| Honey West | |
|---|---|
| First appearance | This Girl for Hire (1957) |
| Created by | G.G. Fickling |
| Portrayed by | Anne Francis |
| Information | |
| Gender | Female |
| Occupation | private detective |
Honey West is a fictional character created by Gloria and Forest Fickling under the pseudonym "G.G. Fickling", and appearing in eleven mystery novels by the duo.
The character is notable as being one of the first female private detectives in popular fiction. She first appeared in the 1957 book This Girl for Hire and would appear in 10 novels before being retired in the mid-60s with two comeback novels in 1971.[1]
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The Honey West character was created by Gloria and Forrest E. "Skip" Fickling under the pseudonym "G.G. Fickling" in the late 1950s. Skip had been a United States Army Air Forces Air Gunner during World War II, then enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve after the war where he was called back into active service during the Korean War.[2] The G.G. represented the initials of his wife, Gloria Gautraud, whom he married in 1949 with initials being used so the sex of the author would remain vague. Though Gloria said that most of the writing was done by Forrest, Forrest said Gloria's ideas were used to make a plausible female character with Gloria also providing Honey's dress sense; Gloria having been an assistant fashion editor at Look Magazine and a fashion writer for Women’s Wear Daily. Forrest told the Los Angeles Times "I first thought of Marilyn Monroe, and then I thought of [fictional detective] Mike Hammer and decided to put the two together... We thought the most used name for someone you really like is Honey. And she lives in the West, so there was her name."[3]
The character was also the basis for a short-lived ABC TV series in the 1965-66 television season starring Anne Francis and John Ericson. There were 30 episodes.
Gold Key Comics released a one-shot Honey West comic book in June 1966. In August 2010, Moonstone Books began a Honey West comic book series, written by Trina Robbins with art by Cynthia Martin[4] then Elaine Lee and Ronn Sutton.
At various times a proposed film with Reese Witherspoon as Honey West was mentioned, but never made.[5]