Lois Wallace, founder of the Wallace Literary agency, died April 4 in New York City. She was 73 years old.
Educated at the Brearley School and Vassar College, she was hired as a secretary by G.P. Putnam Sons 1961. In 1963, she joined the Harold Ober Literary Agency as an assistant, and in 1967 moved on to the literary department of William Morris where she eventually was named co-director. While at William Morris, Wallace convinced the then little known Harvard classicist Erich Segal to convert an unproduced screenplay into his first novel, the hugely successful Love Story, adapted in the iconic 1970 film of the same name.
In 1974, she founded her own agency. During the past 40 years she has represented authors like William F. Buckley, Stacy Schiff, Joan Didion, Simon Winchester, and Don DeLillo, among others.
"Can I think of myself as a professional writer without Lois Wallace as my representative?" said DeLillo. "We were colleagues and friends for more than four decades and I learned eventually to understand what Lois was saying even when she was saying seven things simultaneously. A deep personal loss."
Wallace is survived by her son George, her nieces Alexandra Wallace Creed and Sarah Wallace Deckey, and her nephew Benjamin Wallace.
