Some people say Luficado Hearn defined New Orleans, others say it’s jazz. For many writers and goths across the world, the Irish Catholic New Orleans native Anne Rice and her beloved book (published in 1976) and the film it inspired, 1994’s Interview with the Vampire, put the City That Care Forgot on the map. With her jet-black hair and the wildly popular Mardi Gras parties held in her St. Charles Avenue home, the author of over 40 novels (usually about vampires, witches, and the devil himself) raised the bar for eccentric authors living in the Crescent City. Her 10-part Vampire Chronicles led to a yearly convention here that was held for 25 years that was capped off with the infamous Lestat Ball, named after the beloved vampire portrayed by Tom Cruise in the film adaptation.
The explosion of the 1994 horror film from Irish director Neil Jordan made Rice a household name. At first, she admittedly was reluctant to have Hollywood hero Tom Cruise playing the dandy and bisexual Lestat de Lioncourt. After all, the character with his long blonde hair and Scorpio season birthday, was inspired by her late husband Stan Rice, who died in 2002 after the two shared 40 years of marriage.) Yet, it is said, Cruise more than exceeded her expectations. She later told Billboard, “I thought he [Cruise] did a magnificent job. As soon as I finished watching the movie on videotape in my home [before its release], I called the great producer David Geffen at home in California and told him I loved the movie, loved what Tom had achieved, loved all of it. All my early fears were meaningless in light of Tom’s passionate portrayal.”
The film would also star a young Brad Pitt and be the breakout project for a very young Kirsten Dunst. Currently, a reboot of the film is shooting in the French Quarter where many parts of the original were filmed. (Other parts were filmed in Vacherie and in Paris.) Christian Slater, Antonio Banderas, and Stephen Rea also starred.
Rice was no stranger to tragedy and used writing as a means of coping. Rice went to San Francisco State in 1970 to finish her studies in Creative Writing and graduated with an M.A. in 1972. Stan Rice became an instructor at San Francisco State shortly after receiving his own M.A. in Creative Writing from the institution, and later chaired the Creative Writing department before retiring in 1989 which took the couple from their New Orleans home. Their daughter Michelle was diagnosed with acute granulocytic leukemia in 1970, while Rice was still in the graduate program. Rice later described having a prophetic dream—months before Michele became ill—that her daughter was dying from “something wrong with her blood.” Michele died at Stanford Children’s Hospital in Palo Alto on August 5, 1972.
This lead Rice to an obsessive compulsive fear of contamination and germs and partially influenced her writing her most famous novel.
Rice’s son, Chris, is also a best-selling author. He took to social media Sunday to announce that his mother had passed after complications from a stroke.
“As a writer, she taught me to defy genre boundaries and surrender to my obsessive passions. In her final hours, I lay besides 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 San Francisco Bay Area to the magical streets of New Orleans to the twinkling vistas of Southern California…As [her younger sister] kissed Anne goodbye, [she said], ‘What a ride you took us on, kid.’ I think we can all agree.”
Rice’s nearly 40 novels published over a half-century sold some 135 million copies, placing her among the most popular fantasy writers of all time. Rice personally adapted the story into the screenplay for the film; a critical and commercial success, it grossed $223.7 million worldwide (nearly $400 million today).
She will be buried in Metairie Cemetery in a private ceremony and a public memorial will be held next year in her honor. In addition to her siblings, Rice is survived by her son, Chris.
