Biography for
Ray Bradbury More at IMDbPro »

Date of Birth

22 August 1920, Waukegan, Illinois, USA

Birth Name

Ray Douglas Bradbury

Mini Biography

Ray Douglas Bradbury was born on August 22, 1920, in Waukegan, Illinois. He was the third son in the family. His father, Leonard Spaulding Bradbury, was a telephone lineman and technician. His mother, Esther Marie Bradbury (nee Moberg), was a Swedish immigrant. His grandfather and great-grandfather were newspaper publishers. In 1934 his family settled in Los Angeles, California. There young Bradbury often roller-skated through Hollywood, trying to spot celebrities.

Young Bradbury attended Los Angeles High School. There he was involved in the drama club and planned to become an actor. He graduated from high school in 1938 and had no more formal education. He learned from reading the works of such writers as Leo Tolstoy and Fyodor Dostoevsky, among others. From 1938-1942 he was selling newspapers on the streets of Los Angeles, spending his nights in the local library and his days at the typewriter. At that time he published his stories in fanzines. In 1941 he published his first paid work, a short story titled "Pendulum", in the pulp magazine Super Science Stories, and became a full-time writer by the end of 1942. He published a collection of stories as his first book, "Dark Carnival" (1947). That same year he married Marguerite McClure (1922-2003), whom he met at a book store a year earlier. They had four daughters and eight grandchildren.

Bradbury shot to international fame after publication of his short story collection "The Martian Chronicles" (1950), which was partially based on ideas from ancient Greek and Roman mythology. Then he followed the anti-Utopian writers Yevgeni Zamyatin and Aldous Huxley in his best known work, "Farenheit 451" (1953). The 1966 film adaptation (Fahrenheit 451 (1966)) by director 'Francois Truffaut' , starring Julie Christie, received several nominations. Bradbury was not happy with the 1980 TV adaptation ("The Martian Chronicles" (1980)) starring Rock Hudson. His other novels and stories also have been adapted to films and television, as well as for radio, theatre and comic books. Bradbury has written episodes for Alfred Hitchcock's TV series, as well as for many other TV productions. His total literary output is close to 600 short stories, more than 30 books and numerous poems and plays.

In 2004 Bradbury received a National Medal of Arts. He was given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6644 Hollywood Blvd. An asteroid is named in his honor, "9766 Bradbury", and the Apollo astronaut named a crater on the moon "Dandelion Crater", after his novel, 'Dandelion Wine'. Bradbury also received the World Fantasy Award for Lifetime Achievement, the Grand Master Award from Science Fiction Writers of America, an Emmy Award for his work as a writer on 'The Halloween Tree', and many other awards and honors. His works were translated in more than 40 languages and sold tens of millions of copies around the world.

Ray Bradbury is currently residing in Los Angeles, California. He has never driven a car and does not have one. He writes daily.

IMDb Mini Biography By: Steve Shelokhonov

Spouse

Maggie Bradbury

(27 September 1947 - 24 November 2003) (her death)

Trivia

Father of 4 daughters: Susan, Ramona, Bettina and Alexandra.

Son of Leonard Spaulding Bradbury, linesman with the Waukegan Bureau of Power and Light, and of Esther Marie Moberg.

He wrote the original manuscript of "Fahrenheit 451" on a rented typewriter in a public library, from handwritten notes and outlines. It first appeared in print in a shortened form (of about 25,000 words) in Galaxy magazine and later in its present length but in serial format in the just starting out Playboy magazine.

Though considered by many to be the greatest science-fiction writer of the of the 20th century, he suffers from a fear of flying and driving. He has never learned to drive, and did not fly in an airplane until October, 1982.

National Public Radio's "Bradbury 13" (1984) was a 13-episode program based on many of his stories.

Recipient of a 2004 National Medal of Arts, awarded by the National Endowment for the Arts (USA).

There is a noted irony in the names of two characters in his novel "Fahrenheit 451": "Montag" is also the name of a paper mill and "Faber" is a manufacturer of pencils. Ray Bradbury insists that this was unintentional.

His original title for one of his novels was 'the Fireman'. He called his local fire department and asked them what the temperature at which paper burns at - and was told "451 Fahrenheit". He reversed it to make it the title of his novel 'Fahrenheit 451'.

He is the great-great-great grandson of Mary Bradbury, a woman who was tried in the Salem Witch Trials in 1692, but saved herself from being hanged for witchcraft.

He had a series of short stories which his publisher said would never sell, so he linked the stories together, while living at a local YMCA, and created the novel, "The Martian Chronicles." He was paid just $500 for the story.

He voiced his displeasure at documentary filmmaker Michael Moore for appropriating the title of his book "Fahrenheit 451" for the documentary Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004). However, Bradbury himself is the author of "Beyond 1984" (title appropriated from George Orwell's "1984") and "Another Tale of Two Cities" (title appropriated from Charles Dickens' "A Tale of Two Cities").

As a bedtime story for each of his daughters, he read (in nightly installments) "Hound of the Baskervilles" by Arthur Conan Doyle.

As a young boy, a friend once ridiculed his collection of science fiction and comic books, and heckled him into throwing them away. A day later, Bradbury was heartbroken, feeling that he had trashed his best friends. He immediately rebuilt his collection!.

Says that he remembers being born.

He and famed animator Chuck Jones have been close friends for more than 50 years.

In Chaplin's Goliath (1996), a documentary about silent film star Eric Campbell, the Rosedale Cemetary spokeswoman mistakenly claims Ray Bradbury is interred there.

A hero of his was the Italian director Federico Fellini. When they first met, as Bradbury claims, Fellini ran up to Bradbury, embraced him, and said "My twin! My Twin". They became great friends but never collaborated on any projects.

Paid tribute to in the music video "F**k Me, Ray Bradbury" by Rachel Bloom.

When his wife started having children, "It literally scared the hell out of me.".

Has never enjoyed driving, and has always used either public transportation, or a bicycle.

Despite the anti-censorship message of Farenheit 451, Bradbury has continually had to fight his publisher's censors who want to tamper or alter the language and tone of the book. He says that the irony is obviously lost on them.

As a young man, he once sold newspapers on a Los Angeles street corner.

In 1950, he discovered that comic book publisher William M. Gaines (later famous for producing Mad Magazine) had published several of his stories without his permission. Bradbury wrote Gaines a letter praising the artwork and treatment of his story, and politely asked for his royalty payment. He got it.

Lifelong friends of Ray Harryhausen and Forrest J Ackerman, ever since they were teenagers and members of the same Los Angeles Science Fiction Club.

Personal Quotes

The best scientist is open to experience and begins with romance - the idea that anything is possible.

Touch a scientist and you touch a child.

[on writing 'Fahrenheit 451'] - "I wasn't trying to predict the future. I was trying to prevent it."

I am one of those fortunate people who were born to be joyful writers discovered the fact early on.

Sense of humor is everything. You can do anything in this world if you have a sense of humor. Many directors, producers, people haven't learned that -- that if you just salt people down a little and put a bit of butter on them and make them happy, then we can all work together.

There are two races of people - men and women - no matter what what women's libbers would have you pretend. Men are born with no purpose in the universe except to procreate. There is lots of time to kill beyond that.

Once you hear a metaphor of mine, you won't forget it. A dinosaur falling in love with a lighthouse, boom, there's your metaphor. Once you hear that, you say, "Gee, I gotta read that, I wonder what happened?" All the great stories of the world are metaphorical, so they can be remembered. That's why so much stage writing and film writing today can't be remembered, because there are no metaphors. You can't tell the story when you come out of the theater. That's what's wrong with most modern fiction. Realism is what we already know. My job is to interpret realism, to turn it into metaphors, so you can swallow it.

I'm the most cinematic writer around -- all of my short stories can be shot right off the page.

I don't need to be vindicated, and I don't want attention. I never question. I never ask anyone else's opinion. They don't count.

[on Ray Harryhausen] Long after we are all gone, his shadow shows will live through a thousand years in this world.