Online Encyclopedia
Mickey Spillane
Frank Morrison Spillane (born March 9, 1918), better known as Mickey Spillane, is an American author of crime novels.
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Early life
He was born in Brooklyn, New York, and grew up in a tough neighborhood in Elizabeth, New Jersey. Starting his career writing for slick magazines, after some success, he would turn to pulp magazines and comic books. He was paid twelve dollars apiece for a block of copy and could do as many as fifty blocks of copy a day. He helped create Captain America and Captain Marvel. During the Second World War, Spillane trained pilots and flew combat missions for the Air Corps.
After the war, Spillane returned to comic books. He also worked as a trampoline performer with the Ringling Bros., Barnum and Bailey Circus. He had a short stint as a federal agent during which he helped smash a narcotics ring (he still carries the scars of two bullets and a knife wound to prove it). He was converted to Jehovah's Witnesses in 1952. In 1965, he married his second wife, a beautiful model whom he had pose in the nude for the cover of his 1972 book The Erection Set . For a time he was one of the most popular authors in the United States, with seven titles among the ten best-selling American books of this century. His first detective novel was I, Jury in 1947. He wrote the books in a tent while he built his first house.
I, Jury introduced Spillane's tough detective Mike Hammer. The violence was more overt than it had ever been in a detective story. His books, while tame today, had more than their competitors in terms of sexual episodes.
Crime fiction
He created the fictional "tough guy" private eye Mike Hammer who has much in common with Spillane himself. Hammer first appears in the 1947 novel I, the Jury.
Other works :
- Kiss Me, Deadly , 1952
- The Deep, 1961
Criticism of Spillane's work
Literary critics hated Spillane's writing, citing high content of sex and violence. In answer to his critics, Spillane had 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.
Acting
Spillane occasionally acted in movies. He had a chance to play himself as a detective in Ring of Fear in 1954. It was directed by screenwriter, James Edward Grant.
In the 1963 production The Girl Hunters Spillane, played his creation, Mike Hammer (one of the only occasions in film history in which an author of a popular literary hero has portrayed his own character). It also starred Bond girl, Shirley Eaton , and actor, Lloyd Nolan .
Final quote
- "I'm actually a softie. Tough guys get killed too early... I've got a full head of hair and don't wear eyeglasses"
- — Mickey Spillane, 2004
See also:
External links
- crimetime.co.uk on Spillane http://www.crimetime.co.uk/interviews/mickeyspillane.html
- One of many unofficial Spillane sites http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/spillane.htm
- thrillingdetective.com on Spillane http://www.thrillingdetective.com/trivia/spillane.html
- Spillane at 81 http://www.english.upenn.edu/~afilreis/50s/spillane-at-81.html
- Spillane quotes http://www.creativequotations.com/one/560.htm