Life
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 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 World War II Wallace served in the Frank Capra unit in Fort Fox along with Theodor Seuss Geisel - more popularly 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 at least one script to the western television program "Have Gun, Will Travel".
After an unsatisfying stint in Hollywood, he devoted himself full-time to writing books. He published his first non-fiction work in 1955, The Fabulous Originals, and his first fiction offering, The Sins of Philip Fleming, in 1959. The latter, ignored by critics, was followed by the enormously successful The Chapman Report. Wallace published 33 books during his lifetime, all translated into 31 different languages.
Irving Wallace was married to Sylvia Wallace, a former magazine writer and editor. Her first novel, The Fountains, was an American best-seller and published in twelve foreign editions. Her second novel, Empress, was published in 1980. She also helped produce, along with their two children, The Book of Lists#2 and The Intimate Sex Lives Of Famous People. Sylvia Wallace died October 20, 2006 at the age of 89.
Several of Wallace's books have been made into films. Among his best known books are The Chapman Report (1960), The Prize (1962), The Word (1972) and The Fan Club (1974).
Read more about this topic: Irving Wallace
Famous quotes containing the word life:
“Your mother named you. You and she just saw
Each other in passing in the room upstairs,
One coming this way into life, and one
Going the other out of life you know?”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“Helpless, unknown, and unremembered, most human beings, however sensitive, idealistic, intelligent, go through life as passengers rather than chauffeurs. Although we may pretend that it is the chauffeur who is the social inferior ... most of us, like Toad of Toad Hall, would not mind a turn at the wheel ourselves.”
—Ralph Harper (b. 1915)
“Citizen’s Band radio renders one accessible to a wide variety of people from all walks of life. It should not be forgotten that all walks of life include conceptual artists, dry cleaners, and living poets.”
—Fran Lebowitz (b. 1950)