Ray Bradbury
22nd August 1920 - 6th June 2012
Ray Bradbury’s childhood began in Waukegan, Illinois and had aspirations to become a magician. But, his fortune was to be found from the stories he began to write on butcher paper and later began in earnest when he sold a joke he had written to his new friend, George Burns.
Ray Bradbury became a prolific and creative writer who is best known for his book, Fahrenheit 451, a story which takes place in the future and one in which books are burned in an intolerant society.
Bradbury also made a name for himself in old time radio. One of his first ventures into the media was as a writer for the 1950 episodes of Dimension X, a science fiction dramatic anthology. Dimension X was known for its bevy of great writers. Besides Bradbury, Isaac Asimov, Kurt Vonnegut and Clifford Simak were also responsible for the adult, science fiction stories that became popular during the 50s.
X Minus One, an old time radio show, featured a Bradbury story called, Dwellers in Silence and at least six of Bradbury’s other stories were made in to dramatic radio adaptations by this series.
One of Bradbury’s stories, The Rocket, was featured on NBC Presents: Short Story, a dramatic anthology series that also featured the stories of Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald and William Faulkner, among others.
Radio City Playhouse, a radio dramatic anthology first broadcast in 1948, presented two adaptations of Bradbury’s stories The Wind and The Lake, which was one of the stories in the episode called Duet.
Mars Is Heaven, by Ray Bradbury, was one of the stories featured on Think also known as ABC Radio Workshop, a dramatic radio show that was mainly science fiction format and first broadcast in 1953. Bradbury was a fan of a particular radio show, Vic and Sade, a landmark series that featured comedy vignettes. He later summarized the character of Uncle Fletcher, a character in the show, in some of his later writings.
Ray Bradbury published over five hundred novels, plays, short stories, poetry, screenplays and television scripts and is considered to be one of the most creative writers in America.
Radio, television and movies have produced shows based on some of his greatest works, including The Martian Chronicles, The Man, Screaming Woman and Zero Hour.
Ray Bradbury was awarded the National Book Foundation’s 2000 Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. He was also awarded the National Medal of Arts in 2004.
Ray Bradbury married Marguerite McClure in 1947 and they had four daughters. Marguerite died in 2003. Ray Bradbury died on the 6th June 2012 after a long illness.
If you want to know more about the stellar career of Ray Bradbury, you can click on the link to an obituary by the British newspaper The Telegraph, which insights in comprehensive detail the life of this extraordinary writer.
Happy listening my friends,
