If you’re anything like us, then you’ve been watching and reading Stephen King for a long time. Like, such a long time that someone definitely let you read the books and watch the movies long before you should have been, and now you’re probably a little on the anxious side, but we digress. While we’ve been reading and watching these books and movies by the KING of horror for a good portion of our lives, we can’t, err, couldn’t say we really knew much about him. But that all changes now, so sit back and enjoy learning more about the man, the myth, the legend, the KING.
(image via: lilja’s library)
Stephen King and his wife, Tabitha, own a radio station. And no, unfortunately, it does not strictly play spooky sounds all the time. Instead, they opted for classic rock, and the Maine radio station is simply called, “Stephen King’s Rock Station”. Hey, it certainly gets our attention!
King has written a lot of books and the man is pretty tall coming in at 6’4 (we promise we’re getting somewhere here!) If you were to stack all of his books, they would be taller than the man himself. But we can’t be too shocked about that one because some of those books are heckin’ long. (Respectfully and in the best way!)
As a kid, one of Stephen King’s friends was struck and killed by a train. This would, in time, serve as the plot line to The Body, which would be adapted into the film Stand By Me. The real kicker? Stephen King has no memory of any of it happening.
(image via: el pais)
Even if you haven’t read a page of King’s writing, there’s a good chance you’ve seen a trailer for or maybe an entire film based on his writing. The odds are pretty good because Stephen King actually holds the record for the most film adaptations from a single author. But don’t get the author going about The Shining because he’s not a fan. In an interview, King once said that he didn’t like how Jack Nicholson’s character was portrayed in the film; in the book, he was to struggle with his sanity and then lose it, and in the film, King felt as though he never had sanity so the story lacked tragedy.
King has battled bouts of alcoholism and drug addiction in his past, and in his own book On Writing he wrote, “There’s one novel, Cujo, that I barely remember writing at all. I don’t say that with pride or shame, only with a vague sense of sorrow and loss. I like that book. I wish I could remember enjoying the good parts as I put them down on the page.”