10 Fun Facts About Ray Bradbury

By Steel Trap on June 6, 2012

It’s a sad day for literary and science fiction fans, as one of their most prominent has fallen. Ray Bradbury gave us so many great works of fiction, and proved to the world that creative genius could emerge from a humble flyover state. The man whose ultimate goal was to achieve immortality via authoring books did just that, may he continue to live forever.

10. Big fish, small pond. He is the most famous person born in Waukegan, Illinois (TV and Radio personality, Jack Benny, was born in Chicago, but grew up in Waukegan).

9. Blame the genes. His distant relative, Mary Bradbury, was tried as a witch and burned at the stake in Salem, Massachusetts.

8. Oh Poe he didn’t! He was inspired to write after reading the collective works of Edgar Alan Poe.

7. Why don’t we call a taxi? Bradbury never obtained a driver’s license.

6. Burn after reading. He is best known for his book, Fahrenheit 451: A Novel.

5. Take that, Ms. Monroe! Bradbury was given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6644 Hollywood Blvd.

4. Smarter than a box of rocks. An asteroid discovered in 1992 was named “9766 Bradbury” in his honor.

3. Top of the heap. A Pulitzer Prize was awarded to him in 2007.

2. You’re needed on set. “It Came from Outer Space” was the first film adapted from a Bradbury work of fiction in 1953.

1. For whom the book tolls. His second most famous work, Something Wicked This Way Comes, was inspired by a travelling carnival in which an electrified sword touched him and made his hair stand on end. It was because of this experience that he was determined to “live forever” by becoming a successfully published author.