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MADISON, Wis. (AP) -- Michael Schumacher, a Wisconsin author who produced a diverse array of works ranging from biographies of filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola and musician Eric Clapton to accounts of Great Lakes shipwrecks, has died. He was 75.
Schumacher's daughter, Emily Joy Schumacher, confirmed Monday that her father passed away on Dec. 29. She did not provide the cause of death.
Schumacher produced such varied biographies as "Francis Ford Coppola: A Filmmaker's Life;" "Crossroads: The Life and Music of Eric Clapton;" and "Dharma Lion: A Biography of Allen Ginsberg" -- a prominent Beat Generation poet and writer.
Other biographies included "Mr. Basketball: George Mikan, the Minneapolis Lakers & the Birth of the NBA" and "Will Eisner: A Dreamer's Life in Comics." Eisner was one of the earliest cartoonists to work in American comic books and was a pioneer of the graphic novel concept.
Though he was born in Kansas, Schumacher lived most of his live in Kenosha, Wisconsin. He studied political science at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside but left the school just one credit short of graduating, his daughter said. He gravitated toward writing at a young age, she said, and basically built two writing careers -- one focused on biographies and another on Great Lakes lore.
Emily Joy Schumacher described her father as "a history person" and "a good human." She said he worked longhand, filling countless flip notebooks and later transcribing them on a typewriter.