Richard Matheson, you are legend

Few writers intertwined word and film better than Richard Matheson. The prolific author, who died Sunday at age eighty-seven after a long illness, was a multimedia writer before anyone coined the term. Perhaps most famous for the apocalyptic vampire tale “I Am Legend,” Matheson penned a legacy of more than forty-five novels and short story collections, plus screenplays and teleplays. I’m in awe of his what-if imagination. What if someone offered you a huge sum of money but someone you didn’t know had to die (the story “Button, Button,” filmed as “The Box”)? What if only you noticed a gremlin sabotaging the engine of your flight (the “Twilight Zone” episode “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet”)? What if you were literally divided into a good side and a bad side (the “Star Trek” favorite “The Enemy Within”)? What if a plague upended society, and in fighting to survive you became the thing feared in the night — the new boogeyman?

Born in Allendale, N.J., Matheson grew up in Brooklyn, served in World War II, and earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Missouri before breaking out as a writer. In the 1960s, he adapted three Edgar Allan Poe stories for the screen for director Roger Corman, who said via Twitter this week that Matheson was “the best screenwriter I ever worked with. I always shot his first draft.” Author Stephen King and director George Romero cite his work as influences. The late Ray Bradbury called him “one of the most important writers of the twentieth century.”

Matheson has been inducted into the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame. He’s also received the Bram Stoker Award for Lifetime Achievement from the Horror Writers Association. Yet he also has a romantic bent. He’s said his book What Dreams May Come, adapted into a 1998 film, is filled with scenes from his life with wife Ruth Ann, mother of their four children. “Heaven would never be heaven without you,” he wrote.

We’re in awe of Matheson’s what-if imagination. What if someone offered you a huge sum of money but someone you didn’t know had to die (the story “Button, Button,” filmed as “The Box”)? What if only you noticed a gremlin sabotaging the engine of your flight (the “Twilight Zone” episode “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet”)? What if you were literally divided into a good side and a bad side (the “Star Trek” favorite “The Enemy Within”)? What if a plague upended society, and in fighting to survive you became the thing feared in the night — the new boogeyman?

To us, sir, you’re a legend indeed. Here are some of our favorite Matheson adaptations.

“The Incredible Shrinking Man” (1957)
Sewing needles become weapons against a spider in this film, which Matheson adapted for the screen from his novel The Shrinking Man. The philosophical question of whether we matter gets extra resonance from the dilemma of the protagonist (Grant Williams), who decides: “Yes, smaller than the smallest, I meant something too. To God, there is no zero.”

“Duel” (1971)
Director Steven Spielberg’s first feature-length credit is this TV movie that Matheson adapted from his own short story about a terrified motorist (Dennis Weaver) stalked on the road by the unseen driver of a tractor-trailer.

“The Night Stalker” (1972)
Matheson won an Edgar Allan Poe award for his teleplay for this suspense favorite starring Darren McGavin as Carl Kolchak, a cantankerous newspaper reporter who begins to think a vampire is behind a series of murders.

“The Martian Chronicles” (1980)
Matheson and Bradbury wrote this TV miniseries starring Rock Hudson, Bernie Casey, Darren McGavin, Roddy McDowall and Bernadette Peters about three ill-fated trips to Mars.

“Somewhere in Time” (1980)
Matheson wrote the screenplay for this time-travel romance based on his novel Bid Time Return, where a modern-day playwright (Christopher Reeve) uses hypnosis to meet an actress (Jane Seymour) in 1912. Seymour’s beauty and Reeve’s innate decency help us take a leap of faith.

“Stir of Echoes” (1999)
Writer-director David Koepp used Matheson’s novel A Stir of Echoes as the basis for this well-regarded horror-mystery about a man (Kevin Bacon) who becomes obsessed by ghostly visions after being hypnotized.

“Real Steel” (2011)
Matheson’s story Steel, previously filmed as a “Twilight Zone” episode, was the basis for this family film about a struggling boxing promoter (Hugh Jackman) who builds a relationship with his son while finding a robotic champion.

“The Last Man on Earth” (1964); “The Omega Man” (1971); “I Am Legend” (2007)
Matheson’s seminal tale of a plague that turns humans into monsters, leaving a lone survivor, has been adapted three times and inspired zombie tales such as “Night of the Living Dead.” Matheson worked on the screenplay only for the first version, which starred Vincent Price as a reluctant vampire killer. The tale got a futuristic bent (and the hero a promotion to an Army doctor) in the second adaptation, starring Charlton Heston. Will Smith played survivor Robert Neville as virologist in the latest version, struggling to create a cure while navigating a hauntingly desolate vision of Manhattan. Although the finale is rocky, we love its mix of tension, whimsy (what would you do with New York City as a playground?), and loneliness.

Tags: I Am Legend, Richard Matheson, Stephen King