Scott Allen Nollen

Scott Allen Nollen is an American historian, biographer, archivist, filmmaker and musician known widely as the author of a series of popular books on the history of film, music, literature and African American studies. His father, Harold N. Nollen, served in the United States Coast Guard prior to running a successful petroleum distribution business, to which his mother, Shirley A. (Stoltz) Nollen, also contributed. From age 12 in 1975, Nollen worked for his father until beginning his university studies in 1984. The surname "Nollen" is a variant of a clan that originated in Ireland. The maternal line of his father's family has been traced back to Bavaria in 1676. Nollen's literary collaborators include science-fiction legend Ray Bradbury, author-filmmakers Nicholas Meyer and Michael A. Hoey, British musicians Ian Anderson and Dave Pegg, R&B singer Ruth Pointer, television producer Tony Oppedisano, celebrity offspring Dame Jean Conan Doyle (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle), Sara Jane Karloff (Boris Karloff) and Chris Costello (Lou Costello), film scholar Paul M. Jensen, and Theron Denson, "the World's Only African-American Neil Diamond Tribute Artist." He also is known for producing, directing and playing two roles in the independent film "Lofty" (2005), with his nephew, Ryan C. Baumbach, and co-writing the screenplays for the award-winning documentaries "Kreating Karloff" (2006) and "Finnigan's War" (2013). Nollen's parents began reading to him at a very early age, and he was able to read and write by the age of four, before attending Kindergarten. He has cited his favorite authors as Robert Louis Stevenson, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Edgar Allan Poe, H. G. Wells and Mark Twain. He has noted that his greatest writing "teachers" have been Stevenson, Conan Doyle and Poe, all of whose considerable works (including essays and uncompleted material) he has read in their entirety. Stevenson's classic novel "Treasure Island" (1883) he describes as a "perfect literary work and perhaps the only truly 'cinematic' work ever created entirely in another medium, especially prior to the invention of film." His favorite poet is Scottish bard Robert Burns, whose works are written in English and the Auld Scots dialect, which Nollen also reads and writes. Nollen's top 10 classic film directors are John Ford, Akira Kurosawa, Charles Chaplin, John Huston, James Whale, Yasujiro Ozu, Masaki Kobayashi, Michael Curtiz, F. W. Murnau and Fritz Lang. His five top post-1960 directors are Sidney Lumet, Nicholas Meyer, Woody Allen, Martin Scorsese and Clint Eastwood. Since 1979, Nollen has written scores of articles and essays, as well as authoring and editing over 50 books, including "The Boys: The Cinematic World of Laurel and Hardy" (1989), "Boris Karloff: A Critical Account of His Screen, Stage, Radio, Television and Recording Work" (1991), "Robert Louis Stevenson: Life, Literature and the Silver Screen" (1994), "Sir Arthur Conan Doyle at the Cinema: A Critical Study of the Film Adaptations" (1996), "Boris Karloff: A Gentleman's Life" (1999), "Robin Hood: A Cinematic History of the English Outlaw and His Scottish Counterparts" (1999), "Jethro Tull: A History of the Band, 1968-2001" (2001), "The Cinema of Sinatra: The Actor, on Screen and in Song" (2003), "Louis Armstrong: The Life, Music and Film Career" (2004), "Warners Wiseguys: All 112 Films that Robinson, Cagney and Bogart Made for the Studio" (2007), "Abbott and Costello on the Home Front: A Critical Study of the Wartime Films" (2009), "Jilly! Sinatra's Right Hand Man" (2009), "Paul Robeson: Film Pioneer" (2010), "Three Bad Men: John Ford, John Wayne, Ward Bond" (2013), "Black Diamond: The Real Illusion" (2013), "Glenda Farrell: Hollywood's Hardboiled Dame" (2014), "The Making and Influence of 'I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang'" (2016), "Takashi Shimura: Chameleon of Japanese Cinema" (2019) and, with his wife, Yuyun Yuningsih Nollen, "Chester Morris: His Life and Career" (2019).. Of all his editing assignments, Nollen is most pleased to have worked on the U.S. edition of the autobiography of one of his heroes, Sir Christopher Lee, "Tall, Dark and Gruesome" (1999). Along with Sir Christopher, his favorite acquaintance and correspondent was actor, author and gourmet chef Vincent Price. His closest film-industry friend will always remain "the beloved Michael A. Hoey," whose original screenplay for the bizarre comic Elvis Presley film "Stay Away, Joe" (1967) he called (in the writer's presence) "a tragically under-rated experimental masterpiece." Nollen co-wrote the Grammy-nominated book for the Time Warner CD box set Frank Sinatra in Hollywood 1940-1964 (2002), joining other Sinatra scholars including film historian Leonard Maltin, jazz authority Will Friedwald, and record producer Chuck Granata. In 2002, Nollen's "Jethro Tull" was nominated for Best Rock 'n' Roll/R&B book by the Association for Recorded Sound Collections. Educated at the University of Iowa, Nollen earned a BA in Honors History (1988), a BA in Broadcasting and Film (1988), and an MA in United States, Modern European and African American History (1989). His main influences while at the University were Professor Lawrence Gelfand (History) and Professor Samuel Becker (Communication Studies), who had been recommended to him by Nicholas Meyer, who has maintained a strong relationship with the school. Another highlight for Nollen were his private discussions with legendary astronomer and physicist James Van Allen. From 1991-2001, Nollen served as a federal archivist, filmmaker and lecturer for the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) in Washington, DC, and at the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library in West Branch, Iowa. His travels took him to institutions throughout the U.S., including a "private visit" in the boarding house where President Abraham Lincoln passed away and a night sleeping in the (very short) bed of President Rutherford B. Hayes. The onset of two serious, permanent progressive illnesses, requiring long term hospitalizations and major surgeries during 2010-11, ended Nollen's extensive traveling to do research for book projects. Often confined to home under strict diet and medication regimens, Nollen nonetheless remains more active than ever as a scholar, working on many book projects simultaneously. In 2014, Nollen was selected by the National Film Preservation Board of the Library of Congress to contribute to the National Film Registry website, writing essays on Paul Robeson's "The Emperor Jones" (1933) and John Ford's "Stagecoach," "The Quiet Man," "The Searchers" and "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance." . Nollen also wrote chapters on Robert Louis Stevenson's novels "Treasure Island" and "Kidnapped," for a two-volume book on the Walt Disney films, and John Ford for a book on films and television programs about the U.S. Civil War, for Rowman & Littlefield. He and his researcher-writer-actress wife also are writing three more books: "Mike Connors: The Life, Military, Athletic, Film and Television Career" and "The Eastern Films of Boris Karloff" for McFarland; and "Sons of Charlie Chan: Keye Luke, Sen Yung, Benson Fong" for Midnight Marquee. Nollen's long-awaited "Setsuko Hara: Madonna of Japanese Cinema" (McFarland) will follow, as well as a new volume on film and television adaptations of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories. The composer of hundreds of "home-grown" songs and tunes over the past four decades, Nollen served as drummer for the Midwestern-based jazz quintet "Together" during 1978-1984, and constantly collaborated with his cousin, guitarist and songwriter Todd M. Jacobsen, from 1974 to 2017. Nollen maintains a permanent residency in the United States but, as of December 2017, resides with Yuyun, and stepson, Julio, in Bandung, West Java, Indonesia, where they began working on "Five Indo Samurai," a short film tribute to Akira Kurosawa, for their own family company, What-Is-Mean Productions, during 2019.