Levin, Ira 1929-2007 (Ira Marvin Levin)

OBITUARY NOTICE—

See index for CA sketch: Born August 27, 1929, in New York (some sources cite city as Bronx), NY; died, reportedly of a heart attack, November 12, 2007, in New York, NY. Novelist, playwright, and television writer. Levin was not a prolific author by most standards, but most of his novels and some of his plays were blockbusters, both in bookstores and theaters. His very first novel, the mystery A Kiss before Dying (1953), earned Levin the Edgar Allan Poe Award of the Mystery Writers of America. His first stage adaptation, the humorous No Time for Sergeants (1955), earned a Tony Award for best play of the year. When later attempts at playwriting and occasional excursions into television writing failed to live up to expectations, Levin returned to the form of the novel and rarely looked back. Rosemary's Baby (1967), the story of a woman who fears she has been drugged by members of a satanic cult and impregnated by the devil himself; The Stepford Wives (1972), the story of a seemingly innocent small town in which the female inhabitants seem to be turning, one by one, into robot-like slaves to their spouses' desires; and The Boys from Brazil (1976), the fictional story of attempts by Nazi physician Josef Mengele to produce multiple clones of Adolf Hitler in the hope that at least one of them might grow up to revive the Nazi empire, chilled some readers and literally frightened others. His novels revealed Levin as a gifted master of supernatural suspense. His protagonists were ordinary people, into whose lives evil crept so insidiously that it was a full-blown presence before they (and the reader) knew for certain that it was there. His settings projected a pervasive, almost palpable chill that bred apprehension and unease. Perhaps most of all, his stories were laced with snippets of historical or current events that amplified the realism of his plots, or were populated by actual historical figures, such as Mengele. Producing such meticulously calculated novels was slow work, as Levin himself acknowledged, and he published only a handful of such works between 1953 and 1997, but film adaptations of these and his other works kept his name in readers' minds. Despite this relatively slim output, he received a Bram Stoker Award for lifetime achievement from the Horror Writers of America in 1997. Between novels, Levin continued to write the occasional stage play, including Deathtrap (1978). This story of an aging playwright, who seems to be plotting to kill an upcoming young rival to steal his play and revive his own career, played on Broadway for years and was also turned into a suspenseful film starring Michael Caine and Christopher Reeve. Levin was awarded the Grand Masters Award of the Mystery Writers of America in 2003.

OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES:

BOOKS

Contemporary Novelists, 7th edition, St. James Press (Detroit, MI), 2001.

Fowler, Douglas, Ira Levin, Starmont House (Mercer Island, WA), 1988.

PERIODICALS

Los Angeles, Times, November 14, 2007, p. B8.

New York Times, November 14, 2007, p. C19.

Times (London, England), November 15, 2007, p. 68.

Washington Post, November 14, 2007, p. B7.