Anne Rice

Born in New Orleans, Louisiana, on October 4, 1941, Howard Allen O’Brien –her birth name– already changed her name to Anne as a child, when she became interested in vampires and witches. In 1973, Anne Rice made her debut as a novelist with Interview with the Vampire , which led to the 1994 adaptation directed by Neil Jordan , starring  Brad Pitt  and  Tom Cruise  .

The success of the volume gave rise to a saga grouped under the name “Vampire Chronicles”. The second book in the Anne Rice saga , Lestat the Vampire , was made into a Broadway musical. The director Michael Rymer took the third volume to the cinema, The Queen of the Damned , although the film did not achieve anywhere near the critical and public success of Jordan’s. The franchise has a total of twelve titles, completed with  The Body Snatcher  (1992),  Memnoch the Devil  (1995),  Armand the Vampire  (1998),  Merrick  (2000),  Blood and Gold  (2001),  The Sanctuary  ( 2002), Blood Song  (2003),  Prince Lestat  (2014),  Prince Lestat and the Kingdoms of Atlantis  (2016) and  The Community of Blood  (2018).

In 1961,  Anne Rice  married the poet and painter Stan Rice, to whom she remained together until his death in 2002. They had two children, Michele, who died of leukemia at the age of five, and Christopher Rice, who has also become a writer. 

Despite having always stated that she had lost her faith and considered herself an atheist,  Anne Rice announced that she was returning to Catholicism in 1998. “I walked away from God when I was young, as many people do at that age. I think the crisis has I could have avoided it if I had been in a Catholic university, or in another environment. I don’t know. But many people lose faith at that stage in their lives and come back later.” She subsequently announced that she would stop writing about vampires, and that from that moment on she would only dedicate her books to religion. She debuted on this theme with “Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt” (The Messiah: the Jewish boy) “. In 2010 she declared that despite the fact that she continued to consider herself a believer, she broke with Catholicism.

A few months before his death, AMC launched a series based on “Vampire Chronicles.” Breaking Bad producer Mark Johnson will oversee the show, while Rolin Jones ( Perry Mason ) will serve as showrunner and writer. “We know how much this book and those that follow it mean to their huge fan base. Louis and Lestat are coming out of their lair and we can’t wait for them to meet the public,” Johnson said.