Mike McAlary (December 15, 1957-December 25, 1998)[1] was a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and columnist who worked at the New York Daily News for 12 years, beginning with the police beat.
In 1988, McAlary wrote a book, Buddy Boys, about corrupt police in New York's 77th Precinct. He also had a hand in writing the script for the movie Copland, starring Sylvester Stallone and Robert De Niro. In the film The Paper directed by Ron Howard, a columnist character called McDougal played by Randy Quaid was said to be based on McAlary. He had a cameo appearance in the movie.
In 1990 McAlary wrote a piece referring to a gang leader named Lefty. Four years later he interviewed Lefty anew. By then the former gang leader was a decorated soldier, family man, and college student. He attributed his about face to McAlary's 1990 article. McAlary ended his 1994 piece by saying, "I am humbled by his talent. Sure, as a columnist, you can get people indicted and even free the wrongly accused. That is what you do. But from now on, I know, at least once, I wrote a story that mattered." [2]
McAlary won a Pulitzer Prize for an exposé of the New York police torture of Abner Louima in Brooklyn in 1997.[3]
His idols were New York journalists Jimmy Breslin, Murray Kempton and Pete Hamill. During his reporting of the Louima case, McAlary was diagnosed with colon cancer, from which he died on Christmas Day 1998. McAlary was a resident of Bellport, New York, at the time of his death.
"The Wood," [4] playwright Dan Klores's drama based on McAlary's life, premiered at Manhattan's Rattlestick Playwrights Theater in August, 2011.
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