# Author Ira Levin Dead **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 15, 2007, 7:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/author-ira-levin-dead/426509 "2007-11-15T07:19:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2007, 7:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/author-ira-levin-dead/426509/1 "2007-11-15T07:19:54Z")
I’m sad about this. I know he was old, but I loved his work. Rosemary’s Baby and the Stepford Wives were two of my favorite horror novels (and general novels) of all time. [Article here.](http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/14/books/14levin.html?_r=1&ref=books&oref=slogin) The only thing odd about him in the article was this: > [@](#): > > Mr. Levin was less pleased, however, at the tide of popular Satanism his work appeared to unleash. > > “I feel guilty that ‘Rosemary’s Baby’ led to ‘The Exorcist,’ ‘The Omen,’” he told The Los Angeles Times in 2002. “A whole generation has been exposed, has more belief in Satan. I don’t believe in Satan. And I feel that the strong fundamentalism we have would not be as strong if there hadn’t been so many of these books.” I thought this was a strange thing to say. I’m sure fundamentalists would be around even if the world were deprived of the wonderfulness that is Rosemary’s Baby. I definitely enjoyed the exposure to Satan and the devil as a youngster, though. Rosemary’s Baby was one of the more hip and cool incarnations of the devil. (Yes, I still harbor fantasies of having Satan’s love-child…yes, I was a twisted child.) If I were him, I’d be really proud of having such a cool influence. But that’s just me. R.I.P. Ira Levin! ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2007, 7:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/author-ira-levin-dead/426509/2 "2007-11-15T07:40:39Z")
_Rosemary_ is one of those books and movies like _Citizen Kane_- it’s been copied so much that it doesn’t seem original. My favorites by Levin, though, were _Boys from Brazil_ (I’ve never seen the movie, though) and the play/film _Deathtrap_. I remember when he sued to have his name removed from the film _Sliver_ a few years back, saying he was terrified somebody might think he came up with the dialogue in it and the hack ending. The novel ended with the couple played by Baldwin and Stone crashing into a volcano. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2007, 7:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/author-ira-levin-dead/426509/3 "2007-11-15T07:46:21Z")
[QUOTE=Zoggie] Yes, I still harbor fantasies of having Satan’s love-child…yes, I was a twisted child. [/QUOTE] Perhaps you were bitten by a chocolate mouse, my child… One of my favorite things about the movie of _Rosemary_ was the casting of [Hope Summers](http://rifleman-branded.com/images/Stars/Hattie-theraid.jpg), Aunt Bea’s prize-pickle making buddy Clara, as a member of the coven. Hearing her enthusiastically cheer _Hail Satan! God is Dead! The Year is One!_ after watching her on Andy Griffith all those years-- I suddenly knew how Hawthorne’s Young Goodman Brown must have felt. ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2007, 8:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/author-ira-levin-dead/426509/4 "2007-11-15T08:04:39Z")
[QUOTE=Sampiro] Perhaps you were bitten by a chocolate mouse, my child… [/QUOTE] Or maybe it’s that charm with the tannis I’ve been carrying around getting to me. 🙂 It’s true, Rosemary’s Baby probably does seem less original. I’m glad I read it early on in my novel-reading career. I was only about fourteen or so when I first read it, and I loved it. I was reading an Andrew Neiderman book with a similar spin (only it’s lesbians and an evil sperm donation organization), and reading it was so…well, dull and cheesy, despite the racy subject matter. Rosemary’s Baby always seemed so simple in its style, and yet it was so awesomely suspenseful. The language doesn’t overpower it–it all just flows. Oh, and let’s not forget This Perfect Day. That was a good one, too. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2007, 9:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/author-ira-levin-dead/426509/5 "2007-11-15T09:13:12Z")
And you’ll never look at SCRABBLE tiles as innocent game pieces again. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2007, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/author-ira-levin-dead/426509/6 "2007-11-15T13:22:36Z")
Ira Levin also had a good Broadway run with “Deathtrap,” later made into a movie with Christopher Reeve. Rosemary’s Baby is one of my absolutely most favorite novels. I will spend the weekend reading the annotated version I personally wrote as a tribute.