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My father died when I was very young, and I'm not known by his last name, but by the name my mother adopted when she remarried a few years later. I went to military school and was regarded as a rising star in the Army, which sent me to Mexico, the Phillipines, Siberia, and Paris, where I met my wife. I had serious disagreements with the way the Army was being run, and when I went public with my complaints, the top brass turned against me and I left the Army.
I made a living first as a writer, then went into syndication and then publishing. I pioneered a new area in publishing, and had a difficult time in the beginning. I had to get financing from some unscrupulous people. The business survived and was beginning to thrive, and just when I was about to publish another new innovation, my erstwhile financier-partners maneuvered me into bankruptcy and took the company away from me. The innovation went out under their aegis instead of mine. It's still world-famous and has generated billions of dollars in revenue, of which I shared not a penny. I went back to being a freelance writer for the rest of my life.
Hint: the "innovation" I almost published was a trend-setting fictional character. This character has been featured in movies, TV, radio, comic strips, comic books, animated cartoons and thousands of licensed products. The two creators of the character were also victims of the people who took my publishing company. Four decades after the character's debut, the two were destitute old men when a public campaign by fans and fellow creators shamed the company into giving the duo a pension.
By the way, recent interviews with Wheeler-Nicholson's children have contradicted the long-standing story that he had no involvement with Superman. The children remember seeing the pages and hearing him talk about the character. They may even have correspondence between Wheeler-Nicholson and Siegel & Shuster about Superman. He was working on putting the first issue of Action Comics together, with Superman on the cover, when Donenfeld & Liebowitz lowered the boom.
As a young man I tried my hand at several business including general store owner, lottery operator, and newspaper owner. After lotteries were banned in my state I moved to New York, where with a woman who was claimed to have a connection to George Washington I began a new line of work.
By the time I was 31 years old I owned and operated a building, that for 24 years was one of the most popular attractions of the time. After the demise of this, I served two terms as a state legislator.
At 61 years of age I lent my name and financial backing to a new business venture that would be my longest lasting claim to fame. Part of the success of this company was due the pioneering usage of a newer form of transportation that allowed me to reach a larger national market. After my death, my company was sold to my main competitor after which the name was combined with the name of their company---under this name it still exists today.
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