St. Petersburg Times (25/Sep/1994) - 'Psycho' author Robert Bloch dies

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• article: 'Psycho' author Robert Bloch dies
• newspaper: St. Petersburg Times (25/Sep/1994)
• keywords: Alfred Hitchcock Presents (TV), Alfred Hitchcock, Psycho (1960), Ray Bradbury, Robert Bloch

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'Psycho' author Robert Bloch dies

Robert Bloch, a prolific mystery writer whose novel Psycho was adapted for the classic Alfred Hitchcock horror film, died Friday at his home in Los Angeles. He was 77.

The cause was cancer of the esophagus and the kidneys, said his daughter, Sally Francy of Los Gatos, Calif.

Mr. Bloch had joked to friends that his obituary would begin with Psycho, a novel that was just a tiny part of his flood of work. And indeed it is his psychological mysteries that fellow writers said Saturday would be his principal legacy.

Ray Bradbury, for instance, said the 1960 film of Psycho marked "the beginning of a dark period when we made films based on psychotic reality rather than mythological things."

"Suddenly," Bradbury said, "we were confronted with the fact that our showers were not safe."

Author Harlan Ellison said Mr. Bloch "was surely on a level with Poe."

"He set the tone for the modern dark fantasy," Ellison said, adding that Mr. Bloch was one of the first authors to examine the motivations of serial killers.

Mr. Bloch's works ranged widely. In addition to mysteries, he wrote fantasies, essays and humor. He first sold a story in 1934, to the pulp magazine Weird Tales. In the 1950s, he moved to Los Angeles to write scripts for low-budget horror films and later for TV shows like Alfred Hitchcock Presents and the original Star Trek.

Although he wrote fantasies, mysteries, essays and humor, Mr. Bloch is best remembered for his chilling psychological suspense novels, which helped inspire such modern writers as Stephen King, whom he befriended.

"The man who wrote Psycho was the gentlest creature on the planet," said Ellison, who knew him from age 14.