Obituaries Detail

Anne Rice was a prolific gothic novelist beloved for her vampire series ‘The Vampire Chronicles,’ which began in 1976 with her most popular novel, ‘Interview with the Vampire.’ The book featured the vampire Lestat who would be a main character in the 13 book series, the most recent being ‘Blood Communion: A Tale of Prince Lestat’ which was released in 2018. Two of the ‘Vampire Chronicles’ novels became feature films, 1994’s ‘Interview with the Vampire’ which starred Tom Cruise as Lestat and 2002’s ‘Queen of the Damned,’ which starred Stuart Townsend and Aaliyah. Many vampire series have followed her work, including the ‘Twilight’ novels, which were adapted for the screen. Rice also wrote erotica fiction under the pseudonym Anne Rampling, including ‘Exit to Eden.’ Many of her works have been adapted by others for comic books. The native of New Orleans often used the city as a backdrop for her writing.

‘As a child, I saw this beautiful film, Dracula’s Daughter, and it was with Gloria Holden and was a sequel to the original Dracula. It was all about this beautiful daughter of Dracula who was an artist in London, and she felt drinking blood was a curse. It had beautiful, sensitive scenes in it, and that film mesmerized me. It established to me what vampires were—these elegant, tragic, sensitive people. I was really just going with that feeling when writing Interview With the Vampire. I didn’t do a lot of research.’ – Interview with the Daily Beast in 2017.