Buckles Blog: Sells-Floto undated back yard shots #4

Tuesday, July 18, 2006

Working men cutting up jackpots between shows.

Anonymous said...: One of today's obits for mystery writer Mickey Spillane, who has died aged 88, says that after serving in the US Army Airforce in WW II, Spillane did a RBBB trampoline act. He also worked for the FBI, got shot and stabbed, before entering best-seller status (starting 1947) with his novels.

It was all news to me, but does anyone have a picture of the versatile Mr. Spillane's act?

Lotliza; 18 July, 2006 12:49
Bob Cline said...: Living here in South Carolina, the papers report he was a circus performer being shot out of a cannon and appeared in the movie Ring of Fear with Clyde Beatty.(1954)
Bob; 18 July, 2006 14:26
Anonymous said...: I don't have a picture of this act. We do have an interview with him--might have been on 60 Minutes--in which he relates experiences on RING OF FEAR. He said they had script trouble, but John Wayne, who was a producer, didn't want to spend any more money, so he gave Spillane a Cadillac for assisting the writing. Spillane showed the car to the interviewer--I think it was Morley Safer.

In a separate interview Spillane said a highlight of his life was working with Clyde Beatty on this picture. Jane Beatty told me the Spillanes used to visit them at the Beatty home, in Ventura.; 18 July, 2006 15:03

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