Reportedly needed quick cash to buy some land for a house in
1946, so he wrote the detective novel "I, The Jury" in less than a month.
Although he had been a professional writer for magazines, "I, The Jury" was
his first novel. It sold over three million copies and made him a
celebrity due to his frank combination of sex and violence. He went on
to write several more novels with his main character from "I, The
Jury", hard-living private eye Mike Hammer. Several actors have played
Hammer over the years in the movies and on television. Spillane even
portrayed Hammer himself in
The Girl Hunters (1963) and parodied his own image in some
funny Miller Lite beer commercials in the 1970s.
