Name Jack Stang Died January 7, 1996 | Movies Ring of Fear | |
Jack Stang born John A. Stang (October 29, 1923 – January 7, 1996) was Mickey Spillane's inspiration for the private eye character Mike Hammer in his novels.
Biography
During World War II Stang was a U.S. Marine who served in the Pacific Theater on Samoa, Guadacanal and Bougainville. He was wounded in action, and was one of four men in his platoon to survive.
Following the war, Stang was a Newburgh, New York policeman where Spillane, then residing at Orange Lake in suburban Newburgh, met him in 1946.
After leaving the Newburgh Police, Stang operated a popular riverfront bar and grill at 4th and Front Street in Newburgh. After it was devastated by a fire, it reopened as a children's clothing store run by Fran Stang, Jack's mother. The old Newburgh riverfront neighborhood, four blocks wide and about a mile long, was demolished in the late 1960s as part of an 'Urban Renewal' program, and the bar property exists as of 2008 as part of a grassy slope and parking lot complex.