While interviewing Mickey Spillane for a story one day, Vanity Fair's Cliff Rothman mentioned that he planned to interview Spillane's ex-wife, Sherri, in Los Angeles. After attempting to dissuade him, Spillane finally relented, insisting that he harbored no ill will toward the woman who called him "an alcoholic, a sexual pervert and a liar" during their divorce proceedings (and later unsuccessfully sued him for part of the profits from the Mike Hammer series). "She should live to be a hundred," he said. "But right away!"