and John Beland, keyboard players Alan Lindgren and Tom Hensley, drummers Billy Thomas and Denny Seiwell, and bassists David Hungate and Les Hurdle. However, the production was never finished due to Wirtz's decision to concentrate on his family, leading to a 20-year hiatus from the music business. Hiatus from music During those years, after savings had run out and royalties had dwindled, Wirtz took on a gamut of jobs, including telemarketer, waiter, maître d', bloodstock agent, interpreter, voice-over artist, seminar leader and eventually sales manager for a Geneva merger and acquisition firm. While taking acting classes during off-times and in the pursuit of a new career as a novelist, Wirtz also realized a lifelong ambition to be a comedian by studying and performing at Hollywood's Groundlings Improv Theater, to eventually take his first steps onto the stages of Hollywood's comedy clubs, including The Comedy Store and The Improv. In 1996, Wirtz moved to Savannah, Georgia, where he became an award-winning freelance magazine columnist/critic, writing about food and drama, while publishing his first novels, Sisyphus Rocks and Love Is Eggshaped, as well as selling paintings in a Savannah gallery. Later years and death In 2004, giving in to the plea from his daughter Nicole (by now resident in Spain) to produce her rock-band-leader boyfriend's debut album, Wirtz flew to Barcelona and returned to the studio for the first time in many years to produce Les Philippes' Philharmonic Philanthropy. Before year's end, the band's album was No. 1 in the independent label charts. Wirtz continued his rebounded studio activities by subsequently producing his own Mark Wirtz Eartheatre solo album Love Is Eggshaped, Spyderbaby UK's Glassblower CD, and Anthony Rivers' Marked Confidential. In January 2006, Wirtz found a path back into comedy by collaborating with Jacksonville, Florida's "Jax Comics" group of working comedians, initially working out at the Comedy Zone, then moving on by touring the southeast's comedy clubs in the development of his stand-up comedy act. In 2010, Wirtz produced an all-new solo studio album, Lost Pets 2, scheduled for international release by PoppyDisc Records in October 2010. Wirtz died on the morning of 7 August 2020 from Pick's disease. References External links Mark Wirtz, "The Story Behind “The Teenage Opera”", 2000 1943 births 2020 deaths French record producers French pop musicians 20th-century American comedians 21st-century American comedians Deaths from Pick's disease Musicians from Cologne