a Honey of a story

Cleavage was important when Honey West made her television debut in the 1960s.

Curvy, blond Anne Francis played the title role, based on the character in 11 books written by the husband-and-wife team of writers who published as G.G. Fickling -- her initials and their shared last name.

They were known in Laguna Beach as Glori and Skip Fickling. “Skip” was the childhood nickname he preferred to his given name, Forrest.

“This Girl for Hire,” first published in 1957, was the first in the series. To Glori Fickling’s delight, Overlook Press has now reprinted the book. A second reprint is due out in April.

“He was the writing genius; I was technical support,” she said.

She was a bit more than that. If Honey West was the role model prototype for the hip, independent female detectives who now reign in the genre, Fickling was the prototype for Honey West.

“In character, not in looks,” she hastens to add. “The ideal look in the 1950s was Marilyn Monroe.

“In fact, when we met, Skip was pursuing a blond bombshell.”

Fickling is petite and brunet, characteristic of her Italian and French heritage -- her maiden name was Gautreud -- as is her love of good food, on which she founded her career as a restaurant critic. She dropped the “a” from her first name when she began reviewing eateries.

“I guess it was a kind of ‘60s thing,” Fickling said.

Her fashion style is dramatic. Few can recall seeing her around town in less than full female battle dress or without makeup.

However, Fickling was wearing a striped, two-piece bathing suit when she literally backed into her first meeting with her husband-to-be.

“I got locked in my room at a hotel on Catalina and I was backing out of the window,” Fickling said. “When I turned around, he was sitting on the railing, watching me.”

That was the end of the blond.

“He was handsome, but I fell in love with his brain,” Fickling said.

The couple moved to Laguna Beach in 1950 and raised their three sons here.

Honey West was the ideal daughter the couple never had, described by Fickling as savvy, classy and cute, but with an edge.

“We had no say in the casting of Anne Francis for the television series, but we were delighted,” Fickling said.

If the series were cast today, or the book found its way onto the big screen, Meg Ryan, Kate Hudson or Lindsey Lohan might be candidates to star.

“Lohan is very young now, but by the time a screen play got written, she probably would be just right, and she’d have the longevity [for a franchise film series],” Fickling said.

The Honey West character has been optioned three times for feature films.

“But no one seems able to get a script written,” Fickling said.

Actually, Skip wrote two screenplays based on the books, which Fickling said the couple would have been -- and she still would be -- willing to sell.

Meantime, she is as pleased as the punch that Honey West could deliver that the books are being reprinted.

It’s like reliving some of the best times of her life, she said, recalling the thrill of selling the first manuscript after many rejections.

“Nobody wanted the book; we couldn’t even get an agent,” Fickling said. “They all said, ‘No one will buy a book about a female detective.’”

The couple went to New York, with just a month to shop the manuscript. It took the full 30 days.

“This Girl for Hire” was originally published by Pyramid Books in 1957. Aaron Spelling produced the Golden Globe-winning television series that featured the “stiletto feminist.”

Overlook, which began its series of classic mystery reprints with Kyril Bonfiglioli’s “Mordecai Trilogy,” describes the Honey West books as “darkly funny, innuendo-laden crime novels.”

The publisher touts “This Girl for Hire” as “the return of the nerviest, curviest P.I. in Los Angeles.”

According to the Library Journal, West is “the female answer to the Mike Hammer-type pulp detectives with a little James Bond thrown in. Campy fun.”

In the first reissue, Honey West finds herself playing strip poker with four murder suspects with “a deck as stacked as she is,” the publisher says. Her 38-22-36 figure gets a lot of play, but the sexy sleuth also packs a .32 and knows how to use it.

“Pour a martini, light up a Lucky, relax and enjoy,” advises Kirkus Reviews.

20051223irvjq1ncNo Caption20051223irvjpjncPHOTOS BY WENDI KAMINSKI / COASTLINE PILOT(LA)Author Glori Fickling signs a copy of “This Girl for Hire” for Butch Vallee, an owner of Crystal Image, which hosted the signing on Saturday afternoon. The 1957 crime novel about female detective Honey West has been republished by Overlook Press. 20051223irvg1wncPHOTOS BY WENDI KAMINSKI / COASTLINE PILOT(LA)Author Glori Fickling signs a copy of “This Girl for Hire” for Butch Vallee, an owner of Crystal Image, which hosted the signing on Saturday afternoon. The 1957 crime novel about female detective Honey West has been republished by Overlook Press.