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Mickey Spillane
The American writer Mickey Spillane was born on March 9th 1918 as Frank Michael Morrison Spillane in Brooklyn, New York. Even before the Second World War he worked as a copywriter for comics and wrote, among other texts, for Captain America, Batman and Submariner. Moreover, he also wrote short stories for so-called penny notebooks.
During the war he did his service in the Air Force and Mickey Spillane's first novel about New York private eye Mike Hammer was published in 1947, for which the author received an advance of $ 1,000. The hardback edition could not prevail, and a total of 7,000 units sold.
Quite different was the case with the newly emerging medium paperback. I, the Jury sold more than 4.5 million copies by 1955, which made ??the book one of the most successful sellers of American publishing history. He wrote this book in a few weeks in order to have sufficient money to lead an existence after the war.
First, however, Spillane engaged in other professions. He worked in the 1950’s for the Barnum & Bailey Circus as an artist with a trampoline number. He also had to shoot a live cannon ball through the tent. He also worked as a racer, treasure diver and as an actor. Spillane is rumoured to also have worked even a short time for the FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation).
From 1964 to 1966, Mickey Spillane wrote four books in which a secret agent named Tiger Mann acted as a protagonist. With these books, Spillane used the booming wave that was created by the British secret agent James Bond at this time. Mickey Spillane was not limited to crime fiction novels and agents. In 1979, the book The Day's Den was published. This story is about a natural phenomenon and was designed as children's books, for which the author was awarded the Junior Literary Guild Award.
Although Mickey Spillane is not limited to the private detective novels about Mike Hammer, this was his most famous hero. The author used to type the Mike Hammer novels with two fingers on his old Smith Corona typewriter. He always began with the end of the novel, whereby he never worked on a novel for more than four weeks. Spillane had not revised the first draft. The first written version was also the last.
Mike Hammer’s New York was a melancholy, rainy town and Mickey Spillane managed miraculously to capture and describe the dark mood of the night in New York City.
Spillane, who hated his native New York, moved to the State of South Carolina, where he settled in Murrells Inlet, a small coastal town about halfway between Charleston and Wilmington. Mostly, he was seen driving around there in his old Ford pickup.
As he rewritten a script for John Wayne within three days, the actor gave him a 1956 Jaguar, which the author used only rarely. Spillane, who ate mostly meatloaf, felt the Jaguar was not really comfortable. He found his old pickup more convenient and also that it corresponded more to his character. Incidentally, the author made almost 20 years advertising for Miller Lite beer.
In 1963, Spillane's book The Girl Hunters was implemented in a British production of a film in which the author himself played the role of Mike Hammer. Mickey Spillane worked as an actor also in the American television series Columbo. He made ??a guest appearance as Alan Mallory in the episode Cry or Die from 1970.
Mickey Spillane was married three times and had four children and died at the age of 88 in Murrells Inlet. The motto of the author was Live wild, fast and dangerous and he acted on it. His books were at his death for years no longer available.
Awards
In 1995, Mickey Spillane received the Grand Master Award from the Mystery Writers of America and in 2007 the The Hammer Literature Prize of the Private Eye Writers of America for the best character in a crime novel series, an award that was named after Spillane's private eye.
Books about New York Private Detective Mike Hammer
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