Happy Birthday Mickey Spillane!

Frank Morrison Spillane, (better known as Mickey Spillane), was born March 9,1918. So, Happy Belated Birthday Mickey! I have been thinking about my friend since his birthday, (he would have been 95 this year). I had planned to share some some of my memories on his birthday but unfortunately, did not do so. This is my attempt to honor my friend, by remembering him here.

When I first started collecting autographs, I got most of them in-person but, some, I would write letters asking for a signed photo or index card. I wrote to Johnny Sheffield who played Boy in the old Tarzan films and later played Bomba. We became good friends writing letters and emails back and forth. He invited Val and I out to his home to go swimming. I did go to his home in Chula Vista and visited all day getting to know him. I wrote to Mickey Spillane as well but, never received a reply. I had always heard what a great guy he was so, while on vacation in Myrtle Beach, I drove to Murrell's Inlet, asked about directions to his home and rang his doorbell. No one answered but I heard a cry from the side of the house, "We're out here, come around." There sitting next to the water was "Mickey's Mud Boat Marina" and there was the master of hard-boiled crime fiction, Mickey Spillane.Pretty neat, huh? Mickey, not knowing who I was invited me to pull up a chair and join him, his wife Jane, and the woman who typed his finished manuscripts and her friend (don't remember his name). He offered me a beer which, I declined since I don't drink. Mickey was drinking O'Doul's a non-alcoholic beer. We visited a while, his friends left and Jane went inside. Mickey and I spoke for along time. While I was interested in getting to know him, he was genuinely interested in me. We found out we had mutual friends and shared many experiences. That day, Mickey and I became friends and that friendship lasted more than 10 years. Before Mickey passed away, I asked him if he would mind if I wrote an article for Autograph Collector Magazine about him and our relationship. I did not want to take advantage of our friendship and promised that he would have the right to change anything I wrote. He was happy for me to do so and I wrote the article "My Years With Mickey Spillane."

Most people remember Mickey Spillane as the American author of crime fiction and the creator of the hard-boiled, gumshoe Mike Hammer. He became the best selling private eye writer of his time and has sold more than 225 million copies of his books internationally.
I remember Mickey telling me "I'm a writer not an author," and, "The big shot authors could never understand the fact that there are more salted peanuts consumed than caviar."
Mickey and I sat around his kitchen table hours upon hours talking about his growing up, the 1930's, 1940's and the 1950's till present time. Mickey told me of his lifeguard days, his days as a trampoline performer with Ringling Brothers Circus, and how he became a human cannonball there as well. He was a scuba diver, a stock car racer, a Hollywood actor and a celebrity hobnobber. He was a comic book character in Blue Bolt Comics and became a comic book writer writing "Captain America, The Human Torch, Sub-Mariner and Mickey Spillane's Mike Danger, a predecessor of Mike Hammer." He was a World War II veteran and was a fighter pilot instructor. He was a Miller Lite spokesperson and a bestselling author and a good friend of mine.
Mickey told me many times how in 1947 he needed $1,000 to build a house. He decided the best way to get the money was to write a book. He did just that, writing his first book, "I, The Jury" in just nine days.
Critics would sneer at the "sex and violence" (I've never understood that. They seem very tame today) but the buying public devoured his books. I guess at the time, Mike Hammer was a violent, brutal avenger brandishing his justice with his smoking 45 and his fists.

The above photo is Mickey and I at his home and yes, that is the original artwork for the cover of I, The Jury. Mickey was also gracious enough to not only to let me see it, but to fondle his original typed manuscript for I, The Jury complete with his notes penciled in.

Mickey gave me one of my most prized possessions. We were visiting one day and he asked me if, I would like to have a great piece of memorabilia. I said I would love it but that it was not necessary. He asked me to follow him upstairs and asked that I look under the bed and pull a typewriter out. I pulled out an electric typewriter and he said, "No, not that one, look behind it." I pulled out the Smith-Corona you see sitting on my car in the picture above. Mickey asked, "Would you like to have my typewriter?" I told him I would love it and again that it wasn't necessary. He said that he wanted me, someone who wanted it to have it. He went on to tell me how he had used many typewriters but that this one was his favorite, "his money machine." He told me he had written 8 or 9 of his bestsellers on it and gave me a copy of a documentary "Waiting For Lili" which in it, you see my typewriter, Mickey talking about it as his money machine and all the books he had written on it. You can even see the damage to the casing in the film. Needless to say, I was touched and elated.

That's Mickey, Bogie and me in Mickey's home.Bogie was a present from Mickey's wife Jane.

I miss Mickey very much and on this birthday, I want to wish him a very Happy Birthday! You were one of the most decent human beings I have ever known and a good friend.

Mickey had several unfinished manuscripts when he passed away. He had told me that his good friend Max Allan Collins was going to finish them and publish them which he has done with some of them. I just hope there's many more coming.

Happy Birthday Mickey!