Max Shulman (March 14, 1919–August 28, 1988) was a 20th century American writer and humorist best known for his television and short story character Dobie Gillis, as well as for best-selling novels.

Biography

Early life and career

Max Shulman's earliest published writing was for Ski-U-Mah, the college humor magazine of the University of Minnesota, in the 1930s. His writing often focused on young people, particularly in a collegiate setting. He wrote his first novel, Barefoot Boy With Cheek, a satire on college life, while still a student.

Later career

Shulman's works include the novels Rally Round the Flag, Boys!, which was made into a film starring Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward; The Feather Merchants; The Zebra Derby; Sleep till Noon; and Potatoes are Cheaper. The opening line of Sleep till Noon is considered classic: "Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Four shots ripped into my groin, and I was off on the biggest adventure of my life . . . But first let me tell you a little about myself." He was also a co-writer, with Robert Paul Smith, of the long-running Broadway play, The Tender Trap, starring Robert Preston and which was later adapted into a movie starring Frank Sinatra and Debbie Reynolds.

Shulman's collegiate character, Dobie Gillis, was the subject of a series of short stories compiled under the title The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, which became the basis for the 1953 movie The Affairs of Dobie Gillis, followed by a CBS television series, The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis. Shulman also wrote the series' theme song. The same year the series began, Shulman published a Dobie Gillis novel, I Was a Teenage Dwarf (1959). After his success with Dobie Gillis, Shulman syndicated a humor column, "On Campus," to over 350 collegiate newspapers at one point.

A later novel, Anyone Got a Match?, satirized both the television and tobacco industries, as well as the South and college football. His last major project was House Calls, which began as a 1978 movie based on one of his stories, and starred Walter Matthau and Glenda Jackson; it spun-off the 1979-1981 television series of the same name, starring Wayne Rogers and Lynn Redgrave in the leads. Shulman was the head writer.

Also a screenwriter, Shulman was one of the collaborators on a non-fiction television program, Light's Diamond Jubilee, timed to the 75th anniversary of the invention of the light bulb.