Remembering Ray Bradbury

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Scott Montgomery, BookPeople’s Crime Fiction Coordinator, recalls time spent with Mr. Bradbury.

“Ray Bradbury is the only author who ever charged me for a signature.

You know you have a good job when your boss calls and says, “I know it’s you’re day off, but could you go over to Ray Bradbury’s house with me for a few hours.”

I was working at LA’s sadly now-closed The Mystery Book Store at the time. Ray was a fan of the genre as well as an author who dabbled in it (check out Death Is a Lonely Business). We’d often a good natured call from him asking for a book he just discovered. Also, being a supporter of independent bookstores and libraries, he always made a point to come in and do a signing with us every year. One year we had hundreds of people all waiting with stacks from their collections to be signed. Ray would never turn a fan down, but the man was in his late eighties and three hours of signing was taking it’s toll. It was decided we would run out to his place during the week and he’d sign everyone’s books we collected.

My manager, Bobby McCue, and I went out to his inconspicuous ranch house in the suburbs with boxes of his work. The place was crammed with books and memorabilia from a man who spent a lifetime immersed in creativity. There were monster models and masks done by his buddy, effects pioneer Ray Harryhausen and photos of him at NASA launches.

As we handed him paged-out books to sign. He told us about being a teenager in a vastly different Southern California and coming up with Farenhiet 451 when he and a friend were stopped by LAPD cops because they were walking, not driving, in the city. We also talked about the film version and how he and Shawshank Redemption director Frank Darabount wanted to an update, but Mel Gibson, who held the rights was being tentative. “He made millions off that Jesus movie, you’d think he could throw some of it to us.”

Once again after three hours, he was getting tired and asked if we could end it here and come back tomorrow. Bobby said “no problem.” I pulled out my copy of Green Shadows, White Whale, his memoir about being John Houston’s screenwriter on Moby Dick, and sheepishly asked “Could I trouble you to sign one more for me, Sir?”

He raised up his his index finger and said, “One dollar.”

I took out my wallet. To this day, I don’t know how serious he really was, but that old man grabbed my dollar and put it in his pocket, chuckling. No matter how old and frail he could be at times, when he laughed you could always see that California teen.

I was lucky enough to spend time with Ray a few other occasions on the job. Always great with fans and supportive of anybody who was creative or supported creativity. When asked what work molded him as a writer he answered, “Movies, comic books, mysteries, science fiction, pulp tales, and horror stories. I’m not ashamed of my influences.”

Even though, I just knew Ray in passing, the time I got to hang around him was in my mind easily worth a million dollars. Lucky me, he only made me pay a buck.

I’ll miss you, sir.”