Gothic novelist Anne Rice passes away

Washington: Anne Rice, the gothic novelist best known for writing "Interview with the Vampire," died on Saturday aged 80, her family said.

"In her final hours, I sat beside her hospital bed in awe of her accomplishments and her courage," her son Christopher Rice said in a post on her Facebook page. He said she died of complications from a stroke. "Interview with the Vampire," published in 1976, was made into a movie starring Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt in 1994.

She wrote dozens of books, many of them in the "Vampire" series, selling more than 150 million worldwide. Another of her works, "The Queen of the Damned," was adapted into a film in 2002.