Her novel “Interview with a Vampire” made her famous. Afterwards, an audience of millions read her works on witches, mummies, sex and devils. Anne Rice has now died at the age of 80.
The American writer Anne Rice is dead. She was best known for her novel “Interview with a Vampire”, which was filmed in 1994 with Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt. Her vampire and witch stories sold millions of copies worldwide. Anne Rice died on Saturday at the age of 80 from complications from a stroke, as her son Christopher announced on social media.
Anne Rice was born on October 4, 1941 under the name Howard Allen O’Brien in New Orleans. Raised in a strict Catholic family in the southern US metropolis, she broke away from Christianity at college, wrote novels about vampires, witches and werewolves and also wrote erotic novels under a pseudonym. But her greatest success came from vampires. “Interview with a Vampire” introduces the occult world of her hometown New Orleans.
Anne Rice was married to the poet Stan Rice. In addition to her son Christopher, she had a daughter, Michelle, who died of leukemia at the age of five. In “Interview with a Vampire”, Rice memorialized her as a little blond vampire. “I didn’t know then, but the book was only about my daughter, the loss and the fact that you have to go on living even if your belief is shattered,” she said.
Then a whole vampire cycle was created, as well as witch sagas and books about mummies, devils and angels. the New York Times recalled that Rice had more than a million followers on Facebook and that her book signings were “eccentric shows with dancers and costumed fans”.
In the late 1990s, Rice returned to the Catholic faith and was subsequently married in church. Her husband died in 2002, and Rice himself was in poor health. To the surprise of her fans, she then announced that she would only write in the Christian faith. She produced several volumes about Jesus Christ that sold mediocre sales. In 2011, he turned away from religion again.