VITAL STATISTICS

Name: BLOCH, Robert Albert Aged: 77
Born: April 5, 1917 Where: Chicago, Illinois
Died: September 23, 1994 Where: Los Angeles, CA
Cremated: Westwood Memorial Park, Room of Prayer Columbarium, Los Angeles, CA
Married: Marion Holcombe When: ?
Married 2: Eleanor Alexander When: October 16, 1964
Awarded: 1959 Hugo, "That Hell-Bound Train," and 1984 Hugo (Special Award). The 1975 World Fantasy Award for Lifetime Achievement.

An early fan of movies, as a boy Bloch was terrified by a Lon Chaney performance and slept with a light on for several months. But the horror hook was set and he followed the genre thereafter, learning the whereofs and howtos of it. Bloch read the horror pulps like "Weird Tales" and "Marvel Tales" and corresponded with H. P. Lovecraft and Henry Kuttner, later writing with both. He helped to keep Lovecraft's "Cthulhu Mythos" alive, even after his own career had moved to Hollywood. While he achieved a reputation with Psycho, it would be the hard work in teleplays for "Thriller," "Alfred Hitchcock Presents," and "Night Gallery" that would bring him a measure of success.

Born in Chicago, Bloch was schooled in nearby Maywood and then in Milwaukee, when the family relocated to Wisconsin. He married, worked at various jobs while hobbying at writing, until work was unavailable during the Depression...then, Bloch wrote full time, plus any labor he could pick up. His first exchange of letters with H. P. Lovecraft occurred in 1932 and they continued to write until Lovecraft's death in 1937. Bloch remained in penny-a-word short stories until WW II but he had been eyeing the radio-play markets. His 1943 short story "Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper" was adapted to radio and, by 1945, Bloch was writing a series of radioplays for a show titled "Stay Tuned for Terror."

Right after the war started, Bloch went to work for an advertising agency and that job provided some needed steady income for the next eleven years. During this period, Bloch spread out in several directions, seemingly to no avail. He was writing in horror, mystery, fantasy, and science fiction fields...and had a real talent for tales in the first person. Bloch's first collection appeared in 1945, The Opener of the Way, by Arkham House, courtesy of fellow Lovecraft admirer, August Derleth. Bloch's first novel, The Scarf, in 1947 was about a serial killer, told in the first person. While Bloch became known for mixing humor with fear, his main and only purpose was to make the hair stand up on the back of his readers' necks. Bloch used themes like black magic, demonic possession, voodoo, and vampires to do just that.

The sale of Psycho in 1959 to Alfred Hitchcock (as Bloch later found out) allowed him the cash to relocate to Hollywood and that career move was totally independent of the movie being made, in which Bloch had no part. However, its success had brought him to Alfred Hitchcock's attention (among others) and he wrote several things for Hitchcock later. Having "by the author of Psycho" appear above his paperback titles also insured high sales for the many short story collections and novels that were about to appear. Among these was a tribute novel to H. P. Lovecraft, Strange Eons, in 1978.

Bloch remained through most of his life "the grand old man" of sf and fantasy fandom and loved fanac (fan activity), often appearing at conventions and writing little things, as time allowed, for fanzines. And the fans loved him.

PEN NAMES: Tarleton Fiske, Will Folke, E. K. Jarvis, Wilson Kane, John Sheldon, and Collier Young.

ARTICLE: Robert Bloch: Writer & Gentlemen by Hugh B. Cave

AUTOBIOGRAPHY: Once Around the Bloch, Tor 1993

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Mine here.

BIOGRAPHY: Who Was Who in America, Vol XI, p27
and Supernatural Fiction Writers, E. F. Bleiler

OBITUARY: The Buffalo News here. L. A. Times, Sept 25, 1994, pB1. VARIETY, Oct 3-9, 1994, p67.

Send relevant email to George C. Willick