Mickey spillane biography

American crime novelist (–)

For the gangster, see Mickey Spillane (mobster).

Frank Morrison Spillane (; March 9, &#;&#; July 17, ), better known as Mickey Spillane, was an American crime novelist, called the "king of pulp fiction". His stories often feature his signature detective character, Mike Hammer. More than million copies of his books have sold internationally. Spillane was also an occasional actor, once even playing Hammer himself in the film The Girl Hunters.

Early life

Frank Morrison Spillane was born March 9, , in Brooklyn, New York, and primarily raised in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Spillane was the only child of his Irish bartender father, John Joseph Spillane, and his Scottish mother, Catherine Anne. During his late adolescence, his family returned to Brooklyn, where he graduated from Erasmus Hall High School in 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.

During World War II, Spillane enlisted in the Army Air Corps, becoming a fighter pilot and a flight instructor. He was first stationed at the air base in Greenwood, Mississippi, where he met and married first wife Mary Ann Pearce in He also met two younger writers, Earle Basinsky and Charlie Wells, who would become his pro

American mobster

For the author, see Mickey Spillane.

Michael J. Spillane (July 13, – May 13, ) was an Irish-American mobster who controlled Hell's Kitchen in New York in the s and s. Spillane, the so-called “Gentleman Gangster", was a marked contrast to the violent Westies mob members who succeeded him in Hell's Kitchen.

Life

Spillane was born on July 13, , to Irish parents Michael Anthony Spillane and Margaret Curran. He excelled academically and was skipped two grades at the Sacred Heart School in Hell's Kitchen. At the age of 12 he was awarded a full scholarship to attend Rice High School in Manhattan.

Spillane left Rice after two years to help support his widowed mother.

At 17, he attempted to rob a movie theater, but was shot by a police officer. He spent four years in prison.

After his release from prison, Spillane started as a numbers runner for various organized crime figures in Hell's Kitchen. In , Mickey took over the rackets left to him by his predecessor Hughie Mulligan. He married Maureen McManus, the daughter of the powerful Hell's Kitchen Democratic district leader Eugene McManus.

Though Italian mobsters dominated organized crime in the city, the Italian mob stayed out of Hell's Kitchen while Spillane was the boss. Often, Spillane would kidnap members of the Italian Mafia and hold

(This obituary first appeared in The Star-Ledger of Newark, July 18, )

    With that final paragraph from his first novel, 's "I, the Jury," Mickey Spillane made his bones.

Spillane's books - with their then-startling mix of sex, sadism and gunplay - redefined the detective story for the post-World War II generation, and made him one of the top-selling American authors of all time. Most of his more than two dozen novels featured his harder-than-hard-boiled detective Mike Hammer, who battled, gangsters, goons and Communists with equal ferocity, often aided by his adoring secretary, Velda.

Spillane, 88, died yesterday at home in Murrells Inlet, S.C., a small coastal community where he'd lived since the s. The cause of death was not immediately known.

"I'm not an author, I'm a writer, that's all I am," Spillane said in a interview. "Authors want their names down in history; I want to keep the smoke coming out of the chimney."

He was born Frank Spillane in Brooklyn on March 9, , and baptized with the middle name Michael, which his father shortened to Mickey. An only child, he spent his formative years in Elizabeth, N.J., growing up in the Bayway section of the city and attending Theodore Roosevelt Junior High School, reunions of which he regularly attended through the years.

In , a block on South Broad Street, between Bayway Avenue and Myrtle Street, was renamed "Mickey Spillane Way." Spillane had mixed feelings about the honor.

"I don't believe in that kind of self-adulation," he told the Star-Ledger at the time. "Streets should be named afte