TULSA, Okla. — Michael Wallis has spent a lifetime telling the story of Route 66 — and the world hasn’t stopped asking for more.
“That’s a stack of autographs I need to sign,” said Wallis, while walking 2 News Oklahoma Anchor Julie Chin around his Tulsa home.
On the walls, in the bookshelves, everywhere you look, there are relics of his life on the road. Perhaps, as one would expect, through his dining room window, you can see Route 66, the highway he built a life on.
“There’s the road!” said Wallis.
The famed author and voice actor is one of the grand marshals for the Tulsa Route 66 Capitol Cruise, a Guinness World Records attempt, and at 80, he shows no signs of slowing down.
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Wallis was born in 1945 on the road he knows like the back of his hand.
“I was literally born off an original alignment of 66 in St. Louis,” Wallis said.
Forty-five years later, in 1990, his best-selling book “Route 66: The Mother Road” was published.
“It earned me the first of three Pulitzer Prize nominations, but the important thing is that the book is credited with causing the spark that caused the revival that we’re still experiencing today,” Wallis said.
That book caught the attention of Pixar, which first brought Wallis on as a consultant and ultimately cast him as the voice of Sheriff in “Cars.”
“Alright, you better not be a tractor tipper, ’cause if you are, you’re in a heap of trouble,” Wallis said in his Sheriff voice.
Now, with the Route 66 centennial and the 20th anniversary of “Cars” converging, Wallis reveals he’s returning to the screen.
“A four-episode series that will air on YouTube, and it’ll be huge. It’s about how the movie ‘Cars’ impacted 66 and vice versa. And I’ll be doing the first whole episode, and it’ll be shot in Galena, Kansas,” Wallis said.
Wallis moved to Tulsa in the 1980s and has called it home for more than 40 years.
“I’ve lived in 7 of the 8 states. The only one I haven’t lived in is Kansas, but it’s one of my favorite stretches — that 13.7 miles,” Wallis said.
He still travels America’s highway often.
“66 is a crooked road. It’s a road of genius,” Wallis said.
Wallis now writes about the road in The Route 66 Sentinel, a new, free magazine.
“It’s become another one of our passions — that’s going to continue certainly through the centennial year and beyond,” Wallis said.
A co-founder of the Route 66 Alliance, Wallis is also one of 15 people to receive a presidential appointment to the Route 66 Centennial Commission, a group charged with recommending centennial celebrations.
“Joe Biden made me a Centennial Commissioner,” Wallis said.
With 20 books published and more on the way, Wallis said retirement is not in his vocabulary.
“People always ask me, well gosh, you’ve published 20 books now, you’re soon going to be 81. I guess you’re going to retire. I said writers do not retire, we just fall over on our keyboard. I’ve got too much to do. No, we keep going on and on,” Wallis said.
For Wallis, Route 66 is more than a road — it’s a life’s calling, and he’s still answering it.
“The future is quite bright because Route 66 has always been very fluid. It moves it always moves. It will keep going because it’s a work in progress. It’s never quite finished,” Wallis said.
A centennial edition of Wallis’s “Route 66: The Mother Road” is expected to hit stores around August. Wallis also revealed his next book will be a memoir of his life with his wife, Suzanne.
Wallis will be joined by Bob Berghell, Matt Pinnell, Monroe Nichols, and Derek Bieri as a Grand Marshals of the Tulsa Route 66 Capital Cruise. You can learn more about it here.
2 News Oklahoma will also be broadcasting live from the Capitol Cruise on Saturday, May 30, from 8 a.m. to- 10 am.
You can see Julie’s past interview with Wallis here.
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