Emerson Malcolm Witt LaSalle was born in Le Fils de Vainqueur, Missouri on March 11, 1899.  At the age of seventeen he was admitted to Harvard to study journalism and was expelled after a single semester.  Yearning to see the world and “fling himself into the dripping fangs of adventure” he joined the French Foreign Legion where he served honorably before losing a hand to an Arab in the Sudan.  Accounts vary , but most agree he put it someplace it didn’t belong.

He bounced around, writing for a number of newspapers as a foreign correspondent before publishing his first novel The Clockwork Woman in 1928, a startling tale of a lonely mad scientist who builds the perfect companion of springs and gears.  A critical failure, the novel nevertheless sold out nine print runs, and launched LaSalle’s career as a fabulist.  But his new success was tainted later that same year when his father (Earnst) and his mother (Helga) were killed in a blimp accident over the Scottish Highlands.

LaSalle met the girl of his dreams.  Seven times.  After his seventh and final divorce in 1978, LaSalle vowed never to marry again, and was arrested four times over the next decade for soliciting prostitutes.  He produced no known offspring.

Twenty-two of his novels were optioned for film, including Vixen Shamus which was optioned by Ed Wood for one dollar but, alas, never filmed.  Only one of the options actually came to fruition.  Bulgarian filmmaker Ivan Ivan shot and edited the Bulgarian language version of The Unmazing Mr. Mechanical in three weeks.  The film flopped.  No prints are known to exist.

LaSalle’s career waned but enjoyed a minor resurgence in the 1970’s at which time LaSalle made the science fiction convention circuit, garnering a new generation of fans.

On November 17, 2007, LaSalle was found dead in the woods near his Calamity, Idaho cabin where authorities determined he’d been mauled by a bear.