Another thing was that the director was hardly in the best possible condition.

Smoking at least two packets of cigarettes a day, King craved anything which might drive him on in his writing, including the cocaine freely available at the Hollywood parties he attended as Carrie and The Shining were turned into movies towards the end of the Seventies.

'One snort and cocaine owned me body and soul,' he said. 'It was my on-switch, and it seemed like a really good energising drug.'

In 1980, the Kings renovated and moved into an imposing 24-room house in Bangor - with bat motifs on the stained-glass windows and a wrought-iron fence paying homage to the real-life creatures which flitted-around the old roof spaces.

This became a place of pilgrimage for King fans, who hung around for hours in hope of a glimpse of their hero, throwing books and presents into the seven-acre garden and occasionally haranguing visitors as they drove through the gates.

They kept vigil unaware that, during his late-night marathon writing sessions, their idol was supplementing the many gallons of beer he drank with so much cocaine that he had to stick cotton wool up his nose to stop blood dripping on to his typewriter.

His dependency had reached such a pitiful stage five years later that he had resorted to buying antiseptic mouthwash for its alcohol content - as his editor Chuck Verrill saw during the making of the film Maximum Overdrive, King's directorial debut.

'He was gargling Listerine and popping pills,' recalled Verrill. 'He was still a nice guy and coherent, but he did seem to be strung out.'

King later said he was 'coked out of my mind' during the making of the film, but at first his escalating drug problem did not appear to affect his output. His spine-chiller It became America's best-selling book of 1986 and the following year he received critical acclaim for his thriller Misery.
-DM

A lot of this comes from the way his novels have been optioned.

Carrie, Salem's Lot and The Shining, the first three adaptations, were handled (in comparison) with considerable care, gradually having all the more established names at the helm (De Palma, Hooper (a replacement for Romero), Kubrick). Essentially, this was because King inspired the movers and shakers in the industry, and directors wanted to try their hands on his works.

Many successive adaptations found quality control flying out the window, with Z-grade production values and a rushed video release to capitalize on King's clout. They were the cinematic equivalent to softcovers you see at the stand of every nick-nack shop, but never actually buy. King saw the money coming in and he was more than obliged to keep optioning.

Every once in a while, a prestige horror filmmaker like David Cronenberg picks up The Dead Zone and turns it into a minor gem, but we get one too many Sometimes They Come Back sequel to balance that one out.

King himself has a mixed relationship with the adaptations. He never got around to admit Kubrick took his concept, twisted it to suit another medium and crafted a work that has since been added to the annals of cinema - for the uniniated, Kubrick's Shining is truly considered that relevant.

King's only hands-on contribution to the multiplexes is Maximum Overdrive. I'm fond of an early sequence at a cut-off bridge.

[youtube]MgkvaKe1Wes#t=3m3s[/youtube]

Trust me, you want to stop watching around the 6-minute mark.

Plot thickens.

Ex-Wife Backs Singer -- Axl Didn't Graffiti My Home

They're divorced, but Axl Rose's ex-wife still has the Guns 'N Roses singer's back -- insisting Axl NEVER tagged her house with vengeful graffiti ... and now, she's also going after the artist behind the allegations.

Axl's ex Erin Everly just sent a cease and desist letter to L.A. photographer Laura London, reiterating what Axl said in his own cease and desist letter to the artist -- Axl did NOT spray paint his wife's garage door with the message "Sweet Child o' DIE."

In the letter, Erin's attorney writes, "Ms. Everly unequivocally denies that Axl Rose ever painted those statements on her garage door."

London claims she took the photograph of the vandalized garage door back when she was Axl's neighbor many years ago. According to London, Axl had spray painted the message during a fight with Everly.

London is currently displaying the photograph in an exhibit in Downtown L.A. called "Once Upon a Time ... Axl Rose Was My Neighor."

Sources close to Everly tells us ... neighborhood kids were responsible for the damage, NOT Axl.

- http://www.tmz.com/2012/09/28/axl-rose- … se-desist/

The artist herself is a bit on the fence, calling it a docudrama. I don't really give a toss about whether Axl painted it or not. Just this whole legal opera's amusing.

Personally,

I'd be keen to see a well-done (official) live video of the current lineup doing TWAT, Catcher or something similar.

Just sayin'.