CBS News is reporting that Mickey Spillane, creator of Mike Hammer, has died in his home. He was 88.
I have yet to read any of his books, but I love the Mike Hammer movies and TV shows and even the old radio show. Spillane matched the roughness of Chandler, Hammett, Leonard and some of the writers from the 30’s and 40’s, but added the still more brutal aspects that Hammer had. As I see it, every fictional detective since the 50’s owes his class (or lack of it) to Spillane.
R. I. P. A good pulp writer.
BTW, is he the only author ever to portray his own creation in a motion picture?
Sir Rhosis
Bummer, I always liked the TV series with Stacey Keach (or as Lawrence Oliver called him, “Stanley Kreach”). Another of the original tough guys gone.
Surely not. Stephen King portrayed his Jordy Verrill in Creepshow.
Obviously, the cause of death was a blonde with a great set of gams, the kind of broad who could make a bishop kick a hole in a stained-glass window.
The kind of blonde who carries a .38 snub nose–*and she knows…*how to use it.
Once again, someone I kinda thought was already dead.
(Barnard Hughes’ & Red Buttons’ recent departures also surprised me.)