SISTER'S DEATH TURNED BALL ONTO THE MACABRE

The writer has tackled the macabre in all of his film and TV projects, including American Beauty, funeral parlour drama Six Feet Under and vampire series True Blood.

He insists death has stayed with him since the adolescent tragedy.

Ball, 52, explains to Entertainment Weekly, "When I was 13 years old I was in a car accident with my sister who was driving the car. It was her 22nd birthday and she died. She died in front of me. She died all over me. (Death) stuck its big old ugly face in my face and my life changed. That's why death seems to be a theme that appears in all my stuff."