Wisconsin author Michael Schumacher, who produced an array of works ranging from biographies of filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola and musician Eric Clapton to accounts of Great Lakes shipwrecks, has died at age 75<\/p>\n
MADISON, Wis. — Michael Schumacher, a Wisconsin author who produced a diverse array of works ranging from biographies of filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola and musician Eric Clapton to accounts of Great Lakes shipwrecks, has died. He was 75.<\/p>\n
Schumacher’s daughter, Emily Joy Schumacher, confirmed Monday that her father passed away on Dec. 29. She did not provide the cause of death.<\/p>\n
Schumacher produced such varied biographies as \u201cFrancis Ford Coppola: A Filmmaker\u2019s Life;\u201d \u201cCrossroads: The Life and Music of Eric Clapton;\u201d and \u201cDharma Lion: A Biography of Allen Ginsberg\u201d \u2014 a prominent Beat Generation poet and writer. <\/p>\n
Other biographies included \u201cMr. Basketball: George Mikan, the Minneapolis Lakers & the Birth of the NBA\u201d and \u201dWill Eisner: A Dreamer\u2019s Life in Comics.\u201d Eisner was one of the earliest cartoonists to work in American comic books and was a pioneer of the graphic novel concept.<\/p>\n
Though he was born in Kansas, Schumacher lived most of his live in Kenosha, Wisconsin. He studied political science at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside but left the school just one credit short of graduating, his daughter said. He gravitated toward writing at a young age, she said, and basically built two writing careers \u2014 one focused on biographies and another on Great Lakes lore. <\/p>\n