Biography for
Richard Matheson More at IMDbPro »

Date of Birth

20 February 1926, Allendale, New Jersey, USA

Mini Biography

Born in New Jersey and raised in Brooklyn, Richard Burton Matheson first became a published author while still a child, when his stories and poems ran in the "Brooklyn Eagle". A lifelong reader of fantasy tales, he made his professional writing bow in 1950 when his short story "Born of Man and Woman"? appeared in "The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction"; Matheson turned out a number of highly regarded horror, fantasy and mystery stories throughout that decade. He broke into films in 1956, adapting his novel "The Shrinking Man" for the big-screen The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957).

IMDb Mini Biography By: Tom Weaver <TomWeavr@aol.com>

Mini Biography

Richard Matheson has written novels and short stories, as well as screenplays for both film and television. He has sometimes written under the pen name Logan Swanson. His prose has often been adapted for the screen by others and sometimes by Matheson himself. Notably, he is among the few writers who contributed to Rod Serling's classic television series "The Twilight Zone" (1959-1964) almost as prolifically as Serling himself. He wrote about fifteen scripts for the original series and also contributed to "Rod Serling's Night Gallery" (1972), "Twilight Zone: The Movie" (1983) and the television reboot of "The Twilight Zone" (1985-1989).

He wrote for many television series including westerns such as "Cheyenne" and "Have Gun Will Travel" (both 1960) as well as "The Alfred Hitchcock Hour" (1962-1965) and "Star Trek" (1966-1968). He scripted made-for-TV-movies, too, most notably Steven Spielberg's "Duel" (1971) and "The Night Stalker" (1972) among others.

Films based on his stories include "The Incredible Shrinking Man" (1957), "The Incredible Shrinking Woman" (1981), "Stir of Echoes" (1999), "The Young Warriors" (1967) among others.

His novels include, "I Am Legend" (1954) "The Shrinking Man" (1956), "A Stir of Echoes" (1958), "Ride the Nightmare" (1959), "The Beardless Warriors" (1960) among others.

His short stories include "Born of Man and Woman" (1950), "Third From the Sun" (1950), "The Waker Dreams" (1950), "Blood Son" (1951), "The Thing" (1951) among others.

IMDb Mini Biography By: Miles-10

Trivia

Father of writers Chris Matheson, Ali Marie Matheson and Richard Christian Matheson.

According to producer Roger Corman, Matheson's scripts were so good that Corman usually used the first draft with a minimum of rewrites.

Norwegian-American.

He has claimed that the film that came closest to capturing the spirit of his novel "I Am Legend" was Night of the Living Dead (1968), even though that film was not an intentional adaptation of his book.

One of Stephen King's favorite writers.

His short story "Steel" was the first inspiration for the screenplay to Real Steel (2011).

Salary

Burn, Witch, Burn (1962)	$5,000
Pit and the Pendulum (1961)	$5,000
Master of the World (1961)	$5,000
House of Usher (1960)	$5,000