Michael Shayne

Michael Shayne
Poster for Time to Kill starring Lloyd Nolan as Michael Shayne.
First appearance	Dividend on Death
Last appearance	Win Some, Lose Some
Created by	Brett Halliday
Portrayed by	Lloyd Nolan (film) Hugh Beaumont (film) Jeff Chandler (radio) Wally Maher (radio) Richard Denning (television)
Information
Gender	Male
Occupation	Private detective
Nationality	American

Michael Shayne
Denning as Shayne with guest star Pat Crowley.
Genre	Detective fiction
Starring	Richard Denning Herbert Rudley Jerry Paris Patricia Donahue Gary Clarke Margie Regan
Country of origin	United States
Original language(s)	English
No. of seasons	1
No. of episodes	32
Production
Producer(s)	Antony Ellis Joseph Hoffman
Running time	60 min
Production company(s)	Four Star Productions
Distributor	NBC
Release
Original network	NBC
Picture format	Black-and-white
Audio format	Monaural
Original release	September 30, 1960 (1960-09-30) – May 19, 1961 (1961-05-19)

Michael "Mike" Shayne is a fictional private detective character created during the late 1930s by writer Brett Halliday. The character appeared in a series of seven films starring Lloyd Nolan for Twentieth Century Fox, four films from the low-budget Producers Releasing Corporation with Hugh Beaumont, a radio series under a variety of titles between 1944 and 1953, and later in 1960–1961 in a 32-episode NBC television series starring Richard Denning in the title role.

Shayne debuted in the novel Dividend on Death first published in 1939, written by Halliday, a pseudonym of Davis Dresser. Dresser wrote fifty Shayne novels. Twenty seven more were written by a variety of ghost-writers for a total of 77; 300 short stories, a dozen films, radio and television shows, and a few comic book appearances have included the character.

The books were typically very well plotted, with Shayne always gathering the suspects at the end and explaining the crime and naming the murderer. Shayne was initially married in the novels, his wife being Phyllis Shayne, who was a somewhat limited character, and was often out of town. Dresser "killed her off" when he sold the movie rights to the series. In the book Blood on the Black Market, the comedy aspect of the earlier novels disappears, and Shayne is forced to deal with his wife's death. A recurring character in the stories was reporter Tim Rourke.

Halliday later created Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, first introduced in 1956 by Renown Publications under the title Michael Shayne Mystery Magazine. The magazine continued for nearly three decades, always having at least one Shayne novella included in each edition. Very few were written by Halliday. For several years the magazine was edited by Frank Belknap Long.