Acclaimed author Stephen King couldn’t convince a fan of the multi-Oscar-nominated The Shawshank Redemption that he actually wrote the story. The 1994 blockbuster film starred Tim Robbins as Andy Dufresne, a man wrongly convicted of murder who befriends fellow inmate Ellis Boyd “Red” Redding at a corrupt prison in Maine.
Throughout his extensive career, King has risen to the status of being the horror genre’s greatest living author. While some might debate this unofficial accolade, the fact of the matter is that ever since the publication of his first novel, Carrie, in 1974, King has been able to not only find substantial success with each of his subsequent novels, but he’s also eerily in tune with what is frightening and how that fear can be fleshed out. What’s more, the sheer number of King’s works that have been adapted into TV programs or films is downright remarkable. For decades now, the name Stephen King has become synonymous with one genre and one genre only – despite the fact that not all of his stories qualify as horror.
Being pigeonholed as one particular type of artist could understandably be frustrating, especially in the case of King, whose ability as a novelist defies such restraints. But as he told the BBC program HARDtalk (h/t Cinema Blend), even when the public doesn’t acknowledge him for his non-horror work, the 73-year-old author is completely able to shrug it all off and laugh. Describing a run-in with a fan at a grocery store who refused to believe that King actually was the author of The Shawshank Redemption, King said:
"I was in a supermarket down here in Florida, and I came around the corner and there was a woman coming the other way. She pointed at me, she said, ‘I know who you are! You’re Stephen King! You write all of those horrible things. And that’s ok. That’s alright. But I like uplifting things, like that movie Shawshank Redemption.’ And I said, ‘I wrote that!’ And she said, ‘No you didn’t. No you didn’t.’"
The original Shawshank Redemption is a novella from King’s 1982 collection of four novellas, entitled Different Seasons. The actual title of the story is Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption, but it was obviously shortened when filmmaker Frank Darabont took the project on. Today the story can be purchased as a standalone novel, making it easier for those who aren’t familiar with King’s non-horror work to find. However, it’s clear that not everyone is even aware of that much, much to the amusement of King.
By this point in King’s career, it is indeed hard to imagine anyone not knowing that he’s responsible for a variety of stories and novels. For some fans, it’s shocking that something as wildly popular as The Shawshank Redemption isn’t more widely known to be an original work by King. However, over the course of his lengthy career, King has found more acclaim and success than most writers can ever dream of. Perhaps that’s why an encounter in a Florida grocery store with an incredulous Shawshank fan isn’t such a big deal for him.
Source: HARDtalk (h/t Cinema Blend)