Robert Bloch

Robert Albert Bloch was born on April 5, 1917 in Chicago, Illinois, in the union of the German Jews Raphael and Stella (nee Loeb), people of ordinary and poor people. When he was 5 years old, the family moved to Maywood, a suburb of Chicago. Here the boy studied at the Emerson Grammar School.

In the modern world, Bloch would be labeled as an "indigo child": his knowledge at the age of 8 was enough to go straight to the 4th grade. As an incentive to study, the teachers presented Bloch with a pass to the "adult" section of the Maywood Library, where he happily read even the most difficult and abstruse books.

Robert Bloch passed away 20 years ago today. :-(

Bloch showed a craving for the beautiful as a child. He started, however, with fine art - he painted with pencils and watercolors, but vision problems did not allow him to develop his talent. Bloch then focused on silent films. He liked most of the paintings, but the horror film The Phantom of the Opera (1925) was a real challenge.

By the way, then, along with fear, he experienced an interest in horror.

In 1929, the family moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin. At Lincoln High School, one of two schools where Bloch had a chance to study in a new place, he met lifelong friend Harold Gower. He was to become the editor of the literary magazine The Quill, where Bloch made his debut with a "horror story" called The Thing. The young men completed their education in 1934, during the Great Depression.

The first wife of Robert Bloch was Marion Ruth Holcomb. Their wedding, according to some reports, was fictitious so that the writer would not be taken into the army, took place on October 2, 1940. For a long time, the woman suffered from bone tuberculosis, which seriously affected her ability to walk, but in the end she was able to recover. In 1943, the couple had a daughter, Sally. 20 years after her parents divorced, she wished to stay with Robert Bloch.

On January 18, 1964, the author met Eleanor Alexandra (nee Zalisco), a fashion model and a widow. The lovers did not postpone the wedding, having played it on October 16 of the same year. Their personal life turned out to be happy and lasted until the last days of Bloch. They had no children.

In 1927, 10-year-old Robert Bloch first became acquainted with Weird Tales magazine. One of his “regulars” was Howard Lovecraft. The creativity of the science fiction writer so infected the young reader that he wrote him a letter - asking him to send more stories. The pen master not only responded, but also gave Bloch some advice on writing horror movies. He also kindly offered to evaluate the young man's work, if any. The boy sent Lovecraft a couple of stories, and a correspondence began.

In 1934, the name of Robert Bloch appeared on the pages of Weird Tales. Most of his early works are undoubtedly similar in style to Howard Lovecraft, the young man was not even afraid to include "The Myths of Cthulhu" in his narration. The horror master was not inferior to his student: Bloch was the only person to whom Lovecraft ever dedicated works. It is about the story "The Phantom of the Dark" (1936). The death of Lovecraft in 1937 deeply shocked 20-year-old Bloch. In his diary, he wrote:

Bloch continued to write for Weird Tales and soon became one of the magazine's most popular contributors. He expanded the themes of the stories with the voodoo religion, black magic, demonic possession, etc.

For many years, Bloch interrupted himself with a short syllable, modernizing the Lovecraft style that had been ingrained in him into his own. The first truly author's stories came out in 1943, for example, "Your friend Jack the Ripper."

Jack the Ripper was an unidentified serial killer who raged in London in 1888. Bloch did not limit himself to the legend created around this maniac, but included facts from a real criminal case into the narrative. In a similar way, the science fiction writer “exposed” the stories of the Man in the Iron Mask (The Iron Mask, 1944), the Marquis de Sade (The Skull of the Marquis de Sade, 1945) and Lizzie Borden (Lizzie Borden took the ax, 1946).

By 1945, the works of Robert Bloch were so popular that they received prime time on the radio. For this, the science fiction writer has recorded 15-minute audio versions of 39 of his best stories. None of the recordings have survived to this day.

Towards the end of the 1940s, Bloch finally moved away from the familiar short style and created the novel Scarf (1947) about the writer Daniel Morley, which uses real women for inspiration. As soon as the story ends, the hero is forced to kill his muses - he strangles them with a scarf.

Ten years later, Bloch's bibliography already had four novels — plus The Web, The Kidnapper, and The Will to Kill, all published in 1954. Before the main triumph was not long.

In 1959, Robert Bloch won the Hugo Prize for the best story Train to Hell (1958). At the same time, the premiere of the novel "Psycho", which was destined to become a bestseller, took place.

"Psycho" is one of the examples of Bloch's prose, in which the author relies not on fantasy, but on reality, which can chill the blood no less than supernatural phenomena. The story turned out to be so creepy that Hollywood first approached the author with a request to make a film.

Alfred Hitchcock, who filmed Psycho in 1960, only indirectly relied on the novel. All the proposals that Bloch tried to make were rejected. Hollywood did not accept the script for the sequel to the film "Psycho 2" (1983). The author, who was to become the protagonist of this project, remained in the background.

Bloch did not get angry with show business, did not sue, but took up the creation of a movie. He started with scripts for mystical television series, then moved on to feature films. So, according to Bloch's ideas, the thrillers Psychopath (1966), The Garden of Torture (1967), The House Where Blood Flows (1970), The Psychiatric Hospital (1972) were filmed.

The world of cinema never absorbed Bloch, he remained faithful to literature, invariably delighting fans with exciting stories. Even at the end of his life's journey, he did not calm his pen. It was important for the author to complete the story. Therefore, the novels "Psycho-2" (1982) and "House of the Psychopath" (1990) appeared. The latter completed not only the trilogy, but also a series of "great" works by Bloch, and at the same time his bright literary career.

Biography of Robert Bloch ended on September 23, 1994. The author celebrated his 77th birthday. By that time, he had been fighting for many years with cancer, which was the cause of death.

The body of Robert Bloch was cremated, and the ashes were buried in Westwood Cemetery in Los Angeles, California, under a slab that looked like a book. Judging by the photographs, Eleanor Alexandra also found her last refuge there. She died on March 7, 2007, having outlived her husband for 13 years.

1936 - "Cemetery Horror" 1943 - "Your Friend Jack the Ripper" 1947 - "Scarf" 1951 - "The Hungry House" 1956 - "Nightmare in the Night" 1958 - "Train to Hell" 1959 - "Psycho" 1962 - "Couch" 1967 - "Living Dead" 1972 - "Kingdom of the Night" 1974 - "American Gothic" 1982 - "Psycho-2" 1990 - "House of the Psychopath"

Robert Bloch 's estimated Net Worth, Salary, Income, Cars, Lifestyles & many more details have been updated below.

Let's check, How Rich is Robert Bloch in 2020 ?

Robert Bloch Net Worth 2021

Robert Bloch 's revenue is $ 2M in 2021. It is an approximate forecast of how rich is Robert Bloch and could vary in the range between $ 963.2K - $ 1.2M.

Robert Bloch Net Worth 2020

Robert Bloch 's revenue is $1.1M in 2020. It is an approximate forecast of how rich is Robert Bloch and could vary in the range between $993.1K - $1.2M.

Robert Bloch Net Worth 2019

Robert Bloch 's revenue is $1.1M in 2019. It is an approximate forecast of how rich is Robert Bloch and could vary in the range between $975.2K - $1.1M.

Robert Bloch Net Worth 2018

Robert Bloch 's revenue is $1.2M in 2018. It is an approximate forecast of how rich is Robert Bloch and could vary in the range between $563K - $1.9M.

Robert Bloch Net Worth 2017

Robert Bloch 's revenue is $1.9M in 2017. It is an approximate forecast of how rich is Robert Bloch and could vary in the range between $675.7K - $1.8M.

Robert Bloch Net Worth 2016

Robert Bloch 's revenue is $1.9M in 2016. It is an approximate forecast of how rich is Robert Bloch and could vary in the range between $975.5K - $2M.

Robert Bloch Net Worth 2015

Robert Bloch 's revenue is $1.7M in 2015. It is an approximate forecast of how rich is Robert Bloch and could vary in the range between $822.5K - $1.1M.

It is an overall forecast for the net worth of Robert Bloch. The evaluation covers the latest 5 years and an approximation for next year. See above to learn how much money does Robert Bloch makes a year.

The range above shows an estimation based on evaluation generated by public information about sponsorships or other sources found on the internet. It's summarized data from Robert Bloch's projects existing in AidWiki's repository. It's an approximation of the revenue compiled by AidWiki and may not correspond with the real amount.

American science fiction writer Robert Bloch is little known to the reader. Only one of his books "Psycho" became widely famous in the 1960s, and then thanks to the film adaptation of the same name by Alfred Hitchcock. He began his 60-year career as an imitator of Howard Lovecraft, and ended up as the author of more than 30 unique novels and hundreds of short stories, a multiple winner of prestigious literary awards.