Anne Rice, author of The Vampire Chronicles has passed away due to complications from a stroke.
The tragic news comes from her son Christopher Rice, who announced his mother’s passing on December 11, 2021, via Facebook.
In his post, he writes:
“Dearest People of Page. This is Anne’s son Christopher and it breaks my heart to bring you this sad news. Earlier, tonight, Anne passed away due to complications resulting from a stroke. She left us almost nineteen years to the day my father, her husband Stan died. The immensity of our family’s grief cannot be overstated. As my mother, her support for me was unconditional – she taught me to embrace my dreams, reject conformity and challenge the dark voices of fear and self-doubt. As a writer, she taught me to defy genre boundaries and surrender to my obsessive passions. In her final hours, I sat beside her hospital bed in awe of her accomplishments and her courage, awash in memories of a life that took us from the fog laced hills of the San Francisco Bay Area to the magical streets of New Orleans to the twinkling vistas of Southern California.”
He goes on to mention that she will be interred in the family mausoleum at Metairie Cemetery in New Orleans in a private ceremony.
He closes out his post by stating that next year a public celebration will take place in New Orleans to honor the life of Anne Rice.
Anne Rice, born October 04, 1941, was 80 years old at the time of her passing.
Born Howard Allen Frances O’Brien, Anne Rice released her first novel, Interview with the Vampire in 1976 and would go on to release roughly forty novels in her lifetime. Despite her numerous titles, she is most remembered for her Vampire Chronicles series, which started with Interview with Vampire and went on to span thirteen books in total, which included The Vampire Lestat and The Queen of the Damned.
Her work would eventually be adapted into a film when in 1994 director Neil Jordan, based on a screenplay from Rice herself, released ‘Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles’ starring Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, Christian Slater, Antonio Banderas, Stephen Rea, and Kirsten Dunst.
In the same year, a loose adaptation of her book ‘Exit to Eden’ was released starring Rosie O’Donnell and Dan Aykroyd. The film was not well received and ended up bombing at the box office, only managing to bring in $6.8 million on an estimated budget of $25 million.
In 2002, ‘Queen of the Damned’, another film based on her Vampire Chronicles series was released, starring Stuart Townsend and Aaliyah. This film was also not well received, including by Rice herself who stated that the movie “mutilated” her work.
Anne Rice’s passing is a great loss to the world of literature, but her memory will live on through her work and her millions of fans around the world.
