Biography
Aliases: None
Home Country: USA
Raymond Benson was born on September 6, 1955, in Midland, Texas. His family moved to Odessa, Texas when he was five and during elementary school he took piano lessons. He quit his lessons after two years because he didn't like being forced to play songs he didn't like; however, he continued to teach himself to play. In junior high and high school Raymond involved himslef with reading, writing, music, and drama. He won a few awards in high school for his music and acting abilities. In 1973 he graduated from Permian High School with honors.
Raymond began college in the fall of 1973 by attending the University of Texas in Austin. He enrolled as an acting major, but switched to directing after only one semester. During his years in college Raymond was part of several projects that put his talents as a writer, singer, composer, and director. He graduated in 1978 with a BFA in directing with high honors.
After graduating Raymond moved to New York and became involved in several stage performances both in directing and music composition. Although some of his work earned him awards, he still needed to have a day job in financial services in order to survive.
Benson had been a huge fan of James Bond since age nine and in 1981 began writing a documentary book about James Bond, the creator, and the books and movies. The James Bond Bedside Companion was published in 1984 and was met with great praise. He has been involved in the James Bond community ever since with magazine articles, official novels and short stories, role-playing games, and work in several James Bond fan clubs. He even wrote and designed several James Bond videogames.
In the late 80's and early 90's Benson had varied day jobs in order to keep his artistic endavors afloat. He worked as a spec typist for I.M. Pei and he taught about pop and cult culture in the Media Department at New Social Research in Manhattan.
Also in 1987 Raymond was married and in 1989 he became a father. Rather than raise his child in New York, he decided to move back to Austin, Texas in 1990. He originally wanted to become a court reporter, he didn't care for it. He was able to get himself an interview at Origina Systems, Inc. and was hired to be the head writer for Ultima VII: The Black Gate.
In the summer of 1992 Microprose Software offered Raymond a job as a game designer and he moved to Hunt Valley, Maryland where he designed the highly acclaimed Return of the Phantom. The next year Microprose was hit with financial problems and had to lay off Raymond and many other employees.
Raymond worked as a freelancer for awhile and continued to design computer games, but in 1993 he was hired by Viacom New Media as a game designer and had to move to Chicago, Illinois where he lives to this day. He designed and wrote scripts for several award winning games, but in 1997 Viacom closed down their game division and Benson was once again out of a job.
In 1995, while he was still working for Viacom, Raymond was asked to fill the shoes of the retiring John Gardner (current James Bond author). So from 1996 to 2003 Raymond was the offical Bond author writing a total of six original Bond books, plus the novelization of each of the Bond movies during his time, and a few short stories. Since he retired from the Bond novels, Raymond has continued writing novels, now with his own stories, the most recent was released in 2006.
Raymond continues to keep himself busy writing, teaching, and playing music.
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