Ray Bradbury was born on the 22nd August 1920, in Waukegan, Illinois USA, of Swedish descent through his mother, and English through his father. He was a novelist, writer of short stories and essays, playwright, screenwriter and poet, and was active in the industry from 1938 to 2012. Ray passed away in 2012.
How much was the net worth of Ray Bradbury? It had been reported by authoritative sources that the overall size of his wealth was equal to $30 million, converted to the present day. Writing was the major source of Bradbury’s fortune.
Ray Bradbury Net Worth $30 Million
To begin with, the boy grew up in the time of Great Depression. After the family finally settled in Los Angeles, Bradbury attended Los Angeles High School, and subsequently graduated from UCLA in 1938, after which for a while sold newspapers for living.
From an early age, Ray had always been an avid reader, writer, and cartoonist for his own amusement. He was first published in the late ‘30s – his eyesight was so poor he was rejected for military servicm so wrote instead, notably for “Fanzines” and “Script” during the ‘40s. His reputation as a writer was established with the publication of “The Martian Chronicles” (1950), then “Fahrenheit 451” (1953) was released, which many considered Bradbury’s masterpiece. Other works of the writer include “The October Country” (1955), “Something Wicked This Way Comes” (1962), “I Sing the Body Electric!” (1969), among many others. Bradbury’s works are usually short stories, and their centre is not action, but dialogue, monologue, reflection. The writer combines fantasy with detection and melodrama. His works do not have comprehensive descriptions of technological details, but much attention is paid to the place of action, the appearance of heroes, names, dates and figures. Thoughts are thoroughly built, but they are not the main part of his works. Bradbury’s emotions, atmosphere, and feeling are more important than action. In his works, Bradbury laughs from people without imagination. Evil and violence in his work are unrealistic, and it’s best to ignore them without paying attention to them. According to Bradbury himself, he wrote over 400 stories throughout his life. Some of them later became larger works, others belong to specific cycles. His short stories appeared in over a thousand of anthologies of recommended reading in schools.
Ray Bradbury’s work has been inducted into collections of four Best American Short Story. He was rewarded among others with the O. Henry Memorial Award, the World Fantasy Award for Lifetime Achievement, the Grand Master Award from the Science Fiction Writers of America, Award PEN centre USA West Lifetime Achievement. The stand-out was his Pulitzer Prize in 2007.
Bradbury never confined his vision to pure literature. For his animated film “Icarus Montgolfier Wright” he was nominated for an Academy Award, and won an Emmy Award for his screenplay for television “The Halloween Tree”. He adapted 65 of his stories for Ray Bradbury Theatre of television.
Additionally, Bradbury was the creative consultant on the US Pavilion at the New York World’s Fair of 1964. In 1982, he created the interior metaphors sample Spaceship Earth at Epcot Centre, Disney World and later contributed to the conception of spatial route in Disneyland Paris, France.
The Ray Bradbury Award is presented by the group of sci-fi writers Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America to highlight the excellence of a dramatic work presented in cinema, television, internet, radio or at the theatre.
Finally, in the personal life of Ray Bradbury, he was married to Maggie Bradbury from 1947, and they lived in Los Angeles until Maggie died in 2003; they had four daughters. Ray died on the 5th June 2012 in Los Angeles, California – at his request, his tombstone at Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery bears the epitaph: Author of Fahrenheit 451.
