Matheson also wrote the screenplay for Fanatic (US title: Die! Die! My Darling!) starring Talullah Bankhead and Stefanie Powers. In 1973, Matheson earned an Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America for his teleplay for The Night Stalker, one of two TV movies written by Matheson that preceded the series Kolchak: The Night Stalker. He also contributed a number of scripts to the Warner Brothers western series 'The Lawman' between 19. He wrote a number of episodes for the American TV series The Twilight Zone, including 'Steel,' mentioned above and the famous 'Nightmare at 20,000 Feet' adapted the works of Edgar Allan Poe for Roger Corman and Dennis Wheatley's The Devil Rides Out for Hammer Films and scripted Steven Spielberg's first feature, the TV movie Duel, from his own short story. Still others, such as 'Mad House' (1953), 'The Curious Child' (1954) and perhaps most famously, 'Duel' (1971) are tales of paranoia, in which the everyday environment of the present day becomes inexplicably alien or threatening. Others, like 'The Test' (1954) and 'Steel' (1956), portray the moral and physical struggles of ordinary people, rather than the then nearly ubiquitous scientists and superheroes, in situations which are at once futuristic and everyday. Some tales, such as 'The Funeral' (1955) and 'The Doll that Does Everything' (1954) incorporate zany satirical humour at the expense of genre clichés, and are written in an hysterically overblown prose very different from Matheson's usual pared-down style. Several of his stories, like 'Third from the Sun' (1950), 'Deadline' (1959) and 'Button, Button' (1970) are simple sketches with twist endings others, like 'Trespass' (1953), 'Being' (1954) and 'Mute' (1962) explore their characters' dilemmas over twenty or thirty pages. Between 19, Matheson produced dozens of stories, frequently blending elements of the science fiction, horror and fantasy genres. The tale of a monstrous child chained in its parents' cellar, it was told in the first person as the creature's diary (in poignantly non-idiomatic English) and immediately made Matheson famous. His first short story, 'Born of Man and Woman,' appeared in the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction in 1950. He married in 1952 and has four children, three of whom ( Chris, Richard Christian, and Ali Matheson) are writers of fiction and screenplays.

In 1949 he earned his bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of Missouri and moved to California in 1951. He then entered the military and spent World War II as an infantry soldier. Born in Allendale, New Jersey to Norwegian immigrant parents, Matheson was raised in Brooklyn and graduated from Brooklyn Technical High School in 1943.

Nightmare at 20 000 feet book