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Max Shulman (1919-1988) was an American novelist, playwright, screenwriter, and short story writer best known as the author of
Rally Round the Flag, Boys! (1957),
The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis (1951), and the popular television series of the same name. The son of Russian immigrants, Shulman was born in St. Paul, Minnesota, and attended the University of Minnesota, where he wrote a celebrated column for the campus newspaper and edited the humor magazine. His bestselling debut novel,
Barefoot Boy with Cheek (1943), was followed by two books written while he served in the Army during World War II:
The Feather Merchants (1944) and
The Zebra Derby (1946).
The Tender Trap (1954), a Broadway play cowritten with Robert Paul Smith, was adapted into a movie starring Frank Sinatra and Debbie Reynolds. His acclaimed novel
Rally Round the Flag, Boys! became a film starring Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward. Shulman's other books include
Sleep till Noon (1950), a hilarious reinvention of the rags-to-riches tale;
I Was a Teenage Dwarf (1959), which chronicles the further adventures of Dobie Gillis;
Anyone Got a Match? (1964), a prescient satire of the tobacco, television, and food industries; and
Potatoes Are Cheaper (1971), the tale of a romantic Jewish college student in depression-era St. Paul. His movies include
The Affairs of Dobie Gillis (with Debbie Reynolds and Bob Fosse) and
House Calls (with Walter Mathau and Glenda Jackson). One of America's premier humorists, he greatly influenced the comedy of Woody Allen and Bob Newhart, among many others.
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