Michael Avallone
Michael Angelo Avallone (October 27, 1924 – February 26, 1999) was an American author of mystery, secret agent fiction, and novelizations of TV and films. His lifetime output was over 223 works (although he boasted over 1,000), published under his own name and 17 pseudonyms.
Avallone was born in New York City on October 27, 1924 and died in Los Angeles on February 26, 1999. He was married in 1949 to Lucille Asero; they had one son before the marriage was dissolved. In 1960 he married Fran Weinstein, and together they had one son and one daughter.
His first novel, The Tall Dolores, published in 1953, introduced Ed Noon, P.I. The most recent installment was published in 1989. The final volume, Since Noon Yesterday, is, as of 2005, unpublished.
Avallone has been prolific at writing movie and TV tie-ins, more than two dozen, beginning with 1963's The Main Attraction. His most successful tie-in was the first of the Man From U.N.C.L.E. tie-in novels, The Thousand Coffins Affair. Despite its success, ironically, Avallone said that he'd gotten a rotten deal from the publisher on the project. "I did it for a flat fee of $1,000 with a handshake deal to do the rest of the series," said Avallone in a 1989 interview. "Then Ace double-crossed everybody and they got follow-up writers to do the others. They sold it to 60 foreign countries, and it stayed in print until 1970. Every copy of the book says April, 1965 - there's no record of a printing order or anything - but they had five printings in the first three months! Everything to worked right in The Thousand Coffins Affair and it sort of set the pattern for all kinds of TV spy books. I was very satisfied with it, and despite the monetary beating I took, it did get me a lot of work down through the years.". Avallone said he faced some minor editorial restrictions on the U.N.C.L.E. book, at the studio's insistence. The villainous organization of the book, Golgotha, was described by Avallone as being German. "MGM insisted on making them Russians -- and of course this is 1964, the height of the Cold War," he said.
His tie-ins included The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Hawaii Five-O, Mannix, Friday the 13th Part III, Beneath the Planet of the Apes and even The Partridge Family. His novellas in the late 1960s featured the U.N.C.L.E.-like INTREX.
...
Wikipedia