Richard Matheson

Highest Rated: 100% The Night Strangler (1973)

Lowest Rated: 11% Jaws III (1983)

Birthday: Feb 20, 1926

Birthplace: Allendale, New Jersey, USA

Over a career that spanned more than six decades and encompassed the mediums of literature, film and television, writer Richard Matheson crafted classic tales of horror, science fiction and fantasy. After making a deal to write the screen adaptation of his novel for "The Incredible Shrinking Man" (1957), he quickly made a name for himself working on a cycle of Edgar Allan Poe films with director Roger Corman and as a contributing writer on Rod Serling's "The Twilight Zone" (CBS, 1959-1964). Matheson later teamed with future film giant Steven Spielberg for the first time on the TV movie "Duel" (ABC, 1971). Other television triumphs included the screenplay for the influential "The Night Stalker" (ABC, 1972), an acclaimed interpretation of "Bram Stoker's Dracula" (CBS, 1974), and the cult-classic "Trilogy of Terror" (ABC, 1975). His fiction work proved to be a nearly inexhaustible well of inspiration in Hollywood, as exemplified by feature films such as the time-traveling romance "Somewhere in Time" (1980), the supernatural murder mystery "Stir of Echoes" (1999), and "I Am Legend" (2007), the third big-screen adaptation of his novella of the same name. Uncomfortable with the term "genre writer," Matheson, a member of the Science Fiction Hall of Fame, was nonetheless responsible for sparking the imaginations of readers, audiences and generations of filmmakers with stories that never failed to deliver on the fantastic. He died in 2013, with his influence apparent in countless modern interpretations of horror and science fiction.