Michael L. Grace

After graduate school in the UK, Michael L. Grace, a California-born native, was involved in Hollywood advertising and public relations. He worked for Elvis Presley Promotion at MGM and Paramount, MSEI, and McCann Worldgroup; this experience gave him a strong background in marketing, promotion and media relations.

Still, his genuine interest was in writing and producing. So Michael began producing in the theatre, including as part of the team (producer and writer) that created the internationally performed award-winning musical Snoopy!!! and the reimagined The World According to Snoopy based on Peanuts by Charles M. Schultz. He also produced P.S. Your Cat Is Dead by Pulitzer Prize-winning author James Kirkwood. In addition, he wrote the thriller Final Cut and the one-person play JFK – The Man Behind the Myth, developed for HBO and played theatrically.

Michael began writing screenplays, selling his second to Universal. He then worked in TV development and writing for the nighttime series Paper Dolls, Knots Landing, Family, and the long-running series Love Boat; he wrote numerous two-hour specials starring Oscar winners and Hollywood stars – Claire Trevor, Anne Baxter, Olivia de Havilland, George Kennedy, Cloris Leachman and Tim Robbins. This experience prompted him to write It's the Love Boat – The most significant TV product placement creating today's cruise industry.

In addition, he has written movies for TV, including Dangerous and the thriller Lady Killer starring Emmy and Tony winner Judith Light, various pilots, and developed screenplays for Kevin Costner and John Travolta.

Along with British composer Thomas Lowe, they recently completed MS St Louis – Voyage to Freedom, a musical based on the ill-fated historical journey from Germany to Cubain 1939 carrying German Jewish refugees. Seeking freedom from Hitler's anti-Semetic regime, they were denied asylum by the United States government. Instead, it forced them to return to Europe, with many, including over a hundred children, facing immediate extermination by the Nazis at their death camps in Poland. He has also written a new novel, A Prayer for Revenge, for publication in 2024.

In 2007, Michael and the Daily Kos were defendants in two lawsuits filed with the Federal Election Commission regarding their political blogs and freedom of speech, with the FEC ruling in their favor in a landmark decision declaring that blogs are media. Having visited over 50 countries, Michael has written travel articles for major publications. He is also a maritime historian and has lectured at universities. In 2008, Michael established Cruising The Past, an award-winning website featuring social and travel history.