Michael Avallone (born in
New York CityNew York is the most populous city in the United States, and the center of the New York metropolitan area, which is among the most populous urban areas in the world. A leading global city, New York exerts a powerful influence over worldwide commerce, finance, culture, fashion and entertainment...
, October 27, 1924, died March 1 1999) was a prolific
AmericanThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
author of
mysteryMystery fiction is a loosely-defined term that is often used as a synonym for detective fiction — in other words a novel or short story in which a detective investigates and solves a crime...
and
secret agentSecret Agent is a 1936 British film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, loosely based on two stories in Ashenden: Or the British Agent by W. Somerset Maugham. The film starred John Gielgud, Peter Lorre, Madeleine Carroll and Robert Young...
fiction, as well as many
novelA novel is a long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
s based upon various television series and films. His lifetime output is known to have exceeded 1,000 works, including novels,
short storiesA short story is a work of fiction that is usually written in prose, often in narrative format. This format or medium tends to be more pointed than longer works of fiction, such as novellas and novels or books...
, and articles, published under his own name or numerous pseudonyms.
Avallone published his first novel,
The Tall Dolores, in 1953 introducing the character of "Ed Noon", the private detective
protagonistA protagonist is the main character of a literary, theatrical, cinematic, video game, or musical narrative, around whom the events of the narrative's plot revolve and with whom the audience is intended to share the most empathy...
of the story.
Michael Avallone (born in
New York CityNew York is the most populous city in the United States, and the center of the New York metropolitan area, which is among the most populous urban areas in the world. A leading global city, New York exerts a powerful influence over worldwide commerce, finance, culture, fashion and entertainment...
, October 27, 1924, died March 1 1999) was a prolific
AmericanThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
author of
mysteryMystery fiction is a loosely-defined term that is often used as a synonym for detective fiction — in other words a novel or short story in which a detective investigates and solves a crime...
and
secret agentSecret Agent is a 1936 British film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, loosely based on two stories in Ashenden: Or the British Agent by W. Somerset Maugham. The film starred John Gielgud, Peter Lorre, Madeleine Carroll and Robert Young...
fiction, as well as many
novelA novel is a long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
s based upon various television series and films. His lifetime output is known to have exceeded 1,000 works, including novels,
short storiesA short story is a work of fiction that is usually written in prose, often in narrative format. This format or medium tends to be more pointed than longer works of fiction, such as novellas and novels or books...
, and articles, published under his own name or numerous pseudonyms.
Avallone published his first novel,
The Tall Dolores, in 1953 introducing the character of "Ed Noon", the private detective
protagonistA protagonist is the main character of a literary, theatrical, cinematic, video game, or musical narrative, around whom the events of the narrative's plot revolve and with whom the audience is intended to share the most empathy...
of the story. Avallone went on to write three dozen Ed Noon novels, the most recent of which was published in 1989. The final volume, "Since Noon Yesterday" is, as of 2005, unpublished.
During his career, Avallone wrote many officially licensed novels tying-in with popular TV series and films of the time, including
The Man from U.N.C.L.E.The Man from U.N.C.L.E. is an American television series that was broadcast on NBC from September 22, 1964, to January 15, 1968. It follows the exploits of two secret agents, played by Robert Vaughn and David McCallum, who work for a fictitious secret international law-enforcement agency called...
,
Hawaii 5-0,
MannixMannix is an American television detective series that ran from 1967 through 1975 on CBS. Created by Richard Levinson and William Link and developed by executive producer Bruce Geller, the title character, Joe Mannix, is an Armenian-American private investigator. He is played by Mike Connors, an...
,
Friday the 13th Part III,
Beneath the Planet of the ApesBeneath the Planet of the Apes is a 1970 science-fiction film directed by Ted Post, and the first of four sequels to 1968's Planet of the Apes. The film stars James Franciscus and Kim Hunter, and features Charlton Heston in a supporting role.-Plot:...
and even
The Partridge FamilyThe Partridge Family was an American television sitcom about a widowed mother and her five children who embarked on a music career. The family lived in San Pueblo, a small fictional town in Northern California...
. He also wrote a series of novellas in the late 1960s featuring an U.N.C.L.E.-like organization called INTREX. Avallone is sometimes cited incorrectly as the creator of
Man from U.N.C.L.E. (as in the January 1967 issue of
The Saint Magazine).
Avallone also wrote numerous entries in the
Nick Carter: KillmasterNick Carter is a fictional character who began as a pulp fiction private detective and has appeared in a variety of formats over more than a century.-Literary history:...
series beginning in the 1960s (these books are credited to the fictitious title character), and, under the pseudonym "Troy Conway" wrote a handful of entries in the tongue-in-cheek
Rod Damon: The Coxeman novel series between 1967 and 1973, that parodied the
Man from U.N.C.L.E.. One of the more unusual entries in his
canonA canon, in terms of a fictional universe, is a body of material that is considered to be "genuine" or "official", that can be directly referenced as, or as if it were, material produced by the original author or creator of a series...
was the novelization of the 1982 TV mini-series,
A Woman Called GoldaA Woman Called Golda is a 1982 made-for-television film biopic of Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir.Made by Paramount Television and directed by Alan Gibson, the film stars Ingrid Bergman in the title role...
, based on the life of
Golda MeirGolda Meir was the fourth prime minister of the State of Israel....
.
Among the many pseudonyms that Michael Avallone used (male and female) were: Mile Avalione, Mike Avalone, Troy Conway, Mark Dane, Steve Michaels, Edwina Noone, Priscilla Dalton, John Patrick, Jeanne-Anne dePre, Dorothea Nile, Sidney Stuart, Dora Highland, Stuart Jason, Vance Stanton, Max Walker, and Lee Davis Willoughby.
From 1962 to 1965, Avallone edited the
Mystery Writers of AmericaMystery Writers of America is an organization for mystery writers, based in New York.The organization was founded in 1945 by Clayton Rawson, Anthony Boucher, Lawrence Treat, and Brett Halliday....
newsletter.
External links