Author Of Cult Classics Dies At 84

Jack Finney, whose novels included the cult classics “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” and “Time and Again,” has died from pneumonia. He was 84.

Finney, a modest man who avoided publicity, died Tuesday at Marin General Hospital north of San Francisco, said hospital spokeswoman Paula Avirett.

Finney wrote several books that were made into motion pictures. In addition to “Body Snatchers,” the films included “Five Against the House,” “Good Neighbor Sam,” “House of Numbers” and “Assault on a Queen.”

His wife of 46 years, Marguerite, said she found some notes that indicated her husband planned another novel.

“We don’t know what it was about,” she said on Wednesday. “But he was clearly thinking about another book. He’d done some research.”

She described her husband as “a very shy man” whose close friends were “anything but writers.”

“The Body Snatchers,” his second book, became the 1956 film “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” that starred Kevin McCarthy and Dana Wynter.

In it, the inhabitants of the small town of Santa Mira - modeled on Finney’s home town, Mill Valley - are taken over by pods that turn into soulless, robotlike imitations of the people themselves.

Some viewers took the story as an allegory for the conformist dangers of either Communism or McCarthyism. Finney dismissed such views.

“Balderdash,’ he said. “I wrote the story purely as a good read.”

“Invasion of the Body Snatchers” later was remade twice, most recently last year. Finney didn’t see a cent from the sequels; he had sold away all film rights for $7,500 in the 1950s.

Finney felt his books were very visual, making them a lure for movie production.