BOYNTON BEACH - The bloodied body of a collaborator on Curious George books and films was found covered in garbage bags in the driveway of his home.
Alan Shalleck's body lay there for at least a day, passing neighbors assuming it was a heap of trash, until a maintenance man discovered it Tuesday.
Police were treating the case as a possible homicide, spokeswoman Sgt. Gladys Cannon said, but she wouldn't disclose details about how he died.
Shalleck, 76, was the writer and director of more than 100 short episodes of Curious George, which aired on the Disney Channel, and co-wrote a series of books with Margret Rey, who created the mischievous monkey with her husband more than 60 years ago.
Maintenance supervisor Burt Venturelli found Shalleck's body on the terra cotta driveway of his mobile home, lying near his Honda Civic. The body was naked from the waist up, and there was "blood all over the place," Venturelli said.
Shalleck co-wrote more than 28 Curious George books and helped write and direct 104 film shorts. The monkey, created in 1939 by Hans and Margret Rey, makes his big screen debut Friday in movie theaters nationwide.
A Syracuse University drama major, Shalleck got his start in 1950 in the CBS mail room, working his way up to associate producer of a children's program. He later produced children's films and formed his own company.
He approached Margret Rey about bringing Curious George to film in 1977.
"I got $500 per Curious George story, no royalties, no residuals," Shalleck told the Palm Beach Post in 1997. But the experience was the high point of his life, he added.
He said after Rey's 1996 death that she and her husband were children at heart, enabling them to identify with their audience.
"They always considered little children as little people and wanted to write for them as little people," he told the Associated Press.
