Death of Anne Rice: the author of Interview with a vampire and mother of Lestat has passed away

The mother of vampires has joined the night. American novelist Anne Rice, author of Chronicles of the vampires notably adapted to the screen through Interview with a vampire, passed away this Saturday, December 11, 2021 following a stroke. She was 80 years old.

Saluting her mother’s memory and her defiant work “the frontiers of genres” in a post shared on the writer’s official page, Christopher Rice announced the outfit in 2022 “a celebration of his life in New Orleans”, open to the public, to welcome “his friends, readers and fans who have brought him so much joy and inspiration throughout his life”.

Born Howard Allen Frances O’Brien, her father’s first name that she will abandon on her own when she is 6 years old, Anne Rice is destined to be a writer, and parallel to her university studies in San Francisco, first delivers erotic stories. In 1972, the death of her daughter from leukemia at the age of 5 plunged her into the cathartic writing of her first great novel and her favorite theme, vampires, with Interview with the Vampire (1976), the first part of his Chronicles of the vampires.

Immediately acquired by Hollywood, this founding novel which modernizes the image of the bloodsucker and inspires the “bit-lit”, gives rise to twelve other works, including the most recent, Blood Communion, was published in 2018. At the same time, Anne Rice continues his exploration of the fantastic and the spiritual and writes in particular on witches (The Mayfair Witch Saga), werewolves (The Chronicles of the Gift of the Wolf), mummies (Ramses the Damned) or religion (Christ the Lord).

When Anne Rice rejects Tom Cruise … then apologizes

On screen, the major adaptation of his work remains Interview with a Vampire by Neil Jordan in 1994, worn by Brad Pitt, Kirsten Dunst and Tom Cruise. Thought for Rutger Hauer, John Travolta or Tom Hanks, among others, the role of Lestat is finally entrusted to Tom Cruise, to the great despair of the novelist. Refusing to see the film, she will end up accepting on the advice of a producer friend, and, subjugated, will subsequently write a long letter of apology to the actor while defending the film in the press.

Eight years later, despite his confidence in the project and in the performance of Stuart Townsend, chosen to be the new Lestat, Anne Rice will come out very disappointed with this experience, which “massacre” the next two novels of the cycle, Lestat the vampire and The Queen of the Damned, in a single feature film, The Queen of the Damned. In 2019, she announced to have recovered the rights to her work, and to work on a series with her son Christopher.

“The rights to adapt The Vampire Chronicles are in my hands again, for good! I couldn’t be more enthusiastic about the idea! — The best quality TV series possible is now my dream for Lestat , Louis, Armand, Marius and the whole tribe. We are living in a true Golden Age of television, and a series would be THE good way to explore this vampire story. — My son, Christopher Rice, and I- even going to develop a storyline for a pilot and a detailed synopsis for an open-ended series, in order to faithfully tell Lestat’s story as it is told in the literary saga, and complement it with a number of situations that any reader hopes to see. “

This project, as well as an adaptation of Mayfair Witches, could see the light of day soon at the AMC channel.