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Irving Wallace (1916-1990) | |
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American author, whose bestsellers have been translated into several languages, among others into Finnish. In his works Wallace combined careful research and inventive, readable storytelling. Although Wallace was often scorned by serious critics, his 16 novels and 17 nonfiction works sold some 250 million copies around the world. Among Wallace's best-known books is The Chapman Report (1960). 'Maybe we should both stop thinking. Maybe Shakespeare was right -' Irving Wallace was born in Chicago, one of two children of Bessie Liss and Alexander Wallace, a clerk in a general store. Both of his parents were born in Russia and emigrated to the United States in their teens. Wallace grew up in Kenosha, Wisconsin. He attended Williams Institute, Berkeley, California, and Los Angeles City College. Wallace started his career as a journalist at the age of fifteen, when his early texts, among them the article 'The Horse Laugh', appeared in newspapers and magazines. He studied creative writing at the Williams Institute in Berkley and from the mid-30s he worked as a free-lance correspondent. In 1941 he married Sylvia Kahn; they had two children. During World War II Wallace served in the U.S. Army Air Forces. He was a writer in the First Motion Picture Unit and Signal Corps Photographic Center. He also wrote for such periodicals as The American Legion Magazine, Liberty, The Saturday Evening Post, Cosmopolitan, Esquire and Collier's. From 1948 to 1958 he produced screenplays for routine Hollywood films, among them THE WEST POINT STORY (1950), JUMP INTO THE HELL (1955), and THE BIG CIRCUS (1959). BAD FOR EACH OTHER (1953) Wallace wrote with Horace McCoy, who had published his most famous novel They Shoot Horses, Don't They in 1935. In spite of his success in Hollywood Wallace saw it as a place of "indignity, disrespect, disdain" - like many writers from Chandler to Faulkner. "The picture did have some virtues." (George Cukor on his film The Chapman Report, based on Wallace's novel) Wallace's first novel, THE SINS OF PHILIP FLEMING (1959), did not attract much critical attention. The Chapman Report, his breakthrough novel, was influenced by the Kinsey report. In the story Dr George C. Chapman conducts a study of female sex behavior in an American suburb, and raises with the arrival of his research group passions and controversy. Wallace's message, along with sex, was that there is more behind the relationships between men and women than a survey can ever reveal. A screen adaptation was made in 1962, directed by George Cukor. The director defended the film by saying that the novel "presented something contemporary about outwardly respectable women who were frigid and took lovers and went to psychiatrists". In the film version Shelley Winter is a married woman with a passion for a man who doesn't really love her. Glynis Johns seeks experience with a beach boy and Claire Bloom is a nympho who commits suicide after being gang-raped. After The Chapman Report Wallace published mostly popular novels, and co-authored with his son David Wallechinsky THE BOOK OF LISTS (1977) and its sequels. In his novels Wallace blended sex, religion, politics, jet set life, epoch-making discoveries, intriguing villains from the Soviet Union, and all the necessary elements of the international bestseller of the Cold War period. A typical product was THE PRIZE (1962), which penetrated into the lives of a group of Nobel Prize winners – a French husband-and-wife team of chemists, an American heart surgeon, and a German-born physicist sought after by the Communists of East Germany. The book was filmed in 1963, starring Paul Newman, Elke Sommers, and Edward G. Robinson. In 1964 Wallace received Supreme Award of Merit and honorary fellowship from George Washington Carver Memorial Institute for writing THE MAN (1964). Wallace other awards include Commonwealth Club silver medal (1965), Bestsellers magazine award (1965), Paperback of the Year citation (1970), Popular Culture Association award of excellence (1974), Venice Rosa d'Oro award (1975). In 1972 Wallace was a reporter for the Chicago Daily News / Sun Times Wire Service at the Democratic and Republican national convections. Wallace died of pancreatic cancer on June 29, 1990 in Los Angeles. Several of Wallace's novels have been made into films. Russ Meyer's film version of THE SEVEN MINUTES (1969) from 1971 dealt with pornography and freedom of speech. The Man was filmed in 1972, starrirng James Earl Jones, Martin Balsam, and Burgess Meredith. It was a story about the first African American president of The United States, who is resented by white southerners and by blacks. Paul Newman played a novelist in The Prize (1963), in which seven Nobel Prize winners gather in Stockholm. In THE WORD (1972) a gospel, ostensibly written by Jesus's brother, is discovered. The story combines this religious theme with international business and politics. THE FAN CLUB (1974) was about Hollywood's sexiest star who is kidnapped by four men. THE R DOCUMENT (1976) was political thriller about Christopher Collins, the Attorney General, who fights with the FBI Director Vernon T. Tynan, who wants to get rid of the Bill of Rights with a new amendment to the Constitution. According to this 35th Amendment, "no right or liberty guaranteed by the Constitution shall be construed as licence to endanger the national security." THE PIGEON PROJECT (1979) explored the idea of the elixir of life and what happens if it were invented. THE SECOND LADY (1980) focused on the true identity of the First Lady. THE ALMIGHTY (1982) was set in the media world, in which the head of the New York Record uses terrorism and espionage to exceed the circulation of the New York Times. THE MIRACLE (1984) was set in the near future, and based on the story of Bernadette, the young peasant girl who first saw Mary at the Grotto in Lourdes in 1958. Franz Werfel used the same subject in his novel The Song of Bernadette (1941), which was filmed in 1943 and won three Oscars. For further reading: Irving Wallace: A Writer's Profile by John Leverence (1974); Contemporary Popular Writers, ed. by David Mote (1997) - See also other bestseller writers: Barbara Cartland, Louis L'Amour Selected works:
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