David Walley

Biography

David G. Walley was born March 18, 1945 in Plainfield, New Jersey, son of Miron Monroe (a lawyer) and Sylvia Silot Walley. In 1967 Walley graduated with a BA from Rutgers University and continued his education at Hofstra University from 1967 to 1968. He worked as a columnist for Jazz and Pop magazine and the East Village Other, and wrote music reviews in Zygote, Fusion, and Changes . He was later Arts Editor of the L.A. Free Press. His books include: No Commercial Potential: The Saga of Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention (1972), Nothing in Moderation: a Biography of Ernie Kovacs (1975), and Teenage Nervous Breakdown: Music Politics in the Post-Elvis Age (c. 1998). Throughout his career he worked as a music critic, book and arts reviewer, editor, lecturer, and media consultant. Walley died in 2006 at the age of 61. At the time he was in the process of finishing a biography of the historian Herbert Feis entitled The Shackled Historian: The Life and Times of Herbert Feis .

Ernie Kovacs was born Ernest Edward Kovacs on January 23, 1919 in Trenton, New Jersey. After graduating acting school at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, Kovacs found work as a disc jockey on Trenton's WTTM radio and as a columnist for Trenton's local weekly newspaper The Trentonian . It was in Trenton where Kovacs developed his ad-libbed comedic style. Kovacs found success as a character actor in films such as: Operation Mad Ball, Wake Me When It's Over, Our Man in Havana, Bell Book and Candle, It Happened to Jane, Five Golden Hours, and Sail a Crooked Ship . He also did several TV specials: Silent Show and the Ernie Kovacs Special . Kovacs died in an automobile accident in Southern California when he lost control of his vehicle and crashed into a power pole on January 13, 1962. Kovacs was only 43 years old.

From the guide to the David Walley Research Material about Ernie Kovacs, ca. 1972-1975, (University of California, Los Angeles. Library Special Collections.)