Honey West

Honey West ran for thirty episodes, from September 17, 1965 to April 8, 1966. The series, which starred Anne Francis, was historic in that it marked the first time a woman played the lead character in a network TV series with her character’s name as the title.

Honey West was one of the first female private eyes to appear on television. Anne Francis initially played her in a second-season episode of Burke’s Law, “Who Killed the Jackpot?”, broadcast on April 21, 1965. That appearance led to Honey West being commissioned as a spin-off.

Honey West was created by Gloria and Forrest E. Fickling under the pseudonym G. G. Fickling. Forrest wrote the stories while Gloria developed Honey’s character. Initially, they envisioned a combination of Marilyn Monroe and Mike Hammer (that’s some ‘love child’).

Anne Francis (September 16, 1930 – January 2, 2011) was perfectly cast as Honey West. Her movie breakthrough arrived with Forbidden Planet (1956) one of the first colour, big-budget, science-fiction-themed motion pictures. In the 1960s she made the transition into television appearing in a large number of popular series. However, her signature role remained Honey West.

The thirty episodes of Honey West were written by various writers including Richard Levinson and William Link, creators of Columbo. They wrote three episodes, including the series finale. The main writers were husband and wife team Gwen Bagni and Paul Dubov who wrote ten episodes and co-developed the series.

Gwen Bagni and Paul Dubov wrote episode three, “The Abominable Snowman”. The plot centred on cocaine being smuggled inside snow globes, and is one of the earliest references in popular TV culture to cocaine as “snow”.

This comic book addition to the Honey West canon is a curiosity in that some of the scenes are sexually explicit taking the innuendo implied in the TV series, and certainly in the novels, to another level. The drawings vary in quality and Honey is based on Anne Francis. 

Honey West appeared in many formats, including a radio play, but I reckon the TV series was the best.