Ira Levin was born in New York City and grew up in the Bronx and Manhattan. He attended Drake University in Iowa for two years before transferring to New York University, from which he received a bachelor’s degree in 1950. While in college, he entered a television screenwriting contest sponsored by CBS. He was a runner-up and sold his script to NBC where it became an episode on an anthology suspense series in 1951.
While still in his twenties and writing for TV, Levin published his first novel, A Kiss Before Dying about a cold-blooded ambitious young man who murders his wealthy girlfriend, gets away with it, and gets involved with her sister. The novel won the 1954 Edgar Award for the best first novel from the Mystery Writers of America and it was adapted into a film twice – in 1956 with Robert Wagner and in 1991 with Matt Dillon.
Rosemary’s Baby was published in 1967 and told the story of a young New York bride who may have been impregnated by the Devil. It was made into a critically and commercially successful film in 1968, directed by Roman Polanski and starring Mia Farrow and John Cassavetes. The Stepford Wives was published in 1972 and featured women in an idyllic suburb who appear to have been replaced by subservient androids. It too was adapted into a film twice – in 1975 with Katharine Ross and Paula Prentiss and in 2004 with Nicole Kidman and Matthew Broderick. Levin died in November 2007 from natural causes.
