Bradbury lived in his parents' home until he was 27 and married. His wife was Marguerite McClure (January 16, 1922 – November 24, 2003), from 1947 until her death. Maggie, as she was affectionately called, was the only woman he ever dated.[21] They had four daughters:[65] Susan, Ramona, Bettina and Alexandra.[66] Bradbury never obtained a driver's license, but used public transportation or his bicycle.[67]
He was raised Baptist by his parents, who were themselves infrequent churchgoers. As an adult, Bradbury considered himself a "delicatessen religionist" who resisted categorization of his beliefs and took guidance from both Eastern and Western faiths. He felt that his career was "a God-given thing, and I'm so grateful, so, so grateful. The best description of my career as a writer is 'At play in the fields of the Lord'."[68]
Bradbury was a close friend of Charles Addams, and Addams illustrated "Homecoming", the first of Bradbury's stories about the Elliotts, a family that resembled Addams's own Addams Family transplanted to rural Illinois. Addams and Bradbury planned a larger collaborative work that would tell the family's complete history, but it never materialized, and according to a 2001 interview, they went their separate ways.[69] In October 2001, Bradbury published all the Family stories he had written in one book with a connecting narrative, From the Dust Returned, featuring a wraparound Addams cover of the original "Homecoming" illustration.[70]
Another close friend was special effects expert Ray Harryhausen, who was best man at Bradbury's wedding.[71] During a BAFTA 2010 awards tribute honoring Harryhausen's 90th birthday, Bradbury spoke of first meeting him at Forrest J Ackerman's house when they were both 18. Their shared love for science fiction, King Kong, and The Fountainhead was the beginning of a lifelong friendship. These early influences inspired them to believe in themselves and affirm their career choices. After their first meeting, they kept in touch at least once a month, in a friendship that lasted over 70 years.[72]
Bradbury relates the following encounter with Sergei Bondarchuk, director of the 1966–1967 Soviet epic film War and Peace, at a Hollywood award ceremony in Bondarchuk's honor:
They formed a long queue and as Bondarchuk was walking along it he recognized several people: "Oh Mr. Ford, I like your film." He recognized the director, Greta Garbo, and someone else. I was standing at the very end of the queue and silently watched this. Bondarchuk shouted to me; "Ray Bradbury, is that you?" He rushed up to me, embraced me, dragged me inside, grabbed a bottle of Stolichnaya, sat down at his table where his closest friends were sitting. All the famous Hollywood directors in the queue were bewildered. They stared at me and asked each other "Who is this Bradbury?" And, swearing, they left, leaving me alone with Bondarchuk ...[73]
Late in life, Bradbury retained his dedication and passion despite the "devastation of illnesses and deaths of many good friends". Among them was the death of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, an intimate friend for many years. They remained close for nearly 30 years after Roddenberry asked him to write for Star Trek; Bradbury declined, claiming that he "never had the ability to adapt other people's ideas into any sensible form".[21]
Bradbury suffered a stroke in 1999[74] that left him partially dependent on a wheelchair.[75] He made regular appearances at science-fiction conventions until 2009, when he retired from the circuit. He continued to write, contributing an essay to the science fiction issue of The New Yorker about his inspiration for writing, published a week before his death.[76]
Bradbury's headstone in May 2012, a month prior to his deathBradbury chose a burial place at Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles, with a headstone that reads "Author of Fahrenheit 451".[77][78] On February 6, 2015, The New York Times reported that the house Bradbury lived and wrote in for 50 years, at 10265 Cheviot Drive in Cheviot Hills, Los Angeles, California, had been demolished by the buyer, architect Thom Mayne.[79]
Politics
Bradbury considered himself a political independent.[80] Raised a Democrat, he voted for the Democratic Party until 1968. In 1952, he took out an advertisement in Variety as an open letter to Republicans, stating: "Every attempt that you make to identify the Democratic Party as the party of Communism, as the 'left-wing' or 'subversive' party, I will attack with all my heart and soul."[81] However, Lyndon B. Johnson's handling of the Vietnam War left Bradbury disenchanted, and from 1968 on he voted for the Republican Party in every presidential election with the exception of 1976, when he voted for Jimmy Carter. According to Bradbury's biographer Sam Weller, Carter's inept handling of the economy "pushed [Bradbury] permanently away from the Democrats".[80]
Bradbury called Ronald Reagan "the greatest president" whereas he dismissed Bill Clinton, calling him a "shithead".[82] In August 2001, shortly before the September 11 attacks, he described George W. Bush as "wonderful" and stated that the American education system was a "monstrosity".[83] He later criticized Barack Obama for ending NASA's crewed space flight program.[82]
In 2010, he criticized big government, saying that there was "too much government" in America, and "I don't believe in government. I hate politics. I'm against it. And I hope that sometimes this fall, we can destroy part of our government, and next year destroy even more of it. The less government, the happier I will be".[82] Bradbury was against affirmative action, condemned what he called "all this political correctness that's rampant on campuses", and called for a ban of quotas in higher education.[21][82] He asserted that "[e]ducation is purely an issue of learning—we can no longer afford to have it polluted by damn politics".[21]
Death
Bradbury died in Los Angeles, California, on June 5, 2012, at the age of 91, after a lengthy illness.[84] His personal library was willed to the Waukegan Public Library, where he had many of his formative reading experiences.[85]
The Los Angeles Times credited him with the ability "to write lyrically and evocatively of lands an imagination away, worlds he anchored in the here and now with a sense of visual clarity and small-town familiarity".[86] His grandson, Danny Karapetian, said Bradbury's works had "influenced so many artists, writers, teachers, scientists, and it's always really touching and comforting to hear their stories".[66] The Washington Post noted several modern-day technologies that Bradbury had envisioned much earlier, such as the idea of banking ATMs and earbuds and Bluetooth headsets in Fahrenheit 451, and the concepts of artificial intelligence in I Sing the Body Electric.[87]
Legacy
On June 6, 2012, in an official public statement from the White House Press Office, President Barack Obama said:
For many Americans, the news of Ray Bradbury's death immediately brought to mind images from his work, imprinted in our minds, often from a young age. His gift for storytelling reshaped our culture and expanded our world. But Ray also understood that our imaginations could be used as a tool for better understanding, a vehicle for change, and an expression of our most cherished values. There is no doubt that Ray will continue to inspire many more generations with his writing, and our thoughts and prayers are with his family and friends.[88]
Several authors and filmmakers paid tribute to Bradbury, noting the influence of his works on their own.[89][90] Steven Spielberg said that Bradbury was "my muse for the better part of my sci-fi career .... On the world of science fiction and fantasy and imagination he is immortal."[91] Neil Gaiman said that "the landscape of the world we live in would have been diminished if we had not had him in our world".[90] Joanne Harris called him "a bright, burning spark."[92] Stephen King released a statement on his website saying:
Ray Bradbury wrote three great novels and three hundred great stories. One of the latter was called 'A Sound of Thunder'. The sound I hear today is the thunder of a giant's footsteps fading away. But the novels and stories remain, in all their resonance and strange beauty.[93]
Margaret Atwood said she was "warped early by Ray Bradbury." She wrote that Bradbury was:
So much a part of my own early reading, especially the delicious, clandestine reading done avidly in lieu of homework, and the compulsive reading done at night with a flashlight when I ought to have been sleeping. Stories read with such enthusiasm at such a young age are not so much read as inhaled. They sink all the way in and all the way down, and they stay with you... His imagination had a dark side, and he used that dark twin and its nightmares in his work; but to the waking world he presented a combination of eager, wonder-filled boy and kindly uncle, and that was just as real. In an age of writing classes, he was self-taught; in an age of spin, his was an authentic voice, straight from the heartland; in an age of groomed images, he was a natural.[94]
