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 Instead of attempting to mix my own concoction of who Mike Shayne is and how
he came to be, I thought I'd let Brett Halliday speak for himself.
Below is Halliday's essay on Mike Shayne, which previously and first
appeared in Otto Penzler's The Great Detectives (Little, Brown, 1978).
I broke it up into 4 sections to make it easier to locate specific areas of
interest--Halliday's inspiration to create the character, how the Shayne
books came to be published, info on the films and the demise of Phyllis
Brighton, an overview of some of the recurring players in the series and
some background on the character.
Enjoy.
MICHAEL SHAYNE
By
Brett Halliday
I FIRST SAW the man I have named Michael Shayne in Tampico, Mexico,
many, many years ago. I was a mere lad working on a coast-wise oil tanker
as a deckhand when we tied up at Tampico to take on a load of crude oil.
After supper, a small group of sailors went ashore to see the sights of a
foreign port. I was among that group.
We didn't get very far from the ship, turning in at the first
cantina we came to. We were all lined up at the bar sampling their tequila
when I noticed a redheaded American seated alone at a small table
overlooking the crowded room, with a bottle of cognac, a small shot glass,
and a larger glass of ice water on the table in front of him.  He was tall
and rangy and had craggy features with bleak gray eyes which surveyed the
scene with a sort of quizzical amusement. He appeared to be in his early
twenties, and while I watched him, he lifted the shot glass to his mouth and
took a small sip of cognac, washing it down with a swallow of ice water.
I don't know what caused me to observe him so closely. Perhaps
there was a quality of aloneness about him in hat crowded cantina. He was
part of the scene, but apart from it. There was a Mexican playing an
accordion in the middle of the room and several couples dancing. There were
other gaily dressed senoritas seated about on the sidelines and some of the
sailors went to them to request a dance.
I don't know what started the fracas. Possibly one of the sailors
asked the wrong girl for a dance. Suddenly there was a melee which quickly
spread to encompass the small room. There were curses and shouts and the
glitter of exposed knives. We were badly outnumbered and getting much the
worst of the fight when suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I saw the
redheaded American shove the table away from him and get into the fight with
big fists swinging.
Each time he struck, a Mexican went down--and generally stayed down.
I was struck over the head by a beer bottle and was trampled on by the
fighting men. I must have lost consciousness for a moment because I was
abruptly aware that the fight had subsided and I was lying in the middle of
a tangle of bodies with blood streaming down my face from a broken head.
Then I was dragged out of the tangle and set on my feet by the American
redhead. He gave me a shove through the swinging doors and I stumbled and
went down, to be picked up by my comrades who were streaming out the door
behind me.
We got away from there fast, back to the ship where we patched up
broken heads and minor knife cuts.
We went to sea the next morning and none of us knew what had
happened to the redhead after we left the cantina.
I didn't see him again until many years later in New Orleans. I
had quit the sea as a means of livelihood and was barely eking out a
precarious living by writing circulating library novels.
I stopped by at a smoke-filled bar in the French Quarter for a drink
and I glanced back over the rest of the room as I ordered a drink at the
bar.
There I saw him! Sitting alone at a booth halfway down the room
with a shot glass and a larger drink of ice water before him.
There could be no question that it was he. Several years older and
with broader shoulders than I remembered, but with the same look of
aloneness in his bleak gray eyes.
I paid for my drink and carried it back to his booth with me. He
looked puzzled when I slid into the booth opposite him, and I quickly
reminded him of the fight on the Tampico waterfront and told him I was the
sailor whom he had dragged out of the fight and shoved outdoors.
A wide grin came over his face and he started to say something when
a sudden chill came into his features. He was looking past me at the front
door and I turned my head to see what he was seeing.
Two men had entered the bar and were making their way toward us. He
tossed off his cognac and slid out of the booth as they stopped beside us.
He said harshly to me, "Stay here," and started down the aisle with one
burly man leading the way and the other following close behind. Thus they
disappeared in the French Quarter, and I've never seen him again.
But I have never forgotten him.
This portion of the essay sheds insight on how the Shayne series came to be
published:
Years later, when I decided to try my hand at a mystery novel, there
was never any question as to whom my hero would be. I gave him the name of
Michael Shayne because it seemed to fit somehow. And wrote Dividend on
Death, and began sending it out to publishers and getting it back with a
rejection slip.
All in all, it was rejected by 22 publishers before I gave up on it
and laid it aside on a shelf.
In the meantime, I had written another mystery novel under the
pseudonym of Asa Baker. It was titled Mum's the Word for Murder, and was
written in the first person, laid in El Paso. It was rejected by only
seventeen publishers before Frederick Stokes brought it out.
Then came one of those coincidences that do occur in real life.
Soon after Mum's the Word for Murder was published, I was visited by a
salesman from Stokes who had my book in stock. He was accompanied to
Denver, where I was then living, by a salesman from Henry Holt and Company
(one of the few publishers who hadn't had the opportunity to reject Dividend
on Death). I invited the two of them out to my home for dinner that night,
and during the course of a mildly alcoholic evening, I was congratulated by
both of them on Mum's the Word for Murder.
I thanked them but told them I had a much better mystery written and
laid away after 22 rejections. The Holt salesman told me that Henry Holt
was just starting a new mystery line, and suggested that I send Dividend on
Death to them. I did so, and Bill Sloane (then editor at Henry Holt) liked
it and sent me a contract.
Thus, Michael Shayne was finally launched.
I had not thought of it as the first of a series when I wrote it,
but Bill Sloane wrote and asked me for a second book using the same set of
characters, and I did The Private Practice of Michael Shayne.
In this portion of the essay, Halliday details why Phyllis Brighton was
killed off and talks about the series of Shayne films by 20th Century Fox:
The first book had been the story of Phyllis Brighton, a very young
and very lovely girl who was accused of murdering her mother. She fell in
love with Shayne during the course of the book and tried to make love to him
as it ended. Shayne was many years older than she, and he patted her
paternally on the shoulder and advised her to come back after she had grown
up.
I used her as a subsidiary character in the second book and they
were engaged to be married as the book ended.
20th Century Fox bought The Private Practice of Michael Shayne as a
movie to star Lloyd Nolan and gave me a contract for a series of movies
starring Nolan as Shayne. For this they paid me a certain fee for each
picture starring Shayne, promising me an additional sum for each book of
mine used in the series.
But they didn't use any of my stories in the movies. Instead, they
went out and bought books from my competitors, changing the name of the lead
character to Michael Shayne. I was surprised and chagrined by this because
I thought my books were as good or better than the ones they bought from
others, and I was losing a substantial sum of money each time they made a
picture.
I finally inquired as to the reason from Hollywood and was told it
was because Shayne and Phyllis were married and it was against their policy
to use a married detective.
Faced with this fact of life, I decided to kill off Phyllis to leave
Shayne a free man for succeeding movies. This I did between Murder Wears a
Mummer's Mask and Blood on the Black Market (later reprinted in soft cover as Heads You Lose).
I had her die in childbirth between the two books, but alas! Fox
decided to drop the series of movies before Blood on the Black Market was
published, and the death of Phyllis had been in vain. I have hundreds of
fan letters asking what became of Phyllis, and now the unsavory truth is
told.
With the movies no longer a factor, in my next book, Michael
Shayne's Long Chance, I took Shayne on a case to New Orleans where he met
Lucile Hamilton and she took the place of Phyllis as a female companion. I
brought her back to Miami with Shayne as his secretary, and in that position
she has remained since.
I don't know exactly what the situation is between Shayne and Lucy
Hamilton. They are good comrades and she works with him on most of his
cases, but I don't think Shayne will ever marry again. He often takes Lucy
out to dinner, and stops by her apartment for a drink and to talk, and she
always keeps a bottle of his special cognac on tap.
This last section of the essay gives some background on the main characters
in Shayne's world and on Shayne himself:
[Shayne] has only one real friend in Miami: Timothy Rourke, crime
reporter on one of the Miami papers. Rourke is tall, lean and slightly
disheveled appearing, a boon drinking companion for Shayne. He accompanies
Shayne on most cases, hoping to get an exclusive story after the case has
ended.
Shayne is also on good terms with Will Gentry, Miami's Chief of
Police. Gentry likes and admires Shayne and is inclined to look the other
way when Shayne oversteps the strict letter of the law in solving a case.
On the other hand, Shayne's sworn enemy is Peter Painter, chief of
detectives of Miami Beach, across Biscayne Bay from Miami.  They have had
numerous clashes when a case takes Shayne into Painter's territory, from
which Painter always emerges second best.
I know nothing whatever about Shayne's background. As far as I'm
concerned, he came into being in Tampico, Mexico, some forty years ago. I
don't know where or when he was born, what sort of childhood and upbringing
he had. It is my impression that he is not a college man, although he is
well educated, has a good vocabulary and is articulate on a variety of
subjects.
He has no special or esoteric knowledge to help him solve his cases.
A reader can identify with him because he is an ordinary guy like the reader
himself. He solves cases by using plain common sense and a lot of
perseverance and absolute fearlessness.
When confronted with a problem, he assess it from a practical
viewpoint, following out each lead doggedly until coming up against a stone
wall, then dropping that lead and following up the next one until it peters
out.
He carries a gun seldom, trusting to his fists to get him out of any
trouble he gets into. As a result, he has taken some bad beatings as he
goes along thrusting himself into danger.
In several of my books, I have mentioned that Shayne was an
operative for a large detective agency before setting up in Miami on his
own, and as a result, he has friends in different cities throughout the
country on whom he can call for information or help if a case requires it.
He is well known and trusted by the criminal elements in Miami, who
respect his closemouthed integrity and are willing to pass on information
not available to the police.
He depends on no special gadgets or devices such as James Bond uses,
depending on his fists and an occasional handgun to carry him through.
On all of his cases, I try to give the reader exactly the same facts
and information as Shayne possesses at any one time.
That just about sums up Michael Shayne as he has been depicted in
sixty-odd books.
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