Biography

U.S. novelist, short-story writer, and screenwriter Irving Wallace excelled at writing popular fiction based on current events. He began writing for various magazines at age 15. He wrote screenplays for a variety of studios from 1950 to 1959, when he turned solely to writing books. His first major bestseller was "The Chapman Report" (1960), a fictional account of a sexual research team's investigations of a wealthy Los Angeles suburb. Among other fictional works by Wallace are "The Prize" (1962) and "The Word" (1972). His meticulously researched fiction often has the flavor of spicy journalism. Wallace's books are structured around a strong narrative line and are laced with sex, facts and, most importantly, a moral that gives cohesion to conflicting elements. The universal appeal of Wallace's books has made most of them best-sellers. With their recurring dramatic confrontations, his novels lend themselves well to screenplay adaptation, and most of them have been filmed. Wallace has also compiled several nonfiction works with his family, including "The People's Almanac" (1975) and "The Book of Lists" (1977), both of which have spawned sequels.
- IMDb mini biography by: Marcos Eduardo Acosta Aldrete

Writer of bestselling novels.

His son David Wallechinsky was doing genealogical research on the family, and discovered that the family's original last name was "Wallechinsky". It had been Anglicized to "Wallace" by a US Immigration clerk. He was so angered at this that he had his name legally changed to "David Wallechinsky".

During World War 2 he served in the First Motion Picture Unit of the Army Air Force under Frank Capra at "Fort Fox" along with Theodor Seuss Geisel (Dr. Seuss).

Biography in: "The Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives". Volume Two, 1986-1990, pages 863-865. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1999.

Grew up at 6103 Eighteenth Avenue in Kenosha, Wisconsin where he attended Kenosha Central High School.

Writing a bestseller instantly makes an author suspect in the eyes of critics.

I am no philosopher. I like to think but I'm not deep. I'd like to write better, to do more sensory writing, better description. I try to write stylistically, but I'll sacrifice a good sentence for a good paragraph

I have ideas that interest people. I tell stories and readers are hungry for stories. What a lovely thing it is to sit down for three nights and be carried away by a book.

Maybe all my endings are wish-fulfillment. Maybe it's an anti-death thing. If I let the characters be tragic, dead or without hope, then I'd die too.

To be one's self, and unafraid whether right or wrong, is more admirable than the easy cowardice of surrender to conformity.