Robert Bloch, Pulp-Fiction Writer Whose ''Psycho'' Became Hit Film

LOS ANGELES - Robert Bloch, a prolific pulp-fiction author whose novel "Psycho" became the classic Alfred Hitchcock horror film, has died. He was 77.

Mr. Bloch died at home Friday of cancer of the liver and esophagus, longtime friend Harlan Ellison said.

"The death of Robert Bloch closes that door on the golden age of fantasy writing," said Ellison, also a noted author. "For 50 years, this man was at the pinnacle. He is always listed as among the masters of imaginative literature."

Using straightforward prose, Mr. Bloch described everyday worlds that turned out to be anything but normal. And he liked surprise endings.

In one of his most famous stories, "The Hellbound Train," the devil gives a man a watch to stop time, but the man can never decide when to use it. At the last moment, as he is riding a hell-bound train filled with drunks, whores and gamblers, he uses the watch - and rides on for eternity.

Although Mr. Bloch wrote fantasies, mysteries, essays and humor, he was best known for his chilling psychological novels of suspense, which inspired such writers as Stephen King, whom he befriended.

Mr. Bloch sold his first story at age 17 and was nourished by the pulp magazines of the 1930s and '40s. He went on to write more than 400 stories, more than 20 novels and dozens of film and TV scripts. Many of his stories have been adapted for radio, TV and film and won him numerous awards.

"I think the outstanding thing about him is that not only did every other writer respect him as a writer, but they all cared for him deeply as a person," said Richard Matheson, who penned many of the original "Twilight Zone" episodes.

Mr. Bloch was born on April 5, 1917, in Chicago. In his youth he fell under the spell of H.P. Lovecraft, a seminal writer of fantasy and horror. Lovecraft corresponded with him and encouraged his writing.

In 1934, Mr. Bloch sold his first story to the pulp magazine Weird Tales.

He moved to Los Angeles in the 1950s to try his hand at film work and wrote TV scripts for shows ranging from "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" to the original "Star Trek," Ellison said.

Mr. Bloch scripted a slew of low-budget horror films, becoming an expert on the genre and a close friend of Boris Karloff and Basil Rathbone, but he disliked the graphic violence of modern films.

"I'm quite squeamish about them," he said in 1991.

Hitchcock filmed Mr. Bloch's "Psycho," the story of a demented hotel owner who stabs a guest in her shower and talks to his mummified mother, in 1960.

"The man who wrote `Psycho' was the gentlest creature on the planet," Ellison said. "He understood the darker recesses of the human soul. But there was not a drop of that in him."

Mr. Bloch banged out stories on an old manual typewriter and, learning that he had terminal cancer, wrote up notes for his own obituary in August.

Mr. Bloch is survived by his wife, Eleanor Alexander, and a daughter by his first marriage, Sally Francy of Los Gatos, Calif.