1 00:00:00,720 --> 00:00:02,760 Speaker 1: So when you were a little kid, did you ever 2 00:00:02,800 --> 00:00:04,880 Speaker 1: get put to bed and then sneak a peek at 3 00:00:04,920 --> 00:00:07,720 Speaker 1: your phone or grab a flashlight so you could dig 4 00:00:07,760 --> 00:00:10,639 Speaker 1: back into a favorite book. We all did that because 5 00:00:10,760 --> 00:00:13,840 Speaker 1: who doesn't love a good story. Now imagine that that 6 00:00:14,120 --> 00:00:17,919 Speaker 1: thirst for a great story ignited your ability to tell 7 00:00:17,960 --> 00:00:21,720 Speaker 1: his story. I'm Patty Steele under the covers with the 8 00:00:21,760 --> 00:00:29,240 Speaker 1: budding King of Horror. That's next on the backstory. The 9 00:00:29,280 --> 00:00:32,879 Speaker 1: backstory is back, all right. It's late at night, but 10 00:00:32,960 --> 00:00:35,920 Speaker 1: you have a book you're dying to devour, So you 11 00:00:36,000 --> 00:00:38,879 Speaker 1: haul out a flashlight, slide it under the covers, and 12 00:00:38,920 --> 00:00:42,680 Speaker 1: you dive in. This is the nest where Stephen King, 13 00:00:42,920 --> 00:00:46,159 Speaker 1: the King of Horror, was hatched. You see, before there 14 00:00:46,360 --> 00:00:48,560 Speaker 1: was the King of Horror, there was a little boy 15 00:00:48,560 --> 00:00:51,199 Speaker 1: in Maine who did just that. He slept with a 16 00:00:51,240 --> 00:00:54,880 Speaker 1: flashlight under the covers and read until the batteries died, 17 00:00:55,160 --> 00:00:58,600 Speaker 1: and then if he could, he'd keep going by moonlight. 18 00:00:59,240 --> 00:01:02,720 Speaker 1: The thing is, the monsters on the page felt safer 19 00:01:02,800 --> 00:01:04,880 Speaker 1: to him than the ones in the dark corners of 20 00:01:04,920 --> 00:01:08,720 Speaker 1: his room. This is about how Stephen King, a working 21 00:01:08,800 --> 00:01:12,280 Speaker 1: class kid with a second hand typewriter, became the most 22 00:01:12,280 --> 00:01:16,360 Speaker 1: adapted living author in history. It's about how his words 23 00:01:16,440 --> 00:01:20,200 Speaker 1: literally crawled off the page and onto our TVs, as 24 00:01:20,200 --> 00:01:24,600 Speaker 1: well as into movie theaters and the cultural blood stream. Okay, 25 00:01:24,720 --> 00:01:28,160 Speaker 1: let's go back. We're in Portland, Maine. It's nineteen forty 26 00:01:28,200 --> 00:01:32,080 Speaker 1: seven and Stephen edwin King is born. When he turns 27 00:01:32,120 --> 00:01:34,800 Speaker 1: two years old, his dad walks out to buy a 28 00:01:34,840 --> 00:01:38,680 Speaker 1: pack of cigarettes and he never comes back. The emptiness 29 00:01:38,760 --> 00:01:43,120 Speaker 1: and financial insecurity he leaves behind starts to shape Stephen 30 00:01:43,240 --> 00:01:46,920 Speaker 1: as a storyteller with an achiness that echoes in book 31 00:01:46,959 --> 00:01:51,240 Speaker 1: after book. Stephen and his big brother Dave bounced between 32 00:01:51,280 --> 00:01:54,400 Speaker 1: relatives in Chicago, as well as small towns in New 33 00:01:54,480 --> 00:01:59,960 Speaker 1: York State, Wisconsin, Indiana, Massachusetts, and Connecticut. When he turns elevel, 34 00:02:00,560 --> 00:02:03,640 Speaker 1: the boys and their mom moved Durham, Maine, so she 35 00:02:03,720 --> 00:02:06,960 Speaker 1: can take care of her aging parents when they pass on. 36 00:02:07,440 --> 00:02:10,960 Speaker 1: She becomes a caregiver at a home for mentally challenged people, 37 00:02:11,480 --> 00:02:16,000 Speaker 1: but there's never enough money, clothes, or hand me downs. Entertainment, though, 38 00:02:16,080 --> 00:02:20,440 Speaker 1: is cheap. Stephen listens to radio dramas, reads horror comic books, 39 00:02:20,760 --> 00:02:25,160 Speaker 1: goes to matinee movies, and devours stacks of library paperbacks. 40 00:02:25,919 --> 00:02:29,200 Speaker 1: Just imagine this small boy in a tiny living room 41 00:02:29,240 --> 00:02:33,200 Speaker 1: filled with used furniture, sitting next to an old Philco radio, 42 00:02:33,919 --> 00:02:37,400 Speaker 1: thrilling to the suspense of those shows where you'd close 43 00:02:37,440 --> 00:02:41,560 Speaker 1: your eyes and just create the scene in your head. Plus, 44 00:02:41,600 --> 00:02:45,160 Speaker 1: he read the classics like Edgar Allan Poe and Ray Bradbury. 45 00:02:45,480 --> 00:02:48,120 Speaker 1: Also the book Lord of the Flies, as well as 46 00:02:48,120 --> 00:02:52,440 Speaker 1: Shirley Jackson's spine tingling The Haunting of Hill House, a 47 00:02:52,480 --> 00:02:55,760 Speaker 1: book that would haunt him for decades. He said he'd 48 00:02:56,000 --> 00:02:59,320 Speaker 1: just loved to be scared. This is where Stephen King's 49 00:02:59,320 --> 00:03:03,640 Speaker 1: imagination and blossoms. One day, he shows his mama's story 50 00:03:03,760 --> 00:03:06,720 Speaker 1: he'd copied out of a comic book. She reads it 51 00:03:06,760 --> 00:03:09,440 Speaker 1: and says to him, write your own story. I bet 52 00:03:09,480 --> 00:03:14,120 Speaker 1: you could do better. That thrills him, opening up possibility. 53 00:03:14,840 --> 00:03:18,560 Speaker 1: When he's thirteen, Stephen finds an old typewriter in the attic. 54 00:03:18,919 --> 00:03:23,000 Speaker 1: He starts writing more copycat type stories and than original ones. 55 00:03:23,400 --> 00:03:26,160 Speaker 1: He sells them to friends for a quarter until a 56 00:03:26,240 --> 00:03:28,840 Speaker 1: teacher tells him he's got to stop selling his horror 57 00:03:28,960 --> 00:03:33,200 Speaker 1: stories during study hall, but he doesn't stop writing. Instead, 58 00:03:33,480 --> 00:03:37,720 Speaker 1: he starts submitting to pulp magazines and fanzines. Racking up 59 00:03:37,800 --> 00:03:41,200 Speaker 1: nothing but rejections, he tacks them all to a nail 60 00:03:41,240 --> 00:03:44,200 Speaker 1: on his bedroom wall, until he has so many he 61 00:03:44,240 --> 00:03:47,000 Speaker 1: has to replace the nail with a heavy duty spike. 62 00:03:47,720 --> 00:03:52,120 Speaker 1: But that is his secret weapon, tenacity. He just keeps 63 00:03:52,160 --> 00:03:56,200 Speaker 1: perfecting his craft. Success takes a long time. He goes 64 00:03:56,240 --> 00:04:00,240 Speaker 1: to college and keeps writing, gets married, keeps writing. It 65 00:04:00,320 --> 00:04:03,240 Speaker 1: takes a job teaching high school english, and keeps writing. 66 00:04:03,720 --> 00:04:07,360 Speaker 1: He greades papers by day and hammers out short stories 67 00:04:07,400 --> 00:04:10,600 Speaker 1: by night, selling them to magazines to make a couple 68 00:04:10,640 --> 00:04:14,720 Speaker 1: of bucks. One night, exhausted, he sits at his desk, 69 00:04:14,880 --> 00:04:18,679 Speaker 1: a tiny table wedged between the bed and the washing machine. 70 00:04:18,760 --> 00:04:22,240 Speaker 1: He begins writing a story about a bullied teenage girl 71 00:04:22,720 --> 00:04:27,120 Speaker 1: who discovers she can move objects just by using her mind. 72 00:04:27,880 --> 00:04:31,320 Speaker 1: After a few pages, he decides he hates it. He 73 00:04:31,360 --> 00:04:34,200 Speaker 1: feels like he doesn't really know girls and he can't 74 00:04:34,200 --> 00:04:38,360 Speaker 1: do the character justice. He tosses the pages into the trash. 75 00:04:38,800 --> 00:04:42,360 Speaker 1: But here's where his wife, Tabitha enters the scene. She 76 00:04:42,440 --> 00:04:46,480 Speaker 1: pulls those pages from the bin, smooths them out, reads them, 77 00:04:46,520 --> 00:04:49,880 Speaker 1: and says there's something here. She tells him to keep 78 00:04:49,920 --> 00:04:52,800 Speaker 1: going to set it in a world he knows in 79 00:04:52,839 --> 00:04:57,200 Speaker 1: the hallways and humiliations of high school. Her faith lights 80 00:04:57,240 --> 00:05:02,040 Speaker 1: him on fire. The novel is Carrie. In nineteen seventy three, 81 00:05:02,160 --> 00:05:06,680 Speaker 1: Doubleday Books buys it. The hardcover has okay sales, but 82 00:05:06,720 --> 00:05:12,039 Speaker 1: then the paperback explodes practically overnight. Stephen gets a big advance. 83 00:05:12,520 --> 00:05:16,120 Speaker 1: The Kings can pay bills, buy a car, and breathe 84 00:05:16,120 --> 00:05:20,440 Speaker 1: a little bit. Then, in nineteen seventy six, director Brian 85 00:05:20,520 --> 00:05:25,359 Speaker 1: de Palmer adapts Carry into a film that again explodes. 86 00:05:26,080 --> 00:05:28,520 Speaker 1: Still up in Maine, where he has stayed ever since. 87 00:05:28,560 --> 00:05:32,279 Speaker 1: By the way, Stephen King has Hollywood knocking on his door. 88 00:05:33,120 --> 00:05:36,159 Speaker 1: But here's the question, how did he get so many 89 00:05:36,200 --> 00:05:40,120 Speaker 1: stories made into TV shows and movies. Well, Critics say 90 00:05:40,160 --> 00:05:44,720 Speaker 1: he's wildly skilled at writing in scenes, he tells stories 91 00:05:44,760 --> 00:05:48,480 Speaker 1: and beats close ups and cutaways. He's a novelist with 92 00:05:48,560 --> 00:05:54,040 Speaker 1: a filmmaker's eye, tracking shots through creepy hallways, slow zooms 93 00:05:54,080 --> 00:05:57,960 Speaker 1: on a door, slightly cracked open, long tense takes on 94 00:05:58,320 --> 00:06:01,880 Speaker 1: ordinary objects, and his characters look like people you might 95 00:06:01,920 --> 00:06:06,120 Speaker 1: meet at the grocery store, parents, loaners, small town folks 96 00:06:06,480 --> 00:06:11,200 Speaker 1: who just happen to stumble into horror producers love relatability, 97 00:06:11,560 --> 00:06:14,239 Speaker 1: and we all shiver at the idea of horror living 98 00:06:14,320 --> 00:06:17,520 Speaker 1: next door. Stephen says he learned to write that way 99 00:06:17,600 --> 00:06:20,800 Speaker 1: because he loved movies so much that he wrote in 100 00:06:20,839 --> 00:06:23,120 Speaker 1: the type of scenes that he watched on the screen. 101 00:06:24,080 --> 00:06:27,640 Speaker 1: After Carrie, the Sky's the Limit for King, his nineteen 102 00:06:27,720 --> 00:06:31,360 Speaker 1: seventy five book Salem's Lot with Vampires on the Loose 103 00:06:31,440 --> 00:06:34,360 Speaker 1: in a New England Town becomes a TV mini series. 104 00:06:34,880 --> 00:06:38,159 Speaker 1: The Shining is released in nineteen seventy seven and soon 105 00:06:38,200 --> 00:06:42,320 Speaker 1: becomes a Stanley Kubrick film starring Jack Nicholson, and that 106 00:06:42,360 --> 00:06:47,080 Speaker 1: one is legendary. He churns out book after book, sometimes 107 00:06:47,160 --> 00:06:50,520 Speaker 1: under the Stephen King name, sometimes under a pseudonym, and 108 00:06:50,560 --> 00:06:54,320 Speaker 1: the success continues, but with it he wrestles with alcohol 109 00:06:54,360 --> 00:06:57,960 Speaker 1: and drugs Throughout the nineteen eighties. His output is massive 110 00:06:58,160 --> 00:07:04,080 Speaker 1: Kujo Christine Peta Cemetery, It misery, but his family decides 111 00:07:04,120 --> 00:07:07,800 Speaker 1: he needs an intervention. Tabitha and the kids lay out 112 00:07:07,839 --> 00:07:11,520 Speaker 1: all his drug paraphernalia in front of him. Thankfully, he 113 00:07:11,600 --> 00:07:15,640 Speaker 1: chooses them and sobriety. The nineties see the release of 114 00:07:15,680 --> 00:07:18,560 Speaker 1: a ton of work, including The Green Mile and The 115 00:07:18,760 --> 00:07:22,280 Speaker 1: X Files. As well as The Shawshank Redemption, the movie 116 00:07:22,400 --> 00:07:24,800 Speaker 1: version of a story he wrote in the nineteen eighties. 117 00:07:25,440 --> 00:07:30,040 Speaker 1: And then there's the accident. June nineteen ninety nine. Stephen 118 00:07:30,120 --> 00:07:32,680 Speaker 1: is out walking on a country road when a van 119 00:07:32,840 --> 00:07:36,200 Speaker 1: driven by a guy distracted by a hyper dog in 120 00:07:36,240 --> 00:07:40,320 Speaker 1: the back seat slams into him. He suffers multiple fractures, 121 00:07:40,640 --> 00:07:44,360 Speaker 1: emergency surgeries where they almost decide to amputate his leg, 122 00:07:44,880 --> 00:07:48,640 Speaker 1: and then agonizing rehab for a while. It's sort of 123 00:07:48,720 --> 00:07:51,640 Speaker 1: unclear if he's ever gonna write again. Because of his 124 00:07:51,760 --> 00:07:54,880 Speaker 1: shattered leg and broken hip, he can't sit for more 125 00:07:54,920 --> 00:08:00,400 Speaker 1: than forty minutes before the pain becomes completely unbearable. Course, 126 00:08:00,600 --> 00:08:03,760 Speaker 1: he has to write. It's what he does, so he 127 00:08:03,800 --> 00:08:08,000 Speaker 1: writes about pain and mortality in a book called On Writing. 128 00:08:08,520 --> 00:08:14,320 Speaker 1: It's part memoir and part master class. Stephen's story showcases determination, 129 00:08:14,880 --> 00:08:17,520 Speaker 1: the love of a partner who believes in you, and 130 00:08:17,640 --> 00:08:21,640 Speaker 1: following your passion. He built characters you could swear you'd 131 00:08:21,680 --> 00:08:25,000 Speaker 1: met and places you could swear you'd been. With a 132 00:08:25,040 --> 00:08:29,440 Speaker 1: little terrifying twist, Stephen King says to become a writer, 133 00:08:29,800 --> 00:08:32,680 Speaker 1: he had to read a lot, write a lot, cut 134 00:08:32,720 --> 00:08:36,040 Speaker 1: out a lot of adverbs, tell the truth about people 135 00:08:36,800 --> 00:08:41,040 Speaker 1: and then let the monsters in. I hope you're enjoying 136 00:08:41,080 --> 00:08:43,920 Speaker 1: The Backstory with Patty Steele. Please leave a review and 137 00:08:44,160 --> 00:08:48,640 Speaker 1: follow or subscribe for free to get new episodes delivered automatically, 138 00:08:49,160 --> 00:08:51,120 Speaker 1: and feel free to dm me if you have a 139 00:08:51,160 --> 00:08:54,240 Speaker 1: story you'd like me to cover. On Facebook, It's Patty 140 00:08:54,280 --> 00:09:01,280 Speaker 1: Steele and on Instagram Real Patty Steele. I'm Patty Steele. 141 00:09:01,520 --> 00:09:05,360 Speaker 1: The back Stories a production of iHeartMedia, Premiere Networks, the 142 00:09:05,440 --> 00:09:09,280 Speaker 1: Elvis Durand Group, and Steel Trap Productions. Our producer is 143 00:09:09,320 --> 00:09:13,079 Speaker 1: Doug Fraser. Our writer Jake Kushner. We have new episodes 144 00:09:13,120 --> 00:09:16,160 Speaker 1: every Tuesday and Friday. Feel free to reach out to 145 00:09:16,200 --> 00:09:19,920 Speaker 1: me with comments and even story suggestions on Instagram at 146 00:09:19,920 --> 00:09:23,439 Speaker 1: real Patty Steele and on Facebook at Patty Steele. Thanks 147 00:09:23,480 --> 00:09:26,640 Speaker 1: for listening to the Backstory with Patty Steele. The pieces 148 00:09:26,679 --> 00:09:29,160 Speaker 1: of history you didn't know you needed to know.