Michael Schumacher, Wisconsin author of biographies of Allen Ginsberg and Eric Clapton, dies at 75

Wisconsin author Michael Schumacher, who produced an array of works ranging from biographies of filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola and musician Eric Clapton to accounts of Great Lakes shipwrecks, has died at age 75. Schumacher's daughter, Emily Schumacher, said her father passed away on Dec. 29. The writer spent most of his adult life in Kenosha, Wisconsin. He wrote dozens of books, including biographies of Coppola, Clapton, basketball great George Mikan and writer Allen Ginsberg. He also produced accounts of the sinking of the cargo ship Edmund Fitzgerald on Lake Superior and a 1913 storm that claimed the lives of more than 250 sailors on the Great Lakes.