Sid Graedon Collection on Mickey Spillane

Collection

Identifier: MS-0228

Staff Only

Collection Overview

Abstract

The Sid Graedon Collection on Mickey Spillane consists of manuscript materials, promotional items and correspondence ranging from 1950 to around 1973.

Dates

Creation: 1950-1973, undated

Extent

6 Cubic Feet (19 archives boxes)

Scope and Contents

This collection spans the breadth of Mickey Spillane's career.

Spillane's early work in comic books (Boxes 2 and 3) is a highlight of the collection, including scripts written for many of the major characters created by Funnies, Inc. such as Namor the Submariner, Captain America, and Captail Marvel. Because most comic stories of the time were uncredited, there is great potential for research in this part of the collection.

When he returned from military service, Spillane conceived of the idea for a comic book named "Mike Danger". Many of Spillane's papers related to the near-production of this comic are contained in this collection. The idea made it to the layout stages, but didn't see the light of day until years later. When he made the turn to novels a year later, Spillane changed Mike Danger into Mike Hammer and a legend was born. Boxes 4 through 6 highlight the promotional efforts of Spillane and Graedon.

Also contained in this collection are typed manuscript copies of many Spillane's novels (Boxes 7-19). Many contain handwritten notes from Spillane and/or his editors. Several of the manuscripts, including the one for his first novel I, The Jury had been stored in a garage prior to Spillane gifting them to Sid Graedon, and show signs of aging as well as some fire damage. The manuscript in the collection for The Twisted Thing had been abandoned by Spillane in the 1950s, and lost the last several pages in a fire. Graedon came across the manuscript around 1966 and encouraged Spillane to reconstruct the ending and publish it. Spillane dedicated the published version to Graedon.

Boxes 7-12 contain manuscripts featuring Spillane's Mike Hammer character. Boxes 13-16 are stand-alone novels, while boxes 17-19 are from the Tiger Mann series.

The remainder of the collection consists of promotional items, including a vinyl pressing of Spillane reading a Mike Hammer short story titled "The Woman", as well as posters and original artwork. Extensive files kept by Graedon related to Spillane's publicity tours in the 1960s and 1970s will be of interest to those studying publishing during the era, as well as those interested in comparing Spillane the persona versus Spillane the man.

Biographical / Historical

Sid Graedon was a marketing executive at New American Library, who published Mickey Spillane's work in paperback from the 1960s on. The two men enjoyed a lasting friendship, and over many years, Spillane gifted these original manuscripts to his friend which, no doubt, is the reason they still exist, as during his lifetime Spillane lost one home to fire and another to Hurricane Hugo.

Frank Morrison Spillane was born in Brooklyn, New York on March 9, 1918. “Mickey,” as he is better known, was raised in Elizabeth, New Jersey where he attended Erasmus Hall High School, the place where he would cultivate his writing talents.

Spillane's earliest published writing was for comic books. Encouraged by his friends Joe and Ray Gill, in 1940 Spillane began writing for Funnies, Inc., a comic packager that provided content for companies such as Timely Comics, which later became Marvel.

Spillane enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Corps on the day of the attack on Pearl Harbor, but remained stateside, becoming a fighter pilot and then flight instructor until the end of World War II.

Spillane began his literary career with I, the Jury, his first novel. He later said that he wrote the book to try and afford a summer house. While initial hardcover sales were disappointing, its paperback counterpart was a smash hit. Domestically, Spillane’s first effort sold over 6 million copies. While reprints and foreign editions make an exact count difficult, most conservative sales estimates of Spillane's career output top 200 million copies.

Spillane’s personal journey, as well as his folklore sometimes make it hard to separate his life from that of ‘Mike Hammer,’ the heroic protagonist in many of his novels. Spillane even appeared as Hammer in one of the film adaptations of his work, The Girl Hunters.

Embracing controversy as a selling point, the covers of Spillane’s hard-boiled crime fiction often contained scantily-clad women. Despite overwhelming success as an author, Spillane’s novels were often panned by critics for their violent content and mass appeal. Spillane reveled in such critical abuse, and the negative reviews would often be prominently featured in advertisements, next to the extraordinary sales numbers for the book.

In the 1970s and 1980s, Spillane was more in demand for his persona than his writing. He appeared in spisodes of Columbo, and was one of the lynch pins of the "Tastes Great, Less Filling" Miller Lite ad campaign that lasted for nearly 20 years.

Mickey Spillane died on July 17, 2006 in Murrells Inlet, South Carolina, his home for many years.

Conditions Governing Access

No known access restrictions. However, some items may be fragile and require that access copies be made after consultation with the archivist.

Conditions Governing Use

Copyright and other restrictions may apply to the materials in this collection. Researchers using this collection assume full responsibility for conforming to the laws of libel, privacy, and copyright, and are responsible for securing permissions necessary for publication or reproduction.