...the death of playwright and novelist Ira Levin. Levin wrote the plays Deathtrap and No Time For Sargents (the latter based on a novel by Mac Hyman). His own novels include The Stepford Wives, The Boys From Brazil and Rosemary's Baby.
I'm fond of many of the films based upon his work; as you can see from the above list, Hollywood had good reason to love him. I don't think I have read many if any of his novels, though I do remember reading his plays and enjoying them, as well as the movies made.
I also note with a weird and completely inappropriate sense of pride that he was a writer who can genuinely be said to have added phrases to the English language.
If you're a writer, it doesn't get much better than that. If I say to you that a woman comes off like a Stepford Wife, you instantly know what I mean: A woman "perfect" to such an unbelivable degree that it becomes suspiscious.
Just as "Rosemary's Baby" has become code for a devil-child. BTW, the news item on his death ends with a clever and puckish quote about his feelings on that book's success:
According to the New York Times, Levin was unhappy with the legacy of popular Satanism that followed the release of "Rosemary's Baby."
"I feel guilty that 'Rosemary's Baby' led to 'The Exorcist,' 'The Omen,'" it quoted him as telling the The Los Angeles Times in 2002. "A whole generation has been exposed, has more belief in Satan.
"I don't believe in Satan. And I feel that the strong fundamentalism we have would not be as strong if there hadn't been so many of these books."
"Of course," he reportedly added, "I didn't send back any of the royalty checks."
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