Spank the Monkey

Shalleck wasn't terribly fond of working with Rey. "She was a spoiled little child, but people would put up with her because she was so talented," he once told the Palm Beach Post. Shalleck said he got a flat, one-time fee of $500 per story. In another interview with the Post, he recounts scolding Rey in public: "Once when we were having lunch... she was so rude to the waiter that I snatched her wig off and told her to behave. It was next to a spanking."

In 1991, Rey sued Canadian investor Lafferty for marketing videocassettes of the Shalleck TV shorts without her consent and without paying her royalties. Lafferty countersued. Rey's finicky ways, Lafferty asserted, obstructed his attempts to capitalize on various Curious George merchandising deals. Rey decided, for instance, that a plush doll designed by Eden Toys was "junky" and that the monkey depicted on a Sears prototype pajama appeared "plump." Both products suffered commercially because of her exacting standards, Lafferty alleged. In a 1993 decision, the First District U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that while Rey could be overly meticulous and irascible, as a creator of the Curious George brand and owner of the copyright, her concerns were legitimate.

Around the same time, in the early 1990s, Shalleck had borrowed beyond his means to produce a beloved video project called Pepito's Dream. The 27-minute drama, based on a story by John and Margaret Travers-Moore, is about a boy who dreams of making a speech at the United Nations to plead for world peace. With creditors breathing down his neck, Shalleck filed for bankruptcy and moved to South Florida.

That's where Gramps, the storybook reader, was born. Gramps was an energetic showman — no cane or rocker here! — who liked to share the stage. Rather than telling the children to stay still and hush up, he'd invite them to lean forward and shout their favorite parts. Gramps would intentionally mangle lines of cherished books so the kids could correct him and feel involved. And he read each word with a dramatic flair that made it seem like the plot was unfolding inside that very room. By the end of storytime, the kids would often pile onto his lap.

Gramps enjoyed the attention. He gave newspaper interviews and signed copies of Curious George books with the words "Stay Curious." Judy Stunda, the children's librarian at the Lakewood Branch Library in St. Lucie County, still has a picture of Shalleck hanging from his 1997 visit. "He was wonderful," the 62-year-old librarian remembers. "You could tell he connected with the kids. It's like an extra sense — children know when you really like them or not. They knew that he liked them."

When he could, Shalleck charged a fee of $100 an hour. He needed the extra income. Shalleck frequently complained to friends about his meager finances and having to work well into his retirement years. When Gramps got bookings, friends say, the black rain cloud over Shalleck's head would suddenly lift. It was like he needed to be around children. Toward the end of his life, he mostly read for free, driving as far as Pahokee to enthrall children.

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The night Alan Shalleck died, his close friend Mike Rayber pulled up to his trailer, which was partially obscured by overgrown sea oats. Cars lined the street for Super Bowl parties, and the yells of sports fans masked the rustling of leaves and gentle clink of wind chimes that typically filled the air.

Rayber drove Shalleck to a Boynton Beach Tony Roma's for a late celebration of Rayber's 59th birthday. Shalleck paid. With Rayber, Shalleck could let his guard down. They'd met more than a decade earlier when Shalleck answered a personal ad that Rayber had written. Rayber told police that he saw himself and Shalleck as homosexuals but that Shalleck had trouble reconciling the idea in his mind. "I don't know that he necessarily considered himself gay."

Rayber said Shalleck would often beg him for a spanking, and that, on occasion, he would reluctantly indulge his pal. Shalleck had entrusted him with keys to his trailer and an important task: Rayber was to dispose of Shalleck's "toys" in the event of his death so his grown sons wouldn't find them. Both assumed he'd die of natural causes.

Shalleck's neighbors in Royal Manor Estates, a tidy 55-and-over community, had long before surmised that he might be gay. Denise Zajac, a tiny blond 59-year-old who lives due west of Shalleck's old trailer, waves one hand like a crossing guard as she searches for the best words to describe why she suspected Shalleck was having homosexual trysts. "He had a lot of traffic in and out. You know, people traffic — men. Young, old, black, white — whatever. Day, night, morning. C'mon, something's going on. We figured out what type of lifestyle he was leading." At that, her husband, Tom, looks up from the football game he's engrossed in to add: "He had more guys going in there than a locker room."