Editing Mickey Spillane (section)

==Early life==
Frank Morrison Spillane was born March 9, 1918, in [[Brooklyn, New York]], and primarily raised in [[Elizabeth, New Jersey]]. Spillane was the only child of his Irish bartender father, John Joseph Spillane, and his Scottish mother, Catherine Anne. During his late adolescence, his family returned to Brooklyn, where he graduated from [[Erasmus Hall High School]] in 1936.<ref>Boyer, David. [https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F04EED8143AF932A25750C0A9679C8B63 "Neighborhood Report: Flatbush: "Grads Hail Erasmus as It Enters a Fourth Century", ''The New York Times'', March 11, 2001.] Accessed December 1, 2007.</ref> He started writing while in high school, briefly attended [[Fort Hays State College]] in Kansas and worked a variety of jobs, including summers as a lifeguard at [[Breezy Point, Queens]], and a period as a trampoline artist for the [[Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus]].<ref name="Obit1">{{cite news |last1=Sutherland |first1=John |title=Mickey Spillane |url=https://www.theguardian.com/news/2006/jul/19/guardianobituaries.booksobituaries |access-date=17 December 2021 |work=The Guardian |date=19 July 2006}}</ref>
[[File:Lieutenant Frank Spillane, USAAF Instructor Pilot.jpg|thumb|Photo of Spillane from Greenwood Army Air Field yearbook for 1943]]
During [[World War II]], Spillane enlisted in the [[United States Army Air Forces|Army Air Corps]], becoming a fighter pilot and a flight instructor.<ref>Rippetoe, Rita Elizabeth ''Booze and the Private Eye: Alcohol in the Hard Boiled Novel''. McFarland, 2004.</ref>
He was first stationed at the air base in [[Greenwood, Mississippi]], where he met and married first wife Mary Ann Pearce in 1945.<ref name="J.2012">{{cite book|author=Debbie J.|title=Biography of Mickey Spillane|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ULV-BwAAQBAJ&pg=PT8|date=14 March 2012|publisher=Hyperink|isbn=978-1-61464-730-0|pages=8–}}</ref> He also met two younger writers, [[Earle Basinsky]] and [[Charlie Wells (writer)|Charlie Wells]], who would become his protégés; each published two hardboiled-noir novels in the Spillane style in the early 1950s.<ref name="CollinsTraylor2012">{{cite book|author1=Max Allan Collins|author2=James L. Traylor|title=Mickey Spillane on Screen: A Complete Study of the Television and Film Adaptations|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sc1HDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA9|date=30 April 2012|publisher=McFarland|isbn=978-0-7864-6578-1|pages=9–}}</ref><ref name ="OleMissMystery">{{cite web | title = Earle Basinsky & Charlie Wells | url = http://hermes.lib.olemiss.edu/mystery/exhibit.asp?display=10&section=2 | website = Murder with Southern Hospitality: An Exhibition of Mississippi Mysteries | access-date = 9 February 2020 | archive-date = 9 June 2010 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20100609200241/http://hermes.lib.olemiss.edu/mystery/exhibit.asp?display=10 | url-status = dead }}</ref>