loosely based on the novel Colorado Kid , and set in the US state of Maine, was shown in the US from 2010 to 2015.

From April to May 2016, the eight-part miniseries 11.22.63 - The attack, based on the novel The Attack , with James Franco in the lead role, was broadcast in Germany.

In 2017 the series Der Nebel was published. It is based on the short story of the same name from the collection Im Dawn . In August 2017, Mr. Mercedes began broadcasting , based on the 2014 novel. In 2020 the series The Outsider was broadcast.

King as a performer

King has made a few cameos in films based on his works. A selection:

  • He has a longer appearance in the episode film Creepshow - The uncanny crazy witching hour (1982), where he mimes the character of the simple-minded farmer Jordy Verrill .
  • In the 1986 film Rhea M , he appears as someone who is being verbally abused by an ATM.
  • In the sequel to Creepshow , Creepshow 2 (1987), he played a truck driver.
  • In Pet Sematary ( Cemetery of the Stuffed Animals , 1989) he could be seen in a short speaking role as a pastor at a funeral.
  • In Misery (1990) he plays a small role as a TV reporter.
  • In the movie Sleepwalkers (1992) he appears as a cemetery guard.
  • In The Stand (1994) he plays the role of Teddy Weizak , who dies in the book but survives in the film.
  • In Langoliers - Die Zeitfresser (1995) he can be seen in the role of Tom Holby .
  • In Thinner (1996) he plays the pharmacist Bangor .
  • in Shining (1997) he made a brief appearance as the conductor of the ghost band.
  • In Stephen King's House of Doom (2002), he played a small role as a pizza delivery boy.
  • In the miniseries Kingdom Hospital (2004) he appears in the last episode as a caretaker, he can also be seen in a commercial as a lawyer.
  • In the first episode of the second season of Under the Dome (2014) he appears as a guest in a café.
  • In Es Chapter 2 (2019) he appears as a second-hand shop owner.

He also had a guest role with the Simpsons . In it he tells Marge that in the future he would only concentrate on writing children's books, "where spiders crawl out of the eyes". He is friends with the Simpsons creator Matt Groening . He last appeared in 2010 in the episode Caregiver of the television series Sons of Anarchy in the role of the cleaner Bachman .

Honors and prizes

  • 1980: World Fantasy Award in the Convention Award category
  • 1981: British Fantasy Award special prize
  • 1981: Best Book for young adults for the novel Feuerkind , selected by the American Library Association
  • 1981: Alumni Career Award from the University of Maine at Orono
  • 1982: Best Fiction Writer of the Year selected by Us Magazine
  • 1982: Hugo Award and Locus Award each in the Best Non Fiction / Related / Reference Book category for the book Danse Macabre
  • 1982: British Fantasy Award for Best Novel for Cujo
  • 1983: British Fantasy Award for Best Short Story for The Breathing Method
  • 1986: Golden Pen Award selected by the Young Adult Advisory Committee of the Spokane Public Library
  • 1986: Locus Award in the Collection category for the short story collection Blood ( Skeleton Crew )
  • 1987: British Fantasy Award for Best Novel for Es
  • 1987: Bram Stoker Award in the Best Novel category for the novel Sie
  • 1990: Bram Stoker Award in the Best Collection category for the collection of novels Four Past Midnight (in Germany only available in two volumes under the titles: Nachts und Langoliers )
  • 1994: O. Henry Award in the Best American Short Story category and World Fantasy Award in the Best Short Fiction category each for the story The Man in the Black Suit (published in the 1,100-limited edition of Six Stories , later in the collection Everything's Eventual , German In the Cabinet of Death )
  • 1995: Bram Stoker Award in the Best Short Story category for the short story Lunch at Gotham Cafe (first published in Six Stories , later in Blood & Smoke (audio book) and In the Cabinet of Death )
  • 1995: World Fantasy Award for Best Short Story for The Man in the Black Suit
  • 1996: Bram Stoker Award for Best Horror Novel and 9th. Annual Collectors Award in the category collectibles single issue for The Green Mile
  • 1997: Locus Award in the Best Horror Novel category for the novel Desperation
  • 1999: Bram Stoker Award and Locus Award each in the category Best Horror Novel for the novel Sara ( Bag of Bones )
  • 1999: British Fantasy Award in the August Derleth Award (Novel) category for the novel Sara ( Bag of Bones )
  • 2001: Locus Award in the Best Non Fiction / Related / Reference Book category for the book Life and Writing
  • 2003: National Book Foundation's Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters
  • 2003: Deutscher Phantastik Prize of the visitors of the website 'Phantastik-News' in the category Best Novel / International for his book together with Peter Straub The Black House . He was also voted 3rd in the International Author of the Year 2003 category (behind Joanne K. Rowling and JRR Tolkien )
  • 2004: Several prizes and nominations at the awarding of the German Fantastic Prize : Category Series / Series for the series Der Dunkle Turm , Category Author of the Year International , Category Internet Site National , Category Internet Site International , Category Roman International 2nd place for Wolf moon behind Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix , category honor award 2nd place, category film 4th place for dreamcatcher behind Lord of the Rings , Pirates of the Caribbean and Finding Nemo , World Fantasy Award for his life's work
  • 2004: British Fantasy Award in the August Derleth Award (Novel) category for the novel The Tower
  • 2005: Deutscher Phantastik Preis in the Roman International category for The Dark Tower and 2nd place in the National Internet Site category
  • 2011: Bram Stoker Award in the Superior Achievement in Short Fiction category for the short story Herman Wouk Is Still Alive
  • 2011: British Fantasy Award for Between Night and Dark in the Best Collection category
  • 2012: International Thriller Award in the Best Novel category for 11/22/63
  • 2013: Vincent Prize in the category Best International Literature for Dr. Sleep
  • 2014: National Medal of Arts of the American Congress
  • 2015: Edgar Allan Poe Award in the Best Novel category for Mr. Mercedes
  • 2016: Edgar Allan Poe Award in the Best Short Story category for Bazaar of Bad Dreams

The Medal of Distinguished Contribution to American Letters , with which King was honored for his life's work at the National Book Award 2003, met with some fierce criticism. As the literary critic and Yale professor Harold Bloom wrote :

"The decision to give the National Book Foundation's annual award for" distinguished contribution "to Stephen King is extraordinary, another low in the shocking process of dumbing down our cultural life. […] [King] shares nothing with Edgar Allan Poe . He is an immensely inadequate writer on a sentence-by-sentence, paragraph-by-paragraph, book-by-book basis. "

“The decision to give Stephen King the National Book Foundation's annual “ Outstanding Contribution ” award is an extraordinary one, another low point in the outrageous process of dulling our cultural life. […] [King] has nothing in common with Edgar Allan Poe. He is an extremely incompetent writer, sentence by sentence, paragraph by paragraph and book by book. "

Richard Snyder, former CEO of Simon & Schuster, said: “He sells a lot of books. But is it literature? No. "These assessments were also clearly contradicted, wrote Orson Scott Card , that the criticism made of King was only an expression of uninformed academic conceit and went on:" King will be remembered when all the authors are forgotten, those of so valued by those who put him down today. It will be King who will convey to our grandchildren what America was like today. ”And he further pointed out that the classics valued today were just as disregarded and belittled by contemporary literary criticism as King is today. In particular, the most important works of Poe can be assigned to the genres that were quite disreputable at the time, but Poe has now been dead long enough that the “stench of popularity” has evaporated.

Trivia

King is an avowed baseball fan, especially the Boston Red Sox . He has had two season tickets for himself and his wife directly behind home plate in Fenway Park since the 1980s . In 2004 he wrote with Stewart O'Nan the book Faithful - Two Diehard Boston Red Sox Fans Chronicle the Historic 2004 Season , which the MLB season review will be treated in 2004, in which the Boston Red Sox the World Series against the St. Louis Cardinals won . The novella Blockade Billy (2010) is about a fictional catcher of the New Jersey Titans. The novel The Outsider (2018) is about the fictional baseball coach Terry Maitland .

The German musician Thees Uhlmann composed the song Thank You for Fear as a musical homage to the writer Stephen King , which is included on the album Junkies und Scientologists , which was released on September 20, 2019 . In a video interview with the German Press Agency , musician Thees Uhlmann stated: “The best three books by him will survive the times. There are so many beautiful thoughts in it - liberality, the idea of ​​friendship. Friendship is one of my highest values, and that has its foundation in Kings Stand By Me . ”In a post on his official Facebook page on September 21, 2019, Uhlmann also described:“ The first reason I wrote a song about Stephen King is that I want him to finally get a Nobel Prize . "

literature

Web links

Wikiquote: Stephen King  - Quotes
Commons : Stephen King  - Collection of Images

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Stephen King - Random House Publishing Group. Retrieved January 24, 2017 .
  2. ↑ Stephen King: Mind Control (=  Bill Hodges . No. 3 ). 1st edition. Heyne, Munich 2016, ISBN 978-3-453-27086-2 , pp. Cover .
  3. ↑ George Beahm: The Stephen King Story: A Literary Profile . Ed .: Andrews and McMeel. 1991, ISBN 0-8362-7989-1 , pp. 101 .
  4. ↑ Stephen King: On Writing. Scribner, 2000, ISBN 0-684-85352-3 .
  5. ↑ George Beahm: Stephen King from A to Z: An Encyclopedia of His Life and Work . Ed .: Andrews and McMeel Publishing. 1998, ISBN 0-8362-6914-4 , pp. 86 .
  6. ^ Mirror conversation . In: Der Spiegel . No. 4/2012 , January 23, 2012, p. 120 f .
  7. ^ History of the Rock Bottom Remainders. June 5, 2016, accessed January 3, 2017 .
  8. ^ Alison Flood: Stephen King quits Facebook over false claims in political ads . In: The Guardian . February 3, 2020, ISSN  0261-3077 ( theguardian.com [accessed February 21, 2020]).
  9. ^ Susan Dominus: Stephen King's Family Business. New York Times Magazine, July 31, 2013, accessed January 3, 2017 .
  10. ↑ Uwe Anton: Who is afraid of Stephen King? Hannibal, 2010, ISBN 978-3-85445-318-5 .
  11. ↑ IMDB: Under the Dome: Season 2, Episode 1: Heads Will Roll. Retrieved January 3, 2017 .
  12. ↑ Dumbing down American readers , article by Harold Bloom, September 24, 2003, Boston Globe , accessed September 17, 2019.
  13. ^ "He sells a lot of books. But is it literature? No. “Quoted from Orson Scott Cards' blog post of September 21, 2003 , accessed September 17, 2019.
  14. ^ "King will be remembered when all the writers favored by his disparagers are forgotten. It is King who will teach our grandchildren what America was in our time. ”Orson Scott Cards blog post, September 21, 2003 , accessed September 17, 2019.
  15. ↑ Red Sox fanatic Stephen King upset Fenway Park seats now behind netting . In: NJ.com . ( nj.com [accessed October 21, 2018]).
  16. ↑ Music: Thees Uhlmann wishes Stephen King the Nobel Prize from dpa on the website of the German news magazine Focus , www.focus.de ( Focus ), September 17, 2019
  17. ↑ Official Facebook page of musician Thees Uhlmann (@theesuhlmannmusik), www.facebook.de ( Facebook ), September 21, 2019 at 5:34 pm
Stephen King's works
Novels

Must Burn Salem • Carrie • Christine • Colorado Kid • Cujo • The Picture • The Buick • The Girl • The Monster - Tommyknockers • The Black House • The Game • Dead Zone - The Assassination • The Talisman • Desperation • The Arena • The Eyes dragon • Dolores • Dreamcatcher • It • Firestarter • Pet Sematary • Love • Needful Things - In a small town • pulse • Sara • Sleepless • Shining • you • Stark - the Dark Half • the Green Mile • the stand - the last Skirmish • Madness • The Dark Tower (Novels) • Black • Three • Dead • Glass • Wolf Moon • Susannah • The Tower • The Attack • Wind • Joyland • Doctor Sleep • Mr. Mercedes • Revival • Finder's Reward • Mind Control • Sleeping Beauties • The Outsider • The Institute

Bachman books

Amok • The Curse • Manhunt • Agony • Regulator • Explosives • Death March

Stories and
collections

Nightmares • Atlantis • The fornite • The song of the dead • Spring, summer, autumn and death • In the cabinet of death • At dawn • Langoliers • At night • Night shift • Sunset • Between night and dark • Bazaar of bad dreams

Other publications

Danse Macabre • The Life and Writing • The Storm of the Century • The Year of the Werewolf

personal data
SURNAME King, Stephen
ALTERNATIVE NAMES King, Stephen Edwin (full name); Bachman, Richard (pseudonym); Swithen, John (pseudonym)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American writer
DATE OF BIRTH September 21, 1947
PLACE OF BIRTH Portland , Maine , United States