Biography

He is a son of Ukrainian immigrants and was born in Chicago

Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

, Illinois. He suffered from amblyopia

Amblyopia

Amblyopia, also known as lazy eye, is a disorder of the visual system that is characterized by a vision deficiency in an eye that is otherwise physically normal, or out of proportion to associated structural abnormalities of the eye...

 and poliomyelitis

Poliomyelitis

Poliomyelitis, often called polio or infantile paralysis, is an acute viral infectious disease spread from person to person, primarily via the fecal-oral route...

 as a child, but graduated from Hyde Park High School by the age of 16. He was interested in writing from an early age, and became a police reporter before he went to Wilson Junior College.

He joined the Army Air Corps

United States Army Air Corps

The United States Army Air Corps was a forerunner of the United States Air Force. Renamed from the Air Service on 2 July 1926, it was part of the United States Army and the predecessor of the United States Army Air Forces , established in 1941...

 in 1942 and continued to write, never leaving the US. His first published novel under his own name was Three Day Pass. Before that, he published Lie Like a Lady under the pseudonym

Pseudonym

A pseudonym is a name that a person assumes for a particular purpose and that differs from his or her original orthonym...

 C.S. Cody.

After World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, he attended the University of Chicago

University of Chicago

The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...

 and earned his M.A. from Columbia University

Columbia University

Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...

. He married Louise Hetzel. Together, they moved to New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

, where his second novel, Phoenix Island, was published in 1953. The couple had two daughters, Elizabeth and Susan, and divorced in 1968. After the divorce, he married photographer and actress Patricia Mahen, and they moved to Calabria, Italy, in 1978 where they lived for 11 years and later moved to London. After 15 years abroad, they lived in Naples, Florida

Naples, Florida

Naples is a city in Collier County, Florida, United States. As of July 1, 2007, the U.S. Census Bureau estimated the city's population at 21,653. Naples is a principal city of the Naples–Marco Island Metropolitan Statistical Area, which had an estimated total population of 315,839 on July 1, 2007...

 where he wrote, lectured, and contributed to Florida’s leading cultural magazine, the Naples Review.

Waller worked as a public relations

Public relations

Public relations is the actions of a corporation, store, government, individual, etc., in promoting goodwill between itself and the public, the community, employees, customers, etc....

 account executive at Harshe-Rotman and Druck in New York, servicing a variety of accounts, including Hertz Rent-a-Car. In the meantime, he continued to write novels and a children's book series, "A Book to Begin on...".

Writer

His trilogy, The Banker, The Family, and The American garnered recognition, landing the last title on The New York Times

The New York Times

The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...

bestseller list. Waller became known as a go-to man for novelizations and produced the novels for Dog Day Afternoon

Dog Day Afternoon

Dog Day Afternoon is a 1975 drama film directed by Sidney Lumet, written by Frank Pierson, and produced by Martin Bregman. The film stars Al Pacino, John Cazale, Charles Durning, Chris Sarandon, Penny Allen, James Broderick, and Carol Kane. The title refers to the "dog days of summer".The film was...

(under the pseudonym Patrick Mann), Close Encounters of the Third Kind

Close Encounters of the Third Kind

Close Encounters of the Third Kind is a 1977 science fiction film written and directed by Steven Spielberg. The film stars Richard Dreyfuss, François Truffaut, Melinda Dillon, Teri Garr, Bob Balaban, and Cary Guffey...

and Hide in Plain Sight.

Leslie Waller with his co-author Arnold Drake

Arnold Drake

Arnold Drake was an American comic book writer and screenwriter best known for co-creating the DC Comics characters Deadman and the Doom Patrol, and the Marvel Comics characters the Guardians of the Galaxy, among others....

 are credited with having written the first graphic novel

Graphic novel

A graphic novel is a narrative work in which the story is conveyed to the reader using sequential art in either an experimental design or in a traditional comics format...

, It Rhymes with Lust

It Rhymes with Lust

It Rhymes with Lust is a book, originally published in 1950, considered one of the most notable precursors of the graphic novel. Called a "picture novel" on the cover and published by the comic book and magazine company St...

. It was their idea to pitch a new idea, the "picture novel", a bridge between comic books and "book books", to St John, the publisher who released It Rhymes with Lust. The graphic novel was rereleased by Dark Horse Comics

Dark Horse Comics

Dark Horse Comics is the largest independent American comic book and manga publisher.Dark Horse Comics was founded in 1986 by Mike Richardson in Milwaukie, Oregon, with the concept of establishing an ideal atmosphere for creative professionals. Richardson started out by opening his first comic book...

in the Spring of 2007.