Frank Morrison Spillane (March 9, 1918 – July 17, 2006), better known as Mickey Spillane, was an American author of crime novels, many featuring his signature detective character, Mike Hammer. More than 225 million copies of his books have sold around the globe.^[1] By 1980, Spillane was responsible for seven of the top 15 all-time bestselling fiction titles in America. Image File history File links Metadata No higher resolution available. ... Image File history File links Metadata No higher resolution available. ... is the 68th day of the year (69th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1918 (MCMXVIII) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar (see link for calendar) or a common year starting on Wednesday of the Julian calendar. ... is the 198th day of the year (199th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with mystery_fiction. ... Mike Hammer is a fictional American detective created by the American author Mickey Spillane in the 1947 book I, the Jury (made into a movie in 1953 and 1982). ...

Born in Brooklyn, New York and raised in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Spillane was the only child of his Irish-American bartender father, John Joseph Spillane, and his Scottish mother, Catherine Anne. He started writing while in high school and briefly went to Fort Hays State College in Kansas. He worked a variety of jobs, including summers as a lifeguard and a period as a trampoline artist for the Barnum and Bailey circus. For other meanings, see Brooklyn (disambiguation). ... Union County Court House Elizabeth is a city in Union County, New Jersey, in the United States. ...

Comic books

Like another famed writer of crime fiction, Patricia Highsmith, Spillane started as a writer for comic books, While working as a salesman in Gimbel's basement in 1940, he met tie salesman Joe Gill, who later found a lifetime career in scripting for Charlton Comics. Gill told Spillane to meet his brother, Ray Gill, who wrote for Funnies, Inc., an outfit that packaged comic books for different publishers. Spillane soon began writing an eight-page story every day and concocted adventures for major 1940s comic book characters, including Captain Marvel, Superman, Batman and Captain America. 1962 publicity photo of Patricia Highsmith Patricia Highsmith (January 19, 1921 - February 4, 1995) was an American novelist who is known mainly for her psychological crime thrillers which have led to more than two dozen film adaptations. ... Joe Gill was a writer who worked in the comics industry. ... Big C logo, used from Sept. ... Funnies, Inc. ... This article is about the DC Comics character. ... Superman is a fictional character and comic book superhero , originally created by American writer Jerry Siegel and Canadian artist Joe Shuster and published by DC Comics. ... Batman (originally referred to as the Bat-Man and still referred to at times as the Batman) is a DC Comics fictional superhero who first appeared in Detective Comics #27 in May 1939. ... Captain America is a fictional comic book superhero published by Marvel Comics. ...

Mike Hammer

After the Pearl Harbor attack, Spillane joined the United States Army Air Corps the next day, December 8, 1941. In the mid-1940s he was stationed as a flight instructor in Greenwood, Mississippi, where he met and married Mary Ann Pearce in 1945. The couple wanted to buy a house in the country, so Spillane decided to boost his bank account by writing a novel. In 19 days he wrote I, the Jury. At the suggestion of Ray Gill, he sent it to E.P. Dutton. ... The United States Army is the largest and oldest branch of the armed forces of the United States. ... is the 342nd day of the year (343rd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... For the movie, see 1941 (film). ... Greenwood is situated in Leflore County, Mississippi at the eastern edge of the Mississippi Delta, approximately 96 miles north of Jackson, Mississippi, and 130 miles south of Memphis, Tennessee. ... I, The Jury (1947) is Mickey Spillanes (b. ... E. P. Dutton is an American book publishing company founded as a book retailer in Boston, Massachusetts in 1852 by Edward Payson Dutton. ...

With the 1947 hardcover and the Signet paperback (December 1948), I, the Jury sold six and a half million copies in the United States alone. I, the Jury introduced Spillane's tough detective Mike Hammer. Although tame by current standards, his novels featured more sex than competing titles, and the violence was more overt than the usual detective story. An early version of Spillane's Mike Hammer character, called Mike Danger, was submitted in a script for a detective-themed comic book.^[2] Mike Hammer is a fictional American detective created by the American author Mickey Spillane in the 1947 book I, the Jury (made into a movie in 1953 and 1982). ...

Marriages

Mickey and Mary Ann Spillane had four children (Caroline, Kathy, Michael, Ward), but their marriage ended in 1962. In November 1965, he married his second wife, nightclub singer Sherri Malinou, who had posed nude for the cover of The Erection Set (1972), a novel dedicated to her. After that marriage ended in divorce (and a lawsuit over money) in 1983, Spillane shared his waterfront house in Murrells Inlet, South Carolina with his third wife, Jane Rodgers Johnson, whom he married in October 1983 although his first wife, Mary Ann, and their four children lived only a short distance away. Year 1965 (MCMLXV) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display full calendar) of the 1965 Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1983 (MCMLXXXIII) was a common year starting on Saturday (link displays the 1983 Gregorian calendar). ... Murrells Inlet is a census-designated place located in Georgetown County, South Carolina. ... Year 1983 (MCMLXXXIII) was a common year starting on Saturday (link displays the 1983 Gregorian calendar). ...

In 1989, Hurricane Hugo ravaged his Murrells Inlet house to such a degree it had to be almost entirely reconstructed. A TV interview showed Spillane standing in the ruins of his house. Year 1989 (MCMLXXXIX) was a common year starting on Sunday (link displays 1989 Gregorian calendar). ... Lowest pressure 918 mbar (hPa; 27. ...

The Erection Set (1972) cover featuring Spillane's then-wife Sherri Malinou

Image File history File linksMetadata Download high resolution version (445x740, 62 KB) Summary The Erection Set, copyright 1972 by Mickey Spillane. ... Image File history File linksMetadata Download high resolution version (445x740, 62 KB) Summary The Erection Set, copyright 1972 by Mickey Spillane. ...

Films

Spillane portrayed himself as a detective in Ring of Fear (1954), directed by screenwriter James Edward Grant. Several of the Mike Hammer novels were made into movies, including the classic film noir, Kiss Me Deadly (1955). In The Girl Hunters (1963) Spillane appeared as Mike Hammer, one of the few occasions in film history in which an author of a popular literary hero has portrayed his own character. In the TV series Columbo Spillane played a writer who is murdered. During the 1980s, he appeared in Miller Lite beer commercials. The year 1954 in film involved some significant events. ... Kiss Me Deadly is a 1955 film produced and directed by Robert Aldrich starring Ralph Meeker. ... DVD cover of The Girl Hunters The Girl Hunters is a 1962 Mike Hammer pulp novel made into a movie in 1963. ... Columbo is an American crime fiction TV series starring Peter Falk as Lieutenant Columbo, a homicide detective with the Los Angeles Police Department. ...

Spillane became a Jehovah's Witness in 1951 (NPR Interview). He died July 17, 2006 at his home in Murrells Inlet, South Carolina from pancreatic cancer. Spillane's novels went out of print, but in 2001, the New American Library began reissuing them. He received an Edgar Allan Poe Grand Master Award in 1995. NPR logo For other meanings of NPR see NPR (disambiguation) National Public Radio (NPR) is a private, not-for-profit corporation that sells programming to member radio stations; together they are a loosely organized public radio network in the United States. ... is the 198th day of the year (199th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Pancreatic cancer is a malignant tumour within the pancreatic gland. ...

Critical reactions

Literary critics had a negative reaction to Spillane's writing, citing the high content of sex and violence. Spillane answered his critics with a few terse comments: "Those big-shot writers could never dig the fact that there are more salted peanuts consumed than caviar... If the public likes you, you're good."

However, Russian-American author Ayn Rand publicly praised Spillane's work at a time when critics were almost uniformly hostile. She considered him an underrated if uneven stylist and found congenial the black-and-white morality of the Hammer stories. She later publicly repudiated what she regarded as the amorality of Spillane's Tiger Mann stories. Ayn Rand (IPA: , February 2 [O.S. January 20] 1905 – March 6, 1982), born Alisa Zinovyevna Rosenbaum (Russian: ), was a Russian-born American novelist and philosopher,[1] best known for developing Objectivism and for writing the novels We the Living, The Fountainhead, Atlas Shrugged and the novella Anthem. ...

German painter Markus Lüpertz claimed that Spillane's writing influenced his own work. He certainly loves to shock his critics by saying that Spillane ranks as one of the major poets of the 20th Century.

Popular culture references

• In the Academy Award winning film Marty (1955}, one of the characters repeats "That Mickey Spillane...he sure knows how to WRITE" endlessly.
• The late writer Charles Bukowski was said to have been inspired to write his 1994 novel Pulp as a parody of Spillane's style of detective novels.
• Avant-garde composer John Zorn's 25-minute piece based on motifs found in Spillane's work was released as an LP, Spillane (1987).
• The 1986-88 sitcom Sledge Hammer was a parody of Mike Hammer.
• In episode 9.10, Operation Friendship, of the television series M*A*S*H, Corporal Klinger saves Major Winchester's life and, in the process, breaks his nose. At Klinger's request, Winchester reads Spillane's I, the Jury to him, as a way to help repay his debt to Klinger.
• In the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode, "Profit and Loss", Quark interrupts Odo in the security office and is surprised to find him reading I, the Jury.
• In the movie Full Metal Jacket, the drill instructor responds to the protagonist's choice to become a Marine Combat Correspondant by saying "You think you're Mickey Spillane? You think you're some kind of fucking writer?"
• The song "The Friends of Mr. Cairo", by Jon & Vangelis, on the album of the same name, includes the line in the lyrics "She came, as in the book, Mickey Spillane".
• In the "Lost" Stella short entitled "Bar", while drinking in a bar, Michael Ian Black makes a toast to David Wain and Michael Showalter makes a toast to Black. Each of these is in the style of a limerick and each ends with the line, "He'd have to be Mickey Spillane".
• A child is shown reading a Spillane book in an April 2007 IKEA Canada [ad.]Ikea AD
• Mickey Spillane was featured in a GAP Ad for Khakis.
• In a Mad satire of specialized book clubs, one fictitious club listed is "The Spicy Abridged Book Club" which offers books with "only them [sic] 'choicest parts'" i.e., the parts of racy novels that lust-minded readers look for. "The Spicy Abridged Mickey Spillane" is described as containing, "A selection of the meatiest parts of his books, meaning every word he ever wrote!".

Although he never won an Oscar for any of his movie performances, the comedian Bob Hope received two honorary Oscars for his contributions to cinema. ... For other uses, see Marty (disambiguation). ... “Bukowski” redirects here. ... John Zorn (born September 2, 1953 in Queens, USA) is an American avant-garde composer, arranger, record producer, saxophonist and multi-instrumentalist. ... Spillane is an album by American composer and saxophonist/multi-instrumentalist John Zorn, comprised of three file card pieces, as well as a work for voice, string quartet and turntables. ... Sledge Hammer! is a US television satirical sitcom that screened for two seasons on ABC from 1986 to 1988. ... M*A*S*H is an American television series developed by Larry Gelbart, inspired by the 1968 novel M*A*S*H: A Novel About Three Army Doctors by Richard Hooker (penname for H. Richard Hornberger) and its sequels, but primarily by the 1970 film MASH, and influenced by the... I, The Jury (1947) is Mickey Spillanes (b. ... Space station Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (ST:DS9 or STDS9 or DS9 for short) is a science fiction television series produced by Paramount and set in the Star Trek universe. ... Quark, son of Keldar and Ishka, is a fictional character in the television series Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, played by Armin Shimerman, and a regular for the shows seven-year run. ... Odo is a shapeshifter played by Rene Auberjonois on the science fiction television series Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. ... Full Metal Jacket (1987) is a Stanley Kubrick film based on the novel The Short-Timers by Gustav Hasford. ... The Friends of Mr. ... Jon & Vangelis is the collaborative effort between the singer Jon Anderson and the synthesizer artist Vangelis. ... Stella is comedy troupe consisting of Michael Showalter, Michael Ian Black, and David Wain (all former members of The State). ... Michael Ian Black (born Michael Schwartz on August 12, 1971) is an American actor, comedian and comedy writer. ... David Wain (born August 1, 1969 in Shaker Heights, Ohio) is an American writer, director, actor and comedian. ... Michael Showalter (born June 17, 1970) is an American actor, writer, and director. ... WGS-84 (GPS) Coordinates: , Irish Grid Reference R574572 Statistics Province: Munster County: Area: 20. ... Look up Gap in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Mad is an American humor magazine founded by editor Harvey Kurtzman and publisher William Gaines in 1952. ... A book club is a club where people usually meet to discuss a book that they have read and express their opinions, likes, dislikes, etc. ...

Spillane quotes

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:

Mickey Spillane

• "I'm actually a softie. Tough guys get killed too early... I've got a full head of hair and don't wear eyeglasses."
• "I'm the most translated writer in the world, behind Lenin, Tolstoy, Gorki and Jules Verne. And they're all dead..."
• "I have no fans. You know what I got? Customers. And customers are your friends."
• "My work may be garbage but it's good garbage."
• "Now what happened with Ernest Hemingway was that he wrote this nasty piece about me... So I was on a show in Chicago, a live TV show. It was a big theatre and there was a stage audience, and the guy who was interviewing me said, "Did you read that piece that Hemingway wrote about you?" And I said, "Hemingway who?" It brought the house down, but he hated my guts after that."

Image File history File links This is a lossless scalable vector image. ... Wikiquote is a sister project of Wikipedia, using the same MediaWiki software. ...

See also

• History of crime fiction
• Hard boiled American crime fiction writing

Crime fiction is a typically 20th century genre, dominated by British and American writers. ... Crime fiction is a typically 20th century genre, dominated by British and American writers. ...

External links

• crimetime.co.uk on Spillane
• One of many unofficial Spillane sites
• thrillingdetective.com on Spillane
• Spillane at 81
• Spillane quotes
• Article on the Ayn Rand-Mickey Spillane relationship
• A Defense of Spillane's literary art
• Spillane explains his faith
• Guardian Obituary
• Mystery novelist Spillane dies
• You, the Jury, article examining the critical reaction to Spillane's early novels
• Photo
• Obituary with unique perspective on Spillane and his role in culture from NewYorkNightTrain.com

Footnotes

1. ^ Gulley, Andrew. "Interview: Mickey Spillane", The Strand Magazine, Oct-Jan 2006. 
2. ^ '"Mike Hammer originally started out to be a comic book. I was gonna have a Mike Danger comic book," Hammer [sic] said in a 1984 interview.' CBS News Obituary