Frank Ray Perilli

Frank Ray Perilli's biography, "The Candy Butcher," was released days after his death from complications of the West Nile Virus on March 10, 2018. Written by his lifelong friend, William Karl Thomas, it reveals a colorful life from a childhood in the mob controlled ghettos of Chicago in the 20's and 30's, to a career as a nightclub comic and film character actor in the 40's and 50's, to being a staff writer for Shecky Greene and Dean Martin and Don Rickles and others, and ultimately becoming a prolific screenwriter and film producer of twenty films and four plays during the balance of his life. Thomas collaborated with Perilli on screenplays early in his career, and also collaborated on screenplays and comedy material with Lenny Bruce during the period that Perilli mentored and managed Lenny's career, as detailed in Thomas' memoir, "Lenny Bruce: The Making of a Prophet." Thomas has penned a dozen other fiction and non-fiction books, most about show business in the latter part of the twentieth century, all available in print and digital editions from major online booksellers. His biography of Perilli fulfills the comment The Manchester Guardian made about his book about Lenny Bruce, "His work sometimes reads like a Bogart script."