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欧文·华莱士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, and he was named after his maternal grandfather, a bookkeeper and Talmudic scholar of Narewka. He 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 Capra unit in Fort Fox along with Theodor Seuss Geisel - more popularly known as Dr. Seuss - and continued to write for magazines. Soon, however, he 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).
After an unsatisfying stint in Hollywood, he devoted himself full-time to writing books. He published his first nonfiction 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 was a prolific author and 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. 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). He also produced some notable non-fiction works, including several editions of The People's Almanac and The Book of Lists.
Bibliography
Novels
The Sins of Philip Fleming: A Compelling Novel of One Man's Intimate Problem (1959)
The Chapman Report (1961)
The Prize (1962)
The Man (1964)
The Three Sirens (1964)
The Plot (1967)
The Seven Minutes (1969)
The Word (1972)
The Fan Club (1974)
The R Document (1976)
The Pigeon Project (1979)
The Second Lady (1980)
The Almighty (1982)
The Miracle (1984 / 2005)
The Seventh Secret (1985) (with an additional chapter by Tom Posch in the Dutch translation of 1989 )
The Celestial Bed (1987)
The Golden Room (1988)
The Guest of Honor (1989)
Non-fiction
Fabulous Originals: Lives of Extraordinary People Who Inspired Memorable Characters in Fiction (1955)
Square Pegs: Some Americans Who Dared to Be Different (1958)
The Fabulous Showman: The Life and Times of P.T. Barnum (1959)
The Twenty-Seventh Wife (1961)
The Sunday Gentleman (1966) (non-fiction)
Writing of One Novel (1968)
The Nympho and Other Maniacs: The Lives, the Loves and the Sexual Adventures of Some Scandalous and Liberated Ladies (1971)
The People's Almanac (1975) (with David Wallechinsky)
Stardust to Prairie Dust (1976)
The Book of Lists (1977) (with David Wallechinsky and Amy Wallace)
Two: Biography of The Original Siamese Twins (1978) (with Amy Wallace)
The People's Almanac No. 2 (1978) (with David Wallechinsky)
The Book of Lists 2 (1980) (with Amy Wallace and David Wallechinsky)
The Intimate Sex Lives of Famous People (1981)
The Book of Lists 3 (1983) (with Amy Wallace and David Wallechinsky)
Significa (1983) (with Amy Wallace and David Wallechinsky)
Secret Sex Lives of Famous People (1993)
Quotes
"To be one's self, and unafraid whether right or wrong, is more admirable than the easy cowardice of surrender to conformity."
"If successful novelists had a formula, they would not have failures, and I know of no novelist who has not had a failure at one time or another."
"Every man can transform the world from one of monotony and drabness to one of excitement and adventure."
"We have placed security in a position of primacy and subordinated individual liberty to it."