It's daunting to write about another writer who is obviously more celebrated and more heavily awarded than oneself. Why should he care about what a virtual nobody writing on a virtual medium thinks?
The writer in question is Ray Bradbury, who at 87 is white-haired and infirm, making appearances in a wheelchair that he seems unable to propel by himself. He is perhaps best known for his 1953 novel Fahrenheit 451, which was recently alluded to in the Michael Moore documentary Fahrenheit 9/11, an allusion that Bradbury protested. He also wrote the 1950 The Martian Chronicles.
Born in Illinois, his family moved to Los Angeles when he was thirteen in 1934. He graduated from high school in 1938, but never went to college. Instead, he educated himself at the local library and sold newspapers on the corner of Norton and Olympic. By 1941, when he was 21, he sold his first story, "The Invisible Boy," to Mademoiselle magazine. We know this because on opening night of his new play, The Invisible Boy, based on the short story, he told the audience this and more while being videotaped for a documentary. He also showed us a photo taken of him in his wheelchair in front of 20th Century Fox, picketing the studio in support of the writers because "you can't make a good film without writers." He was wearing a medal awarded to him by the French government.
He is a great man who has recently formed the Pandemonium Theatre Company, whose resident director is Alan Neal Hubbs. This group is currently mounting a guest production at the South Pasadena Fremont Centre Theatre, a bill of three one-acts under the name Ray Bradbury's Invisible Boy,, which opened Jan. 19. Two of the pieces ("The Invisible Boy" and "Bless Me, Father, For I have Sinned") were included in his recent holiday show.
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