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Michael Angelo Avallone (October 27, 1924 – February 26, 1999) was an American author of mystery and secret agent fiction and novelizations of television programs and films. His lifetime creative output consists of over 223 written works (although he boasted over 1,000), published under his own name and seventeen pseudonyms.

Biography

The son of Michael Angelo Avallone Sr, Avallone was born in New York City on and died in Los Angeles on . He was married in 1949 to Lucille Asero; they had one son before the marriage was dissolved. In 1960 he married Fran Weinstein, and together they had one son and one daughter. In addition to his writing, Avallone was a guest lecturer at New York University, Columbia University, and Rutgers University. The final volume, The Ninth of Never, was never published. Avallone said he faced some minor editorial restrictions on the U.N.C.L.E. book, at the studio's insistence. The villainous organization of the book, Golgotha, was described by Avallone as being German. "MGM insisted on making them Russians — and of course this is 1964, the height of the Cold War," he said. Due to his involvement in the tie-ins, the cover of the January 1967 issue of The Saint Magazine, edited by Leslie Charteris, erroneously identified Avallone as the creator of the TV series.

His tie-ins included Hawaii Five-O, Mannix, Friday the 13th Part III, Beneath the Planet of the Apes and The Partridge Family. A series of novellas in the late 1960s featured the U.N.C.L.E.-like INTREX organization.

Under the name "Nick Carter," he wrote some of the Nick Carter spy novels beginning in the 1960s. As "Troy Conway," he wrote the tongue-in-cheek porn series Rod Damon: The Coxeman, and parodied The Man from U.N.C.L.E. from 1967 to 1973. He also wrote the novelization of the 1982 TV miniseries A Woman Called Golda, based on the life of Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir.

Among his other pseudonyms (male and female) were Mile Avalione, Mike Avalone, Priscilla Dalton, Mark Dane, Jeanne-Anne dePre, Dora Highland, Stuart Jason, Steve Michaels, Dorothea Nile, Edwina Noone, Vance Stanton, Sidney Stuart, Max Walker, and Lee Davis Willoughby.

References

  • ThrillingDetective.com biography