Mystery writer Mickey Spillane dies
Published 9:00 pm Monday, July 17, 2006
CHARLESTON, S.C. – Mickey Spillane, the macho mystery writer who wowed millions of readers with the shoot-‘em-up sex and violence of gumshoe Mike Hammer, died Monday. He was 88.
Details about his death were not immediately available.
After starting out in comic books, Spillane wrote his first Mike Hammer novel, “I, the Jury,” in 1946. Twelve more followed, with sales topping 100 million. Notable titles included “The Killing Man,” “The Girl Hunters” and “One Lonely Night.”
Many of these books were made into movies, including the classic film noir “Kiss Me, Deadly” and “The Girl Hunters,” in which Spillane himself starred. Hammer stories were also featured on television in the series “Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer” and in made-for-TV movies.
In the 1980s, Spillane appeared in a string of Miller Lite beer commercials.
Besides the Hammer novels, Spillane wrote a dozen other books, including some award-winning volumes for young people.
As a stylist Spillane was no innovator; the prose was hard-boiled boilerplate.
Mainstream critics had little use for Spillane, but he got his due in the mystery world, receiving lifetime achievement awards from the Mystery Writers of America and the Private Eye Writers of America.
Spillane, a bearish man who wrote on an old manual Smith-Corona typewriter, always claimed he didn’t care about reviews. He considered himself a “writer” as opposed to an “author,” defining a writer as someone whose books sell.
Spillane was born Frank Morrison Spillane on March 9, 1918, in the New York borough of Brooklyn. He grew up in Elizabeth, N.J., and began his career writing for magazines.
He had always liked police stories – an uncle was a cop – and in his pre-Hammer days he created a comic book detective named Mike Danger. At the time, the early 1940s, he was scribing for Batman, SubMariner and other comics.
Danger never saw print. World War II broke out and Spillane enlisted. When he came home, he needed $1,000 to buy some land and thought novels the best way to go. Within three weeks, he had completed “I, the Jury” and sent it to Dutton.
He was a quintessential Cold War writer, an unconditional believer in good and evil. He was also a rare political conservative in the book world. Communists were villains in his work and liberals took some hits as well. He was not above using crude racial and sexual stereotypes.
Spillane became a Jehovah’s Witness in 1951 and helped build the group’s Kingdom Hall in Murrells Inlet, a coastal community near Myrtle Beach. He spent his time boating and fishing when he wasn’t writing. In the 1950s, he also worked as a circus performer, being shot out of a cannon and appearing in the circus film “Ring of Fear.”
The home where he lived for 35 years was destroyed by the 135 mph winds of Hurricane Hugo in 1989.
Married three times, Spillane was the father of four children.
