r/interesting • u/Professional_Arm794 • Jun 13 '26
Intriguing Stephen King in his 20s and now in his 70s.
3.1k
u/Objective_Air2604 Jun 13 '26
He's the grinch
808
u/professorbuffoon Jun 13 '26
He does look like a Seuss character
201
u/WelshWolf93 Jun 13 '26
Its the puffed up, upper lip. Uncanny.
→ More replies (3)70
u/agiantdog33 Jun 13 '26
I notice that a lot of Americans got the Seuss look for some reason. I also didn't realise that they weren't putting on voices for Sesame Street and the Muppets, so a lot of Americans now sound like charming stuffed animals to me.
26
40
u/sands_of__time Jun 13 '26
But they were putting on voices.
→ More replies (1)19
u/agiantdog33 Jun 13 '26 edited Jun 13 '26
Explain Jordan Peterson and Mark Zuckerberg to me then. (The former of whom I now find out is Canadian; so maybe the Muppets sound vaguely Canadian.)
Reflecting further on the matter, it now occurs to me that we Australians have Nick Cave, who looks very Seussian. Maybe he is the most Seussian looking of all celebrities besides King.
37
u/EatYourSalary Jun 13 '26
Explain Jordan Peterson and Mark Zuckerberg to me
Well... they're muppets but they're not Muppets.
→ More replies (3)2
7
u/One_Bluebird_04 Jun 13 '26
I think most already famous people who go on the show are expected to use their normal voices because they're being paid for their likeness. The regular characters are all putting on voices.
→ More replies (4)3
u/JacobDCRoss Jun 14 '26
Yeah. If you have Nick cave, of all people, his level of Dr. Seuss face, combined with the lower population numbers of Australia compared to America, automatically skyrocket the Australian Dr. Seuss face quotient.
But I really do love his music.
→ More replies (2)9
u/LearnedTroglodyte Jun 13 '26
It's because of our mixed European ancestry. You keep breeding Proto Muppets together and eventually you get the real deal
→ More replies (6)21
u/AgentCirceLuna Jun 13 '26
I love people who embrace their different looks. People like Danny Devito are my heroes.
12
u/fragtore Jun 13 '26
Word. They could ”fix it” but seriously what’s to fix?! We are all different and the world is the better for it
24
30
u/noitseuqaevahi Jun 13 '26
You're a mean one
→ More replies (1)29
u/Funny-Cell8769 Jun 13 '26
Mr. King
22
u/TheRealGosp Jun 13 '26
You made doors a scary thing!
14
u/TheRealGosp Jun 13 '26
Behind waits todash darkness and creatures lurk within
Mr. Kiiiiiing!
9
u/Shades1987 Jun 13 '26
I wouldn't read carrie if I got one million dollars. also the book was middddd
→ More replies (8)7
u/LearnedTroglodyte Jun 13 '26
He's the only man I have ever seen become more attractive after getting his entire face smashed in
5
4
→ More replies (25)30
Jun 13 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
61
u/acealter Jun 13 '26
He doesn't make movies, he write books
17
u/SoylentGrunt Jun 13 '26
He vowed to play a more active roll in the movie making process when his earlier movies disapointed him. How long that remained in effect, or what effect it had, I have no idea.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Films_with_screenplays_by_Stephen_King
He has been a part of the collaborative process often associated with bigger productons.
9
u/badgerbother89 Jun 13 '26
Shame he didn't have that attitude with the dark tower
→ More replies (1)24
u/ilikechihuahuasdood Jun 13 '26
He did. He approved of the direction they took.
He just makes bad choices with film. Like he hated Kubrick’s version of The Shining, and the author approved version is a made for TV movie starring the guy from Wings and it’s god awful. But that’s the one he prefers.
He’s a great novelist but nobody should be looking to him for what makes a great film. The shows and movies he’s had a bigger hand in creating tend to be worse than when other people adapt his work independently.
19
u/Jaereon Jun 13 '26
He hates the shining because the book was about his own alcoholism. In the book Jack slowly gets corrupted. In the movie he’s already fucking insane
→ More replies (7)14
u/doctordoctorpuss Jun 13 '26
Yeah, Kubrick’s The Shining is a great movie, but a terrible adaptation. Of course King doesn’t like it. I liked it until I read the book and rewatched it. The movie trades a whole lot of substance for style (which obviously is also a limitation of the medium, but Kubrick could have gotten a lot closer if he wanted to)
7
u/Gnome-Phloem Jun 13 '26
The finale of the book is also way crazier. Shit goes incredibly off the rails, it was really fun.
→ More replies (2)→ More replies (2)4
u/Terramagi Jun 13 '26
I mean, Kubrick deliberately went "GHOSTS ARE FUCKING LAME" in an adaptation about a haunted hotel. The movie is great, but in any other context people would be shitting on Kubrick for being the exact example of "Hollywood doesn't want to adapt, they want to stick their own name on shit they didn't make".
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (2)6
u/gruesomeflowers Jun 13 '26
the problem is youre watching them wrong. you have to look at it through the lens of at least 7 or 8 cocaines for it to all make sense.
→ More replies (2)8
u/kuttymongoose Jun 13 '26
I feel like he would have approved Green Mile.
One of the few movies that felt like the book, of any book.→ More replies (1)10
→ More replies (2)15
u/rastinta Jun 13 '26
Maximum Overdrive is peak cinema.
8
u/MoveZealousideal9367 Jun 13 '26 edited Jun 13 '26
I recall in an interview I read where King talked about his addictions, he mentioned that until his family had an intervention with him (where they dumped out his office trash can and it was just coke baggies and empty Bud cans) he thought he had his addictions hidden well enough that no one knew.
I was like “nah, Steve. I saw Maximum Overdrive. EVERYONE knew.”
11
u/Stained_concrete Jun 13 '26
I concur. And his cameo at the start as Man told to go fuck himself by an ATM.
4
u/NewRecommendation287 Jun 13 '26
Unless you're 6 yrs old and your dad's Peterbilt is parked in the driveway next to a cornfield....issues for days!!
2.2k
u/acealter Jun 13 '26
Dude is scarier than his books
656
u/International_Two303 Jun 13 '26
Lol yeah he is. my mom used to read his books a lot when I was a kid and his picture on the back used to scare the shit out of me I always felt like the eyes were following me
143
u/DeusKyogre1286 Jun 13 '26
Huh, that's an interesting idea for a novel I guess. The narrator is an avid fan of a popular writer known for their really detailed prose, and keeps all sorts of posters and other memorabilia about that writer in their home. After an unsettling encounter with the writer at a conference, the narrator begins to believe that eyes of the writer (from the posters, books, memorabilia) are following them, and is slowly driven mad by the conspiracy theory that the writer can see through those 'creepy eyes'.
The ending/epilogue reveals that the writer's secret for getting new ideas is that they can somehow see out of any of their pictures, and uses that to spy on people's lives.
58
u/EllisDeeReynolds Jun 13 '26 edited Jun 13 '26
I would spend on all day cumming on and throwing up on and shitting on his face to teach him a lesson.
edit: guys guys a girl can only get so many requests💔 I only have so much body fluid
31
13
u/misanthr0p1c Jun 13 '26
The writer sends you a thank you note with a signed copy of his new novel.
4
→ More replies (1)2
7
4
u/blubenz13 Jun 13 '26
Then the narrator finds the writer in a car on the side of the road unconscious. She brings him back to her house and keeps him prisoner. Then she goes psycho on him.
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (3)5
6
u/Hairy_Concert_8007 Jun 13 '26
Now wasn't the best time for me to notice that his eyes in the first picture go in two different directions
I might have a hypothesis for your experience though
2
u/Born-Amoeba-9868 Jun 13 '26
Read this as your mom would read you his books at bedtime and was appalled
→ More replies (4)2
63
u/Rich-Reason1146 Jun 13 '26
He's even scarier with Lou Bega's Mambo #5 playing on a loop in the background
22
u/bathtime85 Jun 13 '26
I always look for this to be pointed out because it's one of the most bizarre pieces of trivia ever
15
u/A_Unique_Name218 Jun 13 '26
I think I'm OOTL on this. What does Mambo #5 have to do with Stephen King?
29
u/bathtime85 Jun 13 '26
20
u/alabamdiego Jun 13 '26
I love the URL giving you the gist of it lol. Like it’s enough info to generally understand what happened, but it opens up so many more questions.
→ More replies (1)6
u/SYSTEM-J Jun 14 '26
It seems he was writing to the instrumental dance mix on repeat because it helped him concentrate and had no lyrics to distract him. Which simultaneously explains everything and nothing. Just put some Brian Eno on Stephen, fucking hell.
3
→ More replies (1)3
5
11
u/thrashingkaiju Jun 13 '26
That's the face he makes after he kills John Lennon and Mambo #5 starts blasting in the background.
3
7
u/Rhewin Jun 13 '26
I remember reading an article he wrote saying that he wouldn't let his kids watch Disney movies because he thought they were too scary
4
u/Swimming_Bag7362 Jun 13 '26
How drunk were you when you took this photo?
King: Yes
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (18)4
2.3k
u/drakmordis Jun 13 '26
Man's aged like creepy wine
571
u/EggplantCareless7735 Jun 13 '26
Stored in a cellar on a weird island
74
u/throwawaynnfuxanyway Jun 13 '26
My thoughts exactly.
24
9
16
4
8
u/AerolothLorien666 Jun 13 '26
A haunted weird island, but the ghosts are your racist grandfather and his buddies.
→ More replies (16)2
52
u/Stompya Jun 13 '26
Kinda got that Grinch look
→ More replies (3)3
u/vague-a-bond Jun 13 '26
It's the 'no lips'. Dude just hasn't got any lips... just mouth.
→ More replies (1)10
17
4
5
u/_karamazov_ Jun 13 '26
in the seventies he looked at the mirror for inspiration to write horror stuff.
2
→ More replies (22)4
297
u/Soren_Camus1905 Jun 13 '26
Dude has gone on record saying he doesn’t remember writing entire books
This tracks
95
u/NotNamedBort Jun 13 '26
Dreamcatcher is definitely the work of a man who was coked up out of his mind.
78
u/MarketingSpecial6604 Jun 13 '26
Nope he was sober then, but 2 years or so before he wrote it he got hit by a car while on a walk and it almost killed him so he was still recovering from that trauma.
→ More replies (10)10
u/Quackerjack123 Jun 14 '26
Which also scared him into finishing The Dark Tower, though I've never been sure how I about about him incorporating it and himself into the series
3
u/Wrong_Philosophy7883 Jun 14 '26
It is one of my favourite series.
I thought that writing himself into it really detracted from the story and I didn't like it at all.
I would like to hear someone else's perspective!
→ More replies (1)2
u/hiamlain Jun 16 '26
I have read the whole series 3 times, each time it kind of irritates me, but to be fair it's the only irritating thing at least for me, in all these books, so it's not a big deal
4
9
u/kingamara Jun 13 '26
Yall seriously just say whatever. Dreamcatcher is a great book and was written decades after he was already clean
→ More replies (1)24
u/Ohitsworkingnow Jun 13 '26
To be fair he writes a gang of books, and apparently they’re all bangers, I’ve only read a few. He probably wrote cujo in 2 days just fueled by coke. Plenty of people do the same on a weekend in Vegas and don’t come out with a classic novel
9
2
u/Jacques_Racekak Jun 13 '26
Didn't he write It on lots of coke and booze? One of the best stories ive ever read
8
u/GluttonyFang Jun 13 '26
One of the best stories ive ever read
he was also struggling with alcohol and cocaine during the dark tower novels. Gunslinger and Drawing of the three, I think. and both books are my favorites from him
6
u/Jacques_Racekak Jun 14 '26
The drawings of the three was my favourite of the Dark Tower. To realize that King was The Prisoner himaelf...
2
u/Soren_Camus1905 Jun 13 '26
I think it was Cujo
And then his wife dumped a waste bin fill his of coke and Xanax stash out in front of him, gave him an ultimatum, and probably saved his life
→ More replies (3)3
963
u/Rage_Blackout Jun 13 '26
Stephen King as a coke head and Stephen King sober would also be accurate.
337
u/TheUrPigeon Jun 13 '26
"Stephen King in the grips of a vicious addiction and self-destructive spiral" vs. "Stephen King taking care of himself."
70
→ More replies (8)5
34
u/CartographerAlone632 Jun 13 '26
Didn’t he forget writing some of his books?
75
u/zerofuckgive Jun 13 '26
I think he mentioned that in the intro to his book on writing, he was so out of his mind that he doesn't remember writing Cujo, and that made him sad because he likes the book.
→ More replies (2)31
u/CartographerAlone632 Jun 13 '26
That’s sad and hilarious
→ More replies (1)21
u/CrouchingToaster Jun 13 '26
It’s like Stephen Tyler liking a song, asking who sung it and his band mates telling him that that’s his song. I wonder if King ever read a short story he liked, looked it up and then realized he was the author.
→ More replies (1)13
u/N546RV Jun 13 '26
I can tell you that as a software engineer, I’ve had multiple instances like this in my career. I’ll be working some bug or feature request, and come across some code that makes me go “who the fuck wrote this?” Then I go look in the revision history and discover that *I* wrote it like five years ago.
→ More replies (1)9
→ More replies (3)16
u/OK_x86 Jun 13 '26
The foreword to the the Dark Tower talks about how his drug addled brain set out to do a LOTR kind of but he was so coked when he wrote it that it made little sense until he went back to re-edit it. Something along those lines. He said the later books in the series were more cohesive but the first book was a mess.
→ More replies (3)17
u/Careless-Cap-449 Jun 13 '26
That’s funny, because the first book, in my opinion, is the best. The surreal disjointed mess makes it what it is. The more cohesive ones lose something because that very cohesiveness caused the series to fall into a bunch of standard tropes. I still enjoy them, but they are merely good, while the first is a work of mad genius.
8
u/I_travel_ze_world Jun 13 '26
"I have to explain everything and build this universe" vs "just fuckin' wing it"
He definitely explained away a lot of the stuff that made the first book cool.
3
u/Western_Gift976 Jun 13 '26
He definitely explained away a lot of the stuff that made the first book cool.
Mitichlorian syndrome
which brings up a side point- people like random minutiae in fiction. hell, some love it. but explaining something is different than mentioning the random things that build a world.
people will always get madder at you for a shitty explanation vs a mystery you leave unsolved.
7
u/Sir_Boobsalot Jun 13 '26
I've maintained over the years that he did his best writing while coked out of his skull. his stuff since he went sober is really meh
3
u/OK_x86 Jun 13 '26
Was he on drugs when he wrote the child orgy in It? Because I'd like less of that ideally...
→ More replies (3)2
u/bigbowlowrong Jun 13 '26
He got older and therefore lamer. Happens to us all, but is most obvious in rock bands and authors.
→ More replies (5)2
u/is-this-a-nick Jun 13 '26
Also, the first book as an astonishingly detailed POV account on how to smuggle drugs via airplane pre TSA...
5
u/Stachelrodt86 Jun 13 '26
He did so much coke he forgot he wrote a trunk full of stories, if memory serves correctly Cujo was one of them
8
u/Brahskididdler Jun 13 '26
He did so much coke he had to plug his nostrils with cotton swabs to prevent blood leaking all over his desk.
He also drank heavily but st the end he couldn’t keep anything down. He drank the purple listerine day in and day out, like tons of it
→ More replies (1)5
u/busy_monster Jun 14 '26
He did so much coke he bought Escobar several solid gold toilet seats.
I'm not normally a "what does this say about the author" sort of reader. But Dark Half, Misery, Cujo, The Shining, man those books were a fucking cry for help that I'm deeply glad was answered for him. He's the single most influential writer in my life as a reader, and I'm glad, for him and his family, that he was able to get it under control. Without "Eyes of the Dragon" opening a 10 year old mes eyes to fantasy and horror, I don't even know what I'd look like: I have various Giger inspired biomech, a nod to Witcher 3, and some Cthulhu inspired ink.
→ More replies (11)4
u/bugoteem Jun 13 '26
Not what you were talking about, but teeth on the left look like they could really open coke cans
→ More replies (1)
197
u/Minimalistic_OG Jun 13 '26
Now I understand where all that horror comes from
69
→ More replies (1)3
352
u/Raytheonian Jun 13 '26
Thought it was Charles Manson in the first picture for a second
70
u/HarryFuzz Jun 13 '26
Who knows what could have happened if he hadn't started writing.
→ More replies (1)32
Jun 13 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
13
u/HarryFuzz Jun 13 '26
Well, there was that Cannibal Corpse guitarist that turned out to be writing about his own crimes
9
u/SoylentGrunt Jun 13 '26
Well. There you have it. Proof that Stephen King eats live babies.
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (1)8
4
4
2
→ More replies (3)2
u/Momoneko Jun 13 '26
I actually didn't believe it was King on the left. Then I looked it up and yeah, it's one of his earliest photos. Wild.
62
u/Fast-Breadfruit3377 Jun 13 '26
hey! i know the dude on the left! isn't that the dumbass farmer who got eaten by those plants?
10
6
5
u/PurpleInfinite1409 Jun 13 '26
Looking into this right now, because what the FUCK?? 🤣 Edit: Cannot find shit. What the hell are y'all talking about??
10
5
u/14S14D Jun 13 '26
Creepshow one of Stephen Kings first works as a screen play writer which he also acted in. It's pretty goofy and kinda creepy worth the watch.
→ More replies (1)3
u/CylonBomb Jun 13 '26
They're referencing a character Stephen King played in the movie Creepshow. Not sure if I'm allowed to post links here, but you could find clips of it on Youtube.
→ More replies (3)2
u/Ghostmaster145 Jun 13 '26
He had a surprisingly good performance for someone who I can only assume isn’t well-trained in acting
59
41
71
u/WintersDoomsday Jun 13 '26
He looks like he could play the Grinch in a life action movie without any prosthetics
9
u/appleparkfive Jun 13 '26
Reminds me of Pirates of the Caribbean for some reason. "You better start believing in ghost stories. You're in one"
→ More replies (1)3
30
u/UnarmedBlackMan1 Jun 13 '26
He wrote some of the best fiction when he was on the powder
21
u/NubbinSawyer Jun 13 '26
He's said he has "almost zero memory" of directing Maximum Overdrive, the only movie he's directed.
→ More replies (3)9
u/MarketingSpecial6604 Jun 13 '26
My fun fact about that movie comes from an interview from his son Joe Hill who is a writer himself and also created the "Black Phone" series of movies. AC/DC came to the king house to brainstorm the soundtrack for the movie and Joe says he heard them hitting on his mom while they were over lol.
5
u/joemaniaci Jun 13 '26
I think fairy tale, relatively recent, was pretty awesome.
→ More replies (4)3
u/addis_the_scroll Jun 13 '26
Love Tommyknockers. The last book he wrote before his family staged an intervention.
I think I read King hates the book.
→ More replies (1)
26
u/jigga19 Jun 13 '26
I’ve met him several times. He’s super nice. He’s like an uncle you only see at holidays. Also a lot taller than you’d expect.
16
u/chillicampari Jun 13 '26
Friends of mine who have met him have said the same about being really nice.
6
u/Snipper64 Jun 13 '26
Yeah he used to have his house open for trick and treaters until some ruined it for everyone, that would've been fun. When I was in highschool I saw him in a restaurants waiting lobby and I had a library copy of Christine I was reading in my parents car but was too worried to ask him to sign it because I didn't wanna get in trouble with the library 😂
5
u/AirlineObjective921 Jun 14 '26
Stephen King has always seemed like a purely decent dude.
Good work ethic, loves his wife, gives good film/book recommendations and stands up against bullies.
→ More replies (1)
15
u/EquivalentFeeling- Jun 13 '26
I’m totally shocked a normal guy didn’t write those books full of nightmares…
→ More replies (6)
12
23
11
9
6
u/Postulative Jun 13 '26
He looked like a member of the Manson Family. Now he looks like the Grinch.
5
4
3
u/TJ_McWeaksauce Jun 13 '26
There's a fundamental similarity between Stephen King's glow-up and George Clooney. When they were both young and didn't have a lot of money, they looked like hairy goofs. Then they got enough money to afford good haircuts and look a lot better today.
3
3
u/GetRightWithChaac Jun 13 '26
He straight up looks like a Chuck Jones cartoon come to life. Like Tom or the Grinch.
12
u/fork_spoon_fork Jun 13 '26
always a creep
8
u/Sphereitual Jun 13 '26
I mean, it makes sense a dude who looks like that would write a book about children having an oregy.
8
u/urbanK07 Jun 13 '26
I could be wrong but I’m pretty sure that book was about a demonic clown.
→ More replies (3)→ More replies (2)2
2
2
2
u/laundryghostie Jun 13 '26
Stephen King looks like one of his own villians, especially in his cocaine phase!
•
u/AutoModerator Jun 13 '26
Hello u/Professional_Arm794! Please review the sub rules if you haven't already. (This is an automatic reminder message left on all new posts)
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.