Willard Manus

Willard Manus (born September 28, 1930) is a Los Angeles-based novelist, playwright, and journalist. His best known book is Mott the Hoople (1966), the novel from which the British 1970s hard rock band) derived their name.
Manus was born in New York. He is the author of This Way to Paradise: Dancing on the Tables, a memoir of life in Lindos, Rhodes, Greece, from the 1960s to the 1990s. Additionally he has had a dozen other books published, most recently a young adult novel, A Dog Called Leka, which deals with a young lad sailing the Aegean islands in the company of an exceptional dog. More than two dozen of his plays have been produced in Los Angeles, regionally and in Europe.

Journalism

• Columns

Southern California Correspondent for Playbill On-Line (1995-2000).

Monthly columnist (theatre, opera, books, movies, jazz & blues) What's Up Magazine &, Lively-Arts.com.

Books

• Novels

Mott the Hoople, McGraw-Hill Co & Pinnacle Books

• Fiction

The Fighting Men, Panjandrum Books

The Fixers, Ace Books

Connubial Bliss, Panjandrum Books

The Pigskin Rabbi, Breakaway Books

• Children's

The Island Kids, Anglo-Hellenic Publishing Co (Picture Book)

• Young adult

The Proud Rebel, Ridge Press/Teenage Book Club

Sea Treasure, Doubleday

Mystery of the Flooded Mine, Doubleday

A Dog Called Leka, Viveca Smith Publishing Co

• Non-fiction

This Way to Paradise--Dancing on the Tables, Lycabettus Press

Plays (premiered)

Bon Appetit (Los Angeles, 1984, director Bert Rosario)

Diamonds (Los Angeles, 1985, director Richmond Shepard)

Hemingway--On the Edge (Los Angeles, 1993, director Lonny Chapman)

In My Father's House (Los Angeles, 2000, director Jerome Guardino)

Junk Food (Los Angeles, 1981, director Rick Edelstein)

MM at 58 (Los Angeles, 1989, director Gary Guidinger)

The Bleachers

The Deepest Hunger (Los Angeles, 1984, director Lonny Chapman)

The Electronic Lincoln (Los Angeles, 1992, director Susan Deitz)

Their Finest Hour--Churchill and Murrow (Woodstock, director Nicola Sheara)

The Kendo Master (Los Angeles, 1981, director Sab Shimono)

The Last Laugh (Los Angeles, 1999, director John Lant)

The Love Boutique (Los Angeles, 1989, director Walter Olkiewicz)

The Penis Monologues (Los Angeles, 2002, director Louis Fantasia)

The Yard

Man in the Sun

Porkchops

The Call (Los Angeles, 2006, director Gregory Crafts)

Reap the Whirlwind (Los Angeles, 2000, director Doug Lowry)

Walt-Sweet Bird of Freedom (Los Angeles, 1984, director Lonny Chapman)

• Actual production

Central Avenue--The Musical (Los Angeles, 2007, director Louis Fantasia).

Television

Boys Will Be Boys, Fox TV.

Secrets of Midland Heights, CBS-TV.

Shannon, CBS-TV.

Too Close For Comfort, ABC-TV.

Translations

Leka de hond (A dog called Leka), translated by Gerrit Brand, Uitgeverij Nobelman, 2012.