Dec. 12 (UPI) — Best-selling author Anne Rice has died Sunday of complications from a stroke, her son Christopher announced on Facebook on Sunday. She was 80.
News of her death comes as AMC is working on two TV shows based on her “Interview with the Vampire,” its sequels and prequels, as well as her book “Lives of the Mayfair Witches.”
Her other works included “Exit to Eden,” “The Feast of All Saints” and “Servant of the Bones.”
“She left us almost 19 years to the day my father, her husband Stan, died,” Christopher wrote on Anne’s Facebook page.
“The immensity of our family’s grief cannot be overstated. As my mother, her support for me was unconditional — she taught me to embrace my dreams, reject conformity and challenge the dark voices of fear and self-doubt,” Christopher added.
“As a writer, she taught me to defy genre boundaries and surrender to my obsessive passions. In her final hours, I sat beside her hospital bed in awe of her accomplishments and her courage, awash in memories of a life that took us from the fog laced hills of the San Francisco Bay Area to the magical streets of New Orleans to the twinkling vistas of Southern California.”
Anne is expected to be interred in her family’s mausoleum at Metairie Cemetery in New Orleans in a private ceremony.
A public celebration of her life is being planned for 2022 in New Orleans.
Rice was married to poet and painter Stan Rice from 1961 until his death from brain cancer in 2002.
They were the parents of Christopher and Michele, who died of leukemia when she was five.
“Interview with the Vampire” was previously adapted as an iconic 1994 movie starring Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, Antonio Banderas and Kirsten Dunst. The horror novel was also turned into a 2006 stage musical with music and lyrics by Elton John and Bernie Taupin.
