Anne Rice, the Immortal Vampire Queen

By Casandra Vicario

Well, yes, on December 11, 2021, American novelist Anne Rice passed into the world of the dead at 80 years of age, and so, at MACABRO, we honor her legacy by sharing with you some facts about the “Queen of the Damned”.

1.- Her real name was Howard Allen O'Brien; she herself changed it from a young age to the one we know her by now: Anne Rice.

2.- She was born on October 4, 1941, in New Orleans, Louisiana. She was married to Stan Rice from 1961 to 2002, the year death took her husband from her; together they had two children, Christopher and Michelle—the latter would also be taken from her side at just 5 years of age.

3.- Because of the loss of her loved ones, she struggled for a long time with depression and obesity, at one point weighing as much as 115 kilos before undergoing gastric bypass surgery to improve her health; even so, she would later be diagnosed with diabetes.

4.- She wrote under two pseudonyms: as Anne Rampling she wrote “Exit to Eden” in 1985 and “Belinda” in 1986, and as A.N. Roquelaure she wrote a celebrated Sleeping Beauty saga that has nothing to do with the fairy tales we see in film or on TV: “The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty” (1983), “Beauty's Punishment” (1984), “Beauty's Release” (1985), and “Beauty's Kingdom” (2015), all of which can now be found under her original name, Anne Rice.

5.- She wrote more than 30 novels, but the first to be published, in 1976, was the famous “Interview with the Vampire,” which would later be adapted for film; this book would give rise to the “Vampire Chronicles” which brought her worldwide fame and would leave a notable mark on generations of young vampire lovers.

6.- In 1988, after years of declaring herself an “atheist,” she converted to Christianity and stated that she would no longer write about witches and vampires.

7.- The character of Claudia, the bloodsucking girl from “Interview with the Vampire,” was inspired by her daughter Michelle, to whom she gave the gift of immortality through the pages of this book and many of the adventures recounted throughout “The Vampire Chronicles.”

8.- In 1994, Neil Jordan brought “Interview with the Vampire” to the big screen with a cast that included Brad Pitt, Antonio Banderas, Christian Slater, a very young Kirsten Dunst, and Tom Cruise; it's said that Rice was not entirely comfortable with the casting choice to play her favorite vampire on the big screen. The film is, without a doubt, a classic of vampire cinema.

9.- She wrote her autobiography titled “Called Out of Darkness: A Spiritual Confession.”

10.- Her “Vampire Chronicles” were also an inspiration for musicians of every kind: the Australian duo “Savage Garden” took its name from the term the vampire Lestat uses for the world of the living. There is also an Italian gothic rock band named “Theatres des Vampires,” another rock band from Ohio called “Lestat,” and the famous singer Sting drew on Rice's work to write two songs: “A Thousand Years” and “Moon Over Bourbon Street,” not to mention “Una canción para Louis. Vampiro,” performed by Santa Sabina and written by Adriana Díaz Enciso.

Anne Rice now enjoys the company of the loved ones she cherished so dearly and who went ahead of her on the journey; she is also joined by her vampires, witches, mummies, her sleeping beauty, and all the beings she brought to life through her pages—who now make her an immortal writer.