Michael Mallory

Michael Mallory (born in Port Huron, Michigan in 1955) is a writer on the subjects of animation and post-war pop culture, and the author of the books X-Men: The Characters and Their Universe, Universal Studios Monsters: A Legacy of Horror and The Science Fiction Universe and Beyond. As an animation and film historian he has written over 500 articles, frequently for Variety, The Los Angeles Times and Animation Magazine, and has been featured in documentaries and DVD extras about animation. He co-authored the memoirs of animation legend Iwao Takamoto, which were published in 2009 as Iwao Takamoto: My Life with a Thousand Characters.

Mallory was raised in Pontiac, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit. As a teenager he appeared in summer stock plays with the Kenley Players and went on to receive a degree in Speech, with a theatre/broadcasting emphasis, from Drury College (now Drury University) in Springfield, Missouri. After a stint as a radio newscaster in Springfield he relocated to Los Angeles to pursue an acting career. He made numerous appearances on the local stage and played bit roles in films such as Frances, Staying Alive and Eleanor: First Lady of the World (all 1982) and on television in Days of Our Lives, Santa Barbara and General Hospital, as well as a handful of commercials and industrial films. More recently he has appeared on Mad Men, Vegas, and Mob City, in which he played Abe "Greenie" Greenberg, whose murder propels the plot of the series, and Angie Tribeca. In the late 1980s Mallory made writing his primary pursuit and for a while he served as a writer for Disneyland and other theme park venues. He scripted the large-format, 3-D attraction film Haunts of the Olde Country, which premiered at Busch Gardens in Williamsburg, Virginia, in 1993 and played there for several years. He was among the first recipients of a Derringer Award, winning in 1998 for Best Flash (short-short) Mystery Story, and his story "The Beast of Guangming Peak" was listed as a "Distinguished Mystery Story of 2004" in the book "The Best American Mystery Stories, 2005," edited by Joyce Carol Oates and Otto Penzler. His 2009 book Universal Studios Monsters: A Legacy of Horror, a history of Universal horror film series, earned an honorable mention from the Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Awards, and Marvel: The Expanding Universe Wall Chart took the Silver 2009 Book of the Year Award from ForeWord Reviews. He lives with his wife and son in Glendale, California.

Mallory also writes murder mysteries, often featuring "Amelia Watson", the second (and previously unheralded) wife of Dr. Watson of Sherlock Holmes fame. Five volumes of Amelia Watson stories have appeared to date: the 2000 collection The Adventures of the Second Mrs. Watson, the 2004 novel Murder in the Bath, a second collection, The Exploits of the Second Mrs. Watson, published in 2008, a novel The Stratford Conspiracy, published in 2012, and a third collection, The Other Mrs. Watson, published in 2016 in England. A second series featuring Hollywood-based detective Dave Beauchamp began in 2013 with the novel Kill the Mother!, which was followed by Eats to Die For! in 2016. Mallory has written more than 125 short stories for adults and children, including a series of mysteries starring an eleven-year-old sleuth named "Scotty," which appeared periodically in the Los Angeles Times. He was the creator and co-editor (with Lisa Seidman and Rochelle Krich) of the mystery anthology Murder on Sunset Boulevard, which was published through the auspices of the Los Angeles chapter of the national organization, Sisters in Crime, and also co-edited (with Harley Jane Kozak and Nathan Walpoe) its follow-up, LAndmarked for Murder. He has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize three times, for both fiction and nonfiction.

Mallory has written horror stories for both young readers and adults. His novella Night Shocker was published in 1997 by Baronet Books as part of their "FrightTime" series, a string of books along the lines of the then-popular Goosebumps series. He contributed more short horror tales for kids for the "Chiller" page of the website MysteryNet.com. In 2012, he came out with his first horror novel for adults, The Mural, which is published by Borgo Press.

Novels

• Eats to Die For!
• Kill the Mother!
• The Mural
• The Stratford Conspiracy
• Murder in the Bath

Collections

• The Other Mrs. Watson
• The Exploits of the Second Mrs. Watson
• The Adventures of the Second Mrs. Watson

Nonfiction

• Hanna-Barbera Cartoons
• Marvel: The Characters and Their Universe
• X-Men: The Characters and Their Universe
• Marvel: The Expanding Universe Wall Chart
• Universal Studios Monsters: A Legacy of Horror
• Iwao Takamoto: My Life with a Thousand Characters (co-writer)
• The Science Fiction Universe and Beyond
• Essential Horror Movies
• The Art of Krampus

As Editor

• LAndmarked for Murder (anthology)
• Murder on Sunset Boulevard (anthology)

Short stories

• "The Sacred White Elephant of Mandalay" (2010, published in Sherlock Holmes: The American Years)

• Weiner, Robert (2008). Captain America and the Struggle of the Superhero: Critical Essays. McFarland. p. 176. ISBN 9780786453405. Retrieved 10 November 2015. 
• "Review: Why we'll always love the Universal Studios Monsters". Blastr. Retrieved 10 November 2015. 
• Pond, Neil. "The Parade Preview: What to Watch, Rent or Buy Oct. 19-25". Parade. Retrieved 10 November 2015. 
• "Sherlock Holmes: The American Years (review)". Publishers Weekly. Retrieved 10 November 2015. 
• "Sherlock Holmes: The American Years. (review)". Booklist. Retrieved 10 November 2015.