Mickey Spillane

Frank Morrison Spillane (/spɪˈleɪn/; March 9, 1918 – July 17, 2006), better known as Mickey Spillane, was an American crime novelist, whose stories often feature his signature detective character, Mike Hammer. More than 225 million copies of his books have sold internationally. Spillane was also an occasional actor, once even playing Hammer himself

Early life

Frank Morrison Spillane was born March 9, 1918, in Brooklyn, New York City, and raised in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Spillane was the only child of his Irish bartender father, John Joseph Spillane, and his Scottish mother, Catherine Anne. Spillane attended Erasmus Hall High School, graduating in 1935.[4] He started writing while in high school, briefly attended Fort Hays State College in Kansas and worked a variety of jobs, including summers as a lifeguard at Breezy Point, Queens, and a period as a trampoline artist for the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus.

Photo of Spillane from Greenwood Army Air Field yearbook for 1943

During World War II, Spillane enlisted in the Army Air Corps, becoming a fighter pilot and a flight instructor.[6] He was first stationed at the air base in Greenwood, Mississippi, where he met and married first wife Mary Ann Pearce in 1945.[7] He also met two younger writers, Earle Basinsky and Charlie Wells, who would become his protégés; each published two hardboiled-noir novels in the Spillane style in the early 1950s