Novelist Mickey Spillane’s lasting impact on the world – and Murrells Inlet

Novelist Mickey Spillane’s lasting impact on the world – and Murrells Inlet

PUBLISHED Aug. 4, 2025

Jane Spillane, the widow of novelist Mickey Spillane, suggested meeting at her favorite place for coffee – the Krispy Kreme in Murrells Inlet.

Between sips and dressed in a bright red top and crisp white shorts, Jane reminisced about her life with Spillane, the world-famous crime novelist, occasional actor and, certainly, Murrells Inlet’s most famous resident.

“Mickey always said he would live forever,” Jane mused, “and he has.”

It’s been nearly 20 years since the death of the undisputed “King of Pulp Fiction” – he died at age 88 on July 17, 2006, at his Inlet home of pancreatic cancer. But Spillane’s legacy has, indeed, lived on.

Nearly a quarter of a billion copies of his books have been sold worldwide, and his most famous character, the hardboiled detective Mike Hammer, stood out among the “Pulp Fiction” genre – and made Spillane a go-to novelist for decades. His first novel, “I, the Jury,” sold more than six million copies and set Spillane on a success story without end. More novels came – “My Gun is Quick,” “Vengeance is Mine” and many more – and found eager readers waiting. Hollywood was fascinated, too, and made movies of some of Spillane’s books.

Born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1918, Spillane grew up admiring the police, a proclivity that in college led him to write comic books about a detective called Mike Danger. As a young man who wanted to generate revenue for building a house, he wrote the novel, “I, the Jury” about Danger’s character who had evolved into a violent hero that Spillane renamed Mike Hammer. The book earned him a $1,000 advance.

MICKEY SPILLANE: AT HOME IN MURRELLS INLET

In Murrells Inlet, a stretch of road that skirts the water and a seemingly endless collection of homes and restaurants is named in his honor: the “Mickey Spillane Waterfront 17 Highway.” A fitting tribute, it is, as the Inlet supplied Spillane with inspiration – and his first meeting with Jane, a head-strong girl who, many years later in 1983, would become his third wife and the keeper of his legacy.

Throughout his career, Spillane penned dozens of books that crossed all genres and were interpreted into multiple languages all over the world. His widow said that out of all of her late husband’s novels, they both favored “One Lonely Night,” Spillane’s fourth novel featuring Mike Hammer. 

Jane said she’s working on a movie deal with Skydance, which is reviewing scripts from Spillane’s best-selling books. Hammer, she disclosed, may be played by Oscar-winning actor Matthew McConaughey.

Negotiating with a Hollywood studio is quite a world away, she admits, from Spillane pecking out his novels on a typewriter in Murrells Inlet. “Mickey,” Jane recalled, “couldn’t write a book without hearing the click-clack-and-ding from his manual Smith Corona.”

Jane, who still lives in the Inlet house she shared with Spillane, recounted their life together in her own book (as told to writer Andrew Lesh). Titled “My Life with Mickey,” the book was published in 2014 by Coastal Carolina University’s Athenaeum Press. She details how her husband wasn’t like the rough-and-tumble characters he created but was thoughtful, optimistic and a community advocate.

“What he wanted more than anything was to still be there for me after he was gone,” Jane wrote, “and he knew that his books were a way to do that.”

New work from Spillane was even possible after his death. Unfinished manuscripts and even sticky notes provided his friend and fellow author, Max Allen Collins, with enough material to keep the novelist’s spirit alive by finishing 15 uncompleted Spillane novels, with Jane’s approval. Collins’ work, often inspired by Spillane’s hand-scrawled notes, are available under Mickey Spillane Publishing. Collins’ work has been an important partnership for Jane.

Additionally, Collins and James L. Traylor wrote a biography titled “Spillane: King of Pulp Fiction.” 

FIRST SIGHT OF MURRELLS INLET

Spillane first took notice of Murrells Inlet not from land and sea but from high above as he flew over the coastline as an enlisted fighter pilot and flight instructor for the Army Corps during World War II. While flying over Murrells Inlet, he fell in love with the stretch of beaches below that is known today as South Carolina’s Hammock Coast®. When he first saw Murrells Inlet, Jane said, he vowed he’d live there one day. In 1955, he brought that dream to life by purchasing an 18-room house with a dock on an acre in the Inlet for $13,000. 

Spillane often allowed people to fish off of his property, according to Paul Vernon, who was a writer for National Marine Fisheries in the early 1980s when he first met Spillane.

“When we met,” Vernon recalled, “I was fishing on his dock and he asked me to have a beer with him.”

Their conversation led to a lifelong friendship and many collaborations. One such project they produced together was the Mickey Spillane Sport Fishing Tournament as a platform for increasing interest in marine conservation. Vernon, who served as director of the event, which ran from 1986-1988, said Miller Lite was the sponsor and that People magazine covered the competition.

“That,” Vernon quipped, “was how everyone found out about Murrells Inlet.” 

According to Vernon, “During Spillane’s peak period in the early 1950s, seven out of 10 of his books were on The New York Times best-seller lists. By 1980, Spillane was responsible for seven of the top 15 all-time best-selling fiction titles in the United States.”

At home in the Inlet, Vernon said, Spillane donated much of his time to conservation-minded nonprofits and spoke to audiences about preserving the area from overdevelopment.

LIFE AS THE CREATOR OF MIKE HAMMER

Spillane also enjoyed sharing his life experiences as they pertained to his work.

Linda Ketron, the editor, publisher and founder of CLASS and its iconic author-speaker luncheon series called The Moveable Feast, remembers Spillane with fondness for his willingness to always give back to his community.

“He was,” Ketron recalls, “a delightful raconteur.” 

She remembers vividly the day Spillane stepped in to save one of The Moveable Feast luncheons.

“An author from Savannah was scheduled to speak at one of our events and about an hour before she was due to arrive, I got a call that she had turned south instead of north on Highway 17 and she was approaching Beaufort,” Ketron said. “There was no way she could get to Murrells Inlet in time for the Feast. I called Mickey, who graciously put down his fishing pole and popped over, spiffily dressed in jeans and a black turtleneck.

“He proceeded to regale the assembled women with tales of his encounters in Hollywood during the filming of his books and the Jaguar he was gifted by a famous actor, which he said was presently serving as a cathouse for his feral colony.”

So who was the generous famous actor who gave Spillane a car? None other than John Wayne.

When the novelist rewrote the movie “Ring of Fear” for Wayne, Spillane refused to take any credit or money for the project. The Duke was intent on compensating Spillane and had noticed Spillane, a car aficionado, admiring a sleek Jaguar while in Hollywood. So Wayne had the car delivered, wrapped in a giant bow, to Spillane in Murrells Inlet.

Still over Krispy Kreme coffee, Jane shared another Hollywood memory about the time Spillane was a presenter at the Emmy Awards, after which he had a medical emergency backstage and passed out. Lucille Ball, wearing a red ball gown, flew to his aid, giving him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. The issue, Jane said with a laugh, was nothing more than that his pants were too tight.

“He was fine,” Jane quipped. “We all laughed about that.” 

KNOWING NO STRANGERS

Life in Spillane’s universe was never dull. In addition to his career as a novelist, Spillane also raced cars, was a deep-sea diver, a fisherman, and a trampoline artist with Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. He even worked undercover for the FBI.

“Mickey didn’t know a stranger,” Jane said. “Every morning, he had breakfast at Hardee’s, where he enjoyed interacting with the locals. He was so nice to his fans, whom he called customers.”

In fact, Spillane once explained that philosophy to Richard Severo of The New York Times, who dubbed the writer “critic-proof” in his obituary.

“I have no fans,” Spillane had explained to Severo. “You know what I got? Customers. And customers are your friends.”

Some critics savaged Spillane’s often-violent books, but the author – and millions of fans that devoured his books and bought tickets to the movies based on those books – couldn’t care less what literary critics thought of his prose.

Spillane told Severo that his books might be “the chewing gum of American literature,” but he “didn’t write for the critics.”

“I’m writing,” he said, “for the public.”

Eventually, some critics came around, and Spillane even earned accolades, including receiving the Edgar Allan Poe Grand Master Award and a lifetime achievement honor from the Private Eye Writers of America.

The charmed life that Spillane created for himself was inclusive of everyone around him. Like a pied piper, he intrigued children with stories he created on the spot. Jane said, “He had the best imagination and won awards for children’s books such as ‘The Ship That Never Was’ and ‘The Shrinking Island.’ ”

MEETING HER FUTURE HUSBAND

Jane, who grew up in Murrells Inlet a block away from Spillane’s property, said she first met her future husband, 29 years her senior, when she was at his house playing with his kids and diving off his dock at low tide. Once, when Jane didn’t surface right away, Spillane came running over to look for her. Finally, she popped up, covered from head to toe in pluff mud.

Over time, the rugged girl who spent her youth romping around barefoot through the Lowcountry creeks and rivers, grew up and followed her passion for theater. She moved to New York, where she studied at the American Academy. Although Spillane had an apartment a few blocks away from where she lived, the two never ran into each other in the city.

Life had taken them both in different directions, but, in 1962, Spillane ended his marriage with Mary Ann Spillane, with whom he had four children, Caroline, Kathy, Michael and Ward. In 1965, he married his second wife, nightclub singer Sherri Malinou. That marriage dissolved in 1983.

In the meantime, Jane had also married and had two daughters, Lisa and Britt. In 1979, she and her first husband divorced. Jane and the girls moved into her parents’ house back in Murrells Inlet. 

After Jane arrived home, a girlfriend came to visit and wanted to meet Jane’s famous neighbor. Jane’s mother warned: “Don’t go over to that damn Yankee’s house. He writes those dirty books,” citing the sex and violence for which Spillane’s novels were renowned.

Nonetheless, Jane took her guest over to Spillane’s house, where he was sitting with Collins, his erstwhile friend and the man who would continue Spillane’s legacy in fiction many years later. They were both sitting outside in a tiki hut. As Jane was leaving, the story goes, Spillane told Collins, “I’m going to marry her someday.” 

A year later on Oct. 30, 1983, Jane and Spillane tied the knot at his favorite restaurant in the Inlet, Oliver’s Lodge, which is no longer in business. The newlyweds honeymooned just a few miles down Highway 17 on Pawleys Island, where they rented a beach house. The first day they came home to the Inlet to check on the children and cats. During what was meant to be a quick stop at the post office, Jane slammed her fingers in the door of Spillane’s pickup truck and he had to rush her to the hospital. Between that incident and an allergic reaction she had to the prescribed medicine, the honeymoon was ruined, she said. 

While celebrating a do-over in the Florida Keys, Spillane had a run-in with another famous author, Ernest Hemingway. Although Spillane liked him and his work, Hemingway despised Spillane, perhaps because he’d written more bestsellers. As Jane told the story, portraits of both writers were hanging in a local restaurant. Hemingway demanded that the painting of Spillane be taken down at once but, instead, the owner of the establishment removed the one of Hemingway and handed it to him in an awkward moment of humility.

A HAPPY INLET LIFE

Back home in the Inlet, Spillane was a loving father to his four biological children, as well as to Jane’s two daughters. Spillane took the girls to school in the back of his pickup truck.

Later, when Jane’s ex-husband demanded that their daughter, Britt, attend Yale, 30 minutes from where he lived, Britt declared she wanted to go to Stanford. Three weeks before classes began, her birth father called to wish her a happy birthday and informed her that because of her decision, he was no longer going to be funding her college education. Spillane, who at the time was traveling to film a Bud Light commercial, flew home to assure a distraught Britt that she was still going to attend Stanford and committed to paying for it. Spillane also walked Britt down the aisle during her wedding at the Monterey Hotel. 

When Hurricane Hugo tore through the Inlet in 1989, the Spillane home was destroyed. Devastated that they had lost everything, including first-edition books, art and antiques, Jane said Spillane didn’t show his hurt but got to work on rebuilding because that was typical of how his character came to life. 

Another example of Spillane’s fortitude, Jane said, was the night he returned home from a Bible study and began frantically searching for his trench coat, pork pie hat and .45 gun. “They’re getting ready to rob the corner store!” he shouted as he bolted out of the house. Jane immediately called the sheriff, who arrived on the scene in time to thwart thieves who were planning to hold up a lone female clerk. Spillane, a local hero in more ways than one, was 80 years old at the time.

By the age of 88, Spillane still had all his faculties, however, stomach issues sent him to Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston, where doctors diagnosed him with pancreatic cancer. Although he had an MRI just eight months prior with negative results, the disease quickly attacked his body. When the prognosis gave him six weeks, Spillane said to family and friends, “Don’t feel sorry for me, I’ve done everything I wanted to in my life.”

When hospice intervened, he was the one who entertained the caregivers, Jane said. On July 17, 2006, Spillane passed away peacefully at home, surrounded by friends and family.

“All Mickey wanted was for me to be happy and secure,” Jane concludes. “He knew he was going to live forever through his work, through his image and through his faith.”

The sounds of Mickey Spillane’s Smith Corona typewriter are now lost to time, somewhere on the winds that blow in to the Inlet from the Atlantic Ocean. But Jane remains, determined as ever, to keep his memory alive for generations of readers who continue to enjoy the enthralling post-war detective novels Spillane created.

— By Sarah Rose and Mark A. Stevens for South Carolina’s Hammock Coast