Chris Matheson - Conversations with the Father: A Memoir about Richard Matheson, My Dad and God

Pitchstone Publishing

Durham, North Carolina

www.pitchstonebooks.com

Copyright 2022 by Chris Matheson

All rights reserved.

Printed in the USA

First edition

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Matheson, Chris, author.

Title: Conversations with the father : a memoir about Richard Matheson, my dad and God / Chris Matheson.

Description: Durham, North Carolina : Pitchstone Publishing, 2022. | Summary: Screenwriter and author Chris Matheson shares memories of his dad, famed horror and science fiction writer Richard MathesonProvided by publisher.

Identifiers: LCCN 2022000901 (print) | LCCN 2022000902 (ebook) | ISBN 9781634312325 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781634312332 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Matheson, Chris. | Matheson, ChrisFamily. | Matheson, Richard, 1926-2013. | Fathers and sonsUnited StatesBiography. | Authors, American21st centuryBiography.

Classification: LCC PS3613.A8262 Z46 2022 (print) | LCC PS3613.A8262 (ebook) | DDC 813/.6dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022000901

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022000902

Cover image: the author and his father on the set of The Night Strangler (1973)

To my Mother,
in so many ways the coauthor of this particular story.

My father was the horror and science fiction writer Richard Matheson. He wrote many books and movies, among the best known being I Am Legend and The Shrinking Man. He wrote several classic Twilight Zone episodes, including Nightmare at 20,000 Feet (also known as the one with William Shatner and the thing on the wing.) He wrote Steven Spielbergs first movie, Duel, the famous Enemy Within episode of Star Trek, and the time-travel love story Somewhere in Time. Dad was a very accomplished and gifted writer. He was also in many ways a wonderful father.

An early memory: Im three years old and our family is at Disneyland. Dad and I are walking through some sets from the 1961 movie Babes in Toyland, which have been placed in the Opera House on Main Street. (Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln would later fill the space.) These sets are tremendously exciting to me; to enter into the world of this movie which I love so much, to enter into the main character Toms life, to be near his beautiful girlfriend Maryits all thrilling. Its also terrifying, however, because one of the sets is the dark and foreboding Forest of No Return. I want to go through the forest very much, but Im quite frightened of it. So I simply stand at the edge of the forest for a long time, unable to go in, but definitely not wanting to leave either. I just stay there, immobilized. And Dad waits with me. Hes at Disneyland, a place he likes a lot. (He and Mom first went there not long after it opened in 1955; they also, hilariously, went to Knotts Berry Farm on their honeymoon. Much later, Dad admired the Haunted Mansion; he always said that the giant ballroom filled with waltzing ghosts was the most interesting and beautiful thing in the park.) But while the rest of the family is having fun going on rides, Dad stands with his wavering and unsure three-year-old son at the edge of the Forest of No Return for at least an hour.

Another early memory: Im four. Mom is sick in bed and Im going out somewhere with Dad (to a movie possibly?). I feel happy and excited about that. I always felt happy and excited about being with Dad. If he was going to the market or the post office or the hardware store or wherever, I wanted to go with him. I loved him and wanted to be like him. I thought he was the best father ever. I was never close with my mother. Suffice to say, we didnt click. I didnt click with my three older siblings either. Dad was pretty much it for me. But Dad was enough. He was the one I wanted and needed.

On summer camping trips, when wed leave our house in the middle of the night to get an early start, Mom and my siblings would climb into sleeping bags in the back of our Chevy camper and crash. I alone would sit upfront with Dad, talking as we drove north through the middle of the night up Highway 101. Wed talk for hours, easily. Sometimes wed talk about baseball, specifically the Dodgers, who we both loved. (Dad had loved them since he was a kid growing up in Brooklyn.) Dad always liked players he considered cannynot necessarily the most physically gifted ones, but the cleverest. In the late 1960s, that was Claude Osteen and Maury Wills; in the 1970s, it was Tommy John and Dusty Baker. Other times Dad would tell me scary ideas he had for stories. I remember one night speeding along an empty highway and Dad casually saying, Wouldnt it be strange if we looked out the window and saw a man running alongside the camper right now, staring in at us? It gave me the chills at the time; honestly, its still creepy fifty years later.

Sometimes, in an offhand way, Dad would offer advice: the creative life needs to be lived cautiously, Dad would always say. (He seemed to assume I would do some kind of creative work.) Money needed to be spent carefully, never recklessly. Money for a creative person was freedom, Dad said. Therefore, to try to impress people with the car you drove or the clothes you wore or the restaurant you ate at was ridiculous; rather, focus on the freedom to create.

Dad and I were alike, he often said, and that was partially because we were both Pisces. Dad put a lot of stock in astrology, and the fact that we were born under the same sign was meaningful to him. It meant that we understood each other, that we were natural allies; it explained the natural affinity between us.

When the family played charades (which we did, quite often), I always found a way to be on Dads team. I could often guess his answers off extremely minimal clues: Movie! Five words! Third word, small word! And, if, but, of? Of! Three Days of the Condor? Right. Fifteen seconds. It went like this many times. Dad and I were in synchwe looked at the world the same way.

And of course I loved this. Being like Dad, having him see me as being like him, it felt wonderful and I cultivated it. If Dad liked a certain food, I learned to like it too. Dad loved liverwurst, braunschweiger, and chopped liver, so as a kid, I did too. Dad loved baseball; I became obsessed with the game too. Dad loved to act: I did too. (In 1976, we played father and son in Eugene ONeills Ah, Wilderness!) Mom and Dad were among the founding members of a theatre group in the community I grew up in; Dad became the groups first comedy star. When I was nine, Dad played the villain, Egbert Van Hoback, in the groups very first production, a musical melodrama called Curse You, Jed Smith. Ill never forget Dads astounding first entrance. Dressed all in black, his beard dyed jet black, Dad swooped onto the stage, cape trailing behind him, and began to sing a song that hed written.

Im Van Hoback, theyd better go back!

Cuz when I come on the scene, then things go bad.

Im Van Hoback, I SAID VAN HOBACK!

I am evil, I am mean, I am a cad!

There is nothing I would not stoop to, no depravity

or depth on which I frown!

Im a dirty rotten plotter, an utter stinking ROTTER!!

IM VAN HOBACK,

THE MEANEST MAN IN TOWNNNNN!!

I watched, amazed and thrilled. Dad was a star, people loved him, and they were right to, because he was funny. Fifteen years later I directed Dad in the same community theatres production of