Ray Russell (writer)

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Raymond Robert Russell (born September 4, 1924 in Chicago , Illinois ; died March 15, 1999 in Los Angeles , California ) was an American writer, novelist, short story writer, and screenplay writer, Playboy editor and anthology editor . He is best known for his horror stories , but also wrote science fiction and crime novels .

Life

Russell served in the U.S. Air Force in the South Pacific during World War II . After the end of the war he studied music at the Chicago Conservatory of Music from 1947 to 1948 and at the Goodman Memorial Institute from 1949 to 1951 . From 1954 he worked as an editor and publisher at Playboy . It is thanks to his influence in the early years of Playboy that numerous recognized authors published here and that science fiction and horror played an important role in it. He discovered Charles Beaumont and stories by Robert Bloch , Ray Bradbury , Fredric Brown , Jack Finney , Richard Matheson , Frederik Pohl , Henry Slesar and Kurt Vonnegut appeared here ( Welcome to the Monkey House first appeared here). Russell has also edited several Playboy anthologies in the SF and horror genres.

As an author, Russell is best known for his horror stories, in which cruelty and sexuality with sadistic tones often play an essential role. They were published in 1961 as Sardonicus and Other Stories , with the cover story Sardonicus also being Russell's most famous story. It's about a man whose face is twisted into a gruesome ( sardonic ) grin. He lives in a castle in Bohemia that is shaped like a skull, together with his wife Maude, the childhood sweetheart of the English doctor Cargrave, whose specialty just happens to be muscle diseases and the treatment of spasms. Maude asks Cargrave in a letter to treat her husband and Cargrave travels to Bohemia. The introduction is strongly reminiscent of the circumstances of Jonathan Harker's trip to Transylvania in Bram Stoker's Dracula . It is a characteristic Russell's horror, that he both in style and in act like elements of the classic Gothic novel ( gothic tale picks up). The doctor finally realizes that his host's illness is not physical but psychological. But Sardonicus forces the doctor to treat him with the muscle relaxant developed by Cargrave by threatening Maude. The treatment works even though Cargrave only injected water - a classic placebo effect . Cargrave leaves the castle with Maude. Later you learn that Sardonicus has lost the grin, but also control over his jaw muscles and, as a result, slowly starved to death.

Russell also published in genre magazines such as The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction , but the majority appeared in Playboy and similar magazines such as Esquire , where Russell published his first short story The Lesser Sin in 1953 . In 1962 Russell's first novel The Case against Satan was published , in which it is very similar to William Peter Blatty's almost ten years later and much better known novel The Exorcist about a case of apparent demonic possession of a young girl, and here is one too young priest the protagonist and his fight against Satan the center of the plot.

In the 1960s, Russell also wrote a number of screenplays, including the screenplay for the film version of his story Sardonicus as Mr. Sardonicus (1961, German by William Castle , the sinister Mr. Sardonicus ) and the screenplay for Roger Corman's Poe adaptation The Premature Burial together with Charles Beaumont, whom he discovered.

Russell married Ada Beth Szczepanski in 1950, with whom he had two children. He died in 1999 at the age of 75 as a result of complications from a stroke.

Awards

bibliography

If only the title and year are given as sources for short stories, the complete information can be found under collections .

Novels
  • The Case against Satan (1962)
  • The Colony (1969)
  • Sagittarius (1971)
  • Incubus (1976)
  • The Bishop's Daughter (1981)
  • Absolute Power (1992)
Collections
  • Sardonicus and Other Stories (1961)
    • German: Sardonicus. Heyne General Series # 880, 1971.
  • Unholy Trinity (1964)
  • Prince of Darkness (1971)
  • Sagittarius (1971)
  • The Book of Hell (1980)
  • The Devil's Mirror (1980)
  • Haunted Castles: The Complete Gothic Tales of Ray Russell (1985)
Anthologies (as an unnamed editor)
  • The Playboy Book of Science Fiction and Fantasy (1966)
  • The Playboy Book of Horror and the Supernatural (1967)
  • Playboy's Stories of the Sinister and Strange (1969)
  • The Dead Astronaut (1971)
  • The Fiend (1971)
  • From the "S" File (1971)
  • The Fully Automated Love Life of Henry Keanridge (1971)
  • Last Train to Limbo (1971)
  • Masks (1971)
  • Transit of Earth (1971)
  • Weird Show (1971)
The Exploits of Argo (short story series)
  • 1 The Black Elixir (1961)
  • 2 The Long Night (1961)
  • The exploits of Argo. In: Sardonicus. 1971.
Short stories
  • The Lesser Sin (1953)
  • The Pleasure Was Ours (1955)
    • German: Ours was joy. In: Sardonicus. 1971.
  • Last Will and Testament (1956)
    • German: Last Will and Testament. In: Sardonicus. 1971.
  • Take a Deep Breath (1956)
    • German: Take a deep breath. In: Sardonicus. 1971.
  • Put Them All Together, They Spell Monster (1956)
  • Take Your Seats (1957)
  • Incommunicado (1957)
    • German: Cannot be communicated. In: Sardonicus. 1971.
  • Montage (1958)
    • German: Montage. In: Sardonicus. 1971.
  • The Cage (1959)
    • English: The cage. In: Sardonicus. 1971.
  • The Sword of Laertes (1959)
    • English: The sword of Laertes. In: Sardonicus. 1971.
  • The Rosebud (1959)
    • German: Evolution. In: Sardonicus. 1971.
  • Ounce of Prevention (1960)
    • German: A small preventive measure. In: Sardonicus. 1971.
  • His Father's House (1960)
    • English: His father's house. In: Sardonicus. 1971.
  • The Actor (1960)
    • German: The actor. In: Sardonicus. 1971.
  • Booked Solid (1961)
    • German: fully booked. In: Sardonicus. 1971.
  • I Am Returning (1961)
    • German: I am returning. In: Sardonicus. 1971.
  • London Calling (1961)
    • German: This is London speaking. In: Sardonicus. 1971.
  • Sardonicus (1961)
    • German: Sardonicus. In: Sardonicus. 1971.
  • The Room (1961)
    • German: The room. In: Sardonicus. 1971.
  • Space Opera (1961)
  • Sagittarius (1962)
  • A Message from Morj (1963)
  • A Night in the Byzantine Palace (1963)
  • And I Mean That Sincerely! (1964)
  • Naked in Xanadu (1964)
  • The Better Man (1966)
  • A Most Miraculous Organ (1966)
  • Sanguinarius (1967)
  • The Runaway Lovers (1967)
  • Comet Wine (1967)
    • German: Kometenwein. In: Terry Carr (ed.): Beyond all dreams. Pabel (Terra Fantasy # 74), 1980.
  • Ripples (1967)
  • Dominoes (1967)
  • Here Comes John Henry! (1968)
  • Time Bomb (1968)
  • Yesterdays (1969)
  • A Whole New Ball Game (1969)
  • The Man Who Spoke in Rhyme (1969)
  • Variant: The Vendetta (1969)
  • The Darwin Sampler (1970)
  • Acres of Bread (1970)
  • The Freedom Fighter (1970)
  • Xong of Xuxan (1970)
  • The Prince of Darkness (1971)
  • The Fortunes of Popowcer (1971)
  • Quoth the Raven (1973)
  • The Most Primitive (1973)
  • Lethal Labels (1974)
  • The Charm (1974)
  • Captain Clark of the Space Patrol (1976)
  • Evil Star (1976)
  • Mirror, Mirror (1977)
  • Ghost of a Chance (1978)
  • The Hell You Say (1978)
  • The Humanic Complex (1978)
    • German: Who would be more right with ?. In: Isaac Asimov, Martin Harry Greenberg, Joseph D. Olander (eds.): Fireworks of the SF. Goldmann (Edition '84): The Positive Utopias # 8, 1984, ISBN 3-442-08408-3 .
  • Dorian Black (1980)
  • Meaningful Dialogue (1980)
  • Rational Moments (1980)
  • The Wine of Life (1980)
  • Avenging Angel (1980)
  • God Will Provide (1980)
  • Skin Deep (1980)
  • The Devil's Mirror (1980)
  • The Great Earth Centauri Galactic Postal System (1980)
  • The World of Lights (1980)
  • Unholy Travesty (1980)
  • The Red Death (1982)
  • Czadek (1984)
  • The Secret of Rowena (1985)
  • The Black Wench (1985)
  • STUD (1986)
  • The Bell (1986)
  • American Gothic (1987)
  • Ding-Dong, the Lizard's Dead (1987)
  • The Kolarized King Kong Kaper (1987)
  • Reflections (1989)
  • The Collapse of Civilization (1991)
  • The Little Snakes of Tara (1994)
  • The Way of a Man with a Maid (1999)
  • A Ghost Can Be Born (2005)
  • Company (2009)
  • Mathilde (2011)

Filmography

  • 1961: The Creepy Mr. Sardonicus (Mr. Sardonicus) (script based on the short story)
  • 1962: Buried Alive (screenplay with Charles Beaumont)
  • 1962: Zotz! (Script)
  • 1963: The Horror of It All (screenplay)
  • 1963: X (German as The Man with X-Ray Eyes , screenplay)
  • 1966: Chamber of Horrors (based on a short story by Russell)
  • 1982: The Incubus (based on the novel by Russell)

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Don D'Ammassa : Encyclopedia of Fantasy and Horror Fiction. Facts on File, New York 1997, ISBN 0-8160-6192-0 , pp. 305 f., Sv “Sardonicus” Ray Russell .
  2. ^ ST Joshi : Icons of Horror and the Supernatural: An Encyclopedia of Our Worst Nightmares. Greenwood 2006, ISBN 0-313-33780-2 , pp. 180 f ..
personal data
SURNAME Russell, Ray
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Russell, Raymond Robert (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American writer
DATE OF BIRTH September 4, 1924
PLACE OF BIRTH Chicago , Illinois
DATE OF DEATH March 15, 1999
Place of death Los Angeles , California