Ellen Rimbauer

Ellen Rimbauer is the protagonist character of author Ridley Pearson's best selling novel titled The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer: My Life At Rose Red, published in 2001. Ellen then is transformed into the evil spirit and main antagonist in Stephen King's 2002 ABC made for TV miniseries sequel: Rose Red. In the television film she was was portrayed by Julia Campbell.

History
Ellen Rimbauer is a very tragic villain. She is transformed from a submissive women who just wanted to be loved and blessed with a beautiful family and home, into a possessed Zombie controlled by the dark forces inhabiting her environment. Ellen's story is a sad and frightening supernatural tale about love, hate and the unfairness many women of her time experienced as victims of sexual repression and Victorian morality. Ellen was a soul who had been very hurt in life and her story is also about how we can take the negative feelings we felt during our time on earth beyond the grave, and then some.

Ellen was once the innocent, lovely and radiant young wife to John Rimbauer (a industrialist business man who owned an oil company) and also the loving mother to Adam and April Rimbuaer. She lived in an elaborate mansion named "Rose Red" that was built in the heart of Seattle (and on an ancient Indian burial site) in the early 1900's as a wedding present from her husband. Despite her luxurious lifestyle, Ellen lived a life of heartbreak and anger. Her husband secretly cheated on her constantly and the house claimed April and caused her to vanish forever due to it's jealousy over their close relationship, as Rose Red wanted Ellen all to itself. This was also done to ensure that Ellen would never leave her home without her abducted daughter. After her Husbands death (which was actually a murder made to look like suicide), Ellen spent most of her dead husband's immense fortune on expanding the size of Rose Red, as she believed if she never stopped building she would never die. She also clung on to the hopes that if she kept building, Rose Red would show mercy and release poor April and give her back. However, mysterious disappearances continued as several of Ellen's most dearest friends vanished in the house as well, such as her best friend and personal African maid called Sukeena and her socialite friend Deanna Petrie, a glamorous and spunky movie star. Both women went missing just like April. Overall, between the early 1900's and early 2000's, more than twenty people either brutally died or simply vanished in Rose Red without a trace, sealing Rose Red's reputation. And as a result the house was eventually abandoned when Ellen herself went missing in the 1950's. Ellen's ghost still haunted Rose Red even decades after her own bizzare disappearance. And after it consumed Ellen and her soul, Rose Red finally had enough power to grow on it's own, but only on the inside so no outsiders would notice. Ellen ultimately became one of the many minions that Rose Red turned evil and kept trapped in a state of eternal limbo, being held in a place deep within the house that ordinary living people could not find or see. Ellen lead many people to their deaths and even tried to kill her own blood relitive named Steve Rimbauer, during a supernatural investigation of Rose Red in 2002 but was unsuccessful. Rose Red was eventually torn down a year later to build new condominiums.

It is unclear if the land that Rose Red was built on will go on to curse the condominiums or not. It also never verifies if Ellen's soul (along with all the other souls of the victims in the house) will be released and set free or taken down to the depths of Hell with the evilness that had been possessing Rose Red for all those years. It is left up to the reader of the book or viewer of the movie to decide her fate in the afterlife.