Will the real Mickey Spillane please stand up?

Posted on Tuesday, July 13, 2010 at 06:13 AM

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The Los Angeles Times received many enquiries after mixing up Mickey Spillane, crime writer (pictured above) and his namesake, Mickey Spillane a mobster at the weekend.

Robert Spillane, an actor, son of the mobster, died after falling through a window on Manhattan's West Side.

Readers though that Robert Spillane,son of the gangster was really son of the writer as The Times never made it clear.

James Lincoln Warren of Los Angeles wrote, "Identifying author Mickey Spillane, the creator of Mike Hammer, as a notorious New York mobster is like calling James Joyce a famous Irish terrorist."

Mickey Spillane, who died in 1977, was an organized-crime boss who operated in New York’s Hell’s Kitchen in opposition to the Westies, a leading Irish mob. .

In "Paddy Whacked," a book by T.J. English on Irish American gangsters, there is a scene where the mobster Spillane, appears before a grand jury but refusing to talk, is asked if he has ties to the author Spillane:

"Finally," writes English, "the exasperated assistant D.A. asked: 'Well, can you tell me this: Are you related to the other Mickey Spillane? The famous writer?' After a momentary pause, Mickey leaned over to the microphone and said, 'No. But I'd be happy to change places with him at the moment.' "

Nice one.

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