Irving Wallace
| Irving Wallace | |
|---|---|
| Born |
March 19, 1916 Chicago, Illinois, U.S. |
| Died | June 29, 1990 (aged 74) Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
| Occupation | Writer, journalist, screenwriter |
| Nationality | American |
| Ethnicity | Jewish |
| Period | 1955–1993 |
| Genre | Fiction, historical |
| Spouse | Sylvia Kahn |
| Children |
Amy Wallace David Wallechinsky |
Irving Wallace (March 19, 1916 – June 29, 1990) was an American best-selling author and screenwriter. Wallace was known for his heavily researched novels, many with a sexual theme. One critic described him as "the most successful of all the many exponents of junk fiction perhaps because he took it all so seriously, not to say lugubriously". Wallace was a blue-collar writer who wrote for a blue-collar audience. Most critics were scornful of his novels' flat prose and pedestrian characters.
Wallace's name is not to be found in directories of writers but he possessed the skill to entertain millions and he was seldom pretentious about it.
Wallace was born in Chicago, Illinois, to Bessie Liss and Alexander Wallace (an Americanized version of the original family name of Wallechinsky). The family was Jewish and originally from Russia. Wallace was named after his maternal grandfather, a bookkeeper and Talmudic scholar of Narewka. Wallace grew up at 6103 Eighteenth Avenue in Kenosha, Wisconsin, where he attended Kenosha Central High School. He was the father of Olympic historian David Wallechinsky and author Amy Wallace.
Wallace began selling stories to magazines when he was a teenager. In the Second World War Wallace served in the Frank Capra unit in Fort Fox along with Theodor Seuss Geisel – better known as Dr. Seuss – and continued to write for magazines. He also served in the First Motion Picture Unit of the Army Air Force. Soon, however, Wallace turned to a more lucrative job as a Hollywood screenwriter. He collaborated on such films as The West Point Story (1950), Split Second (1953), Meet Me at the Fair (1953), and The Big Circus (1959). He also contributed three scripts to the western television program Have Gun – Will Travel.
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