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James Spencer Mills III (May 20, 1932 – December 4, 2011) was an American novelist, screenwriter and journalist.

Mills wrote two New York Times bestsellers, Report to the Commissioner, a novel, and The Underground Empire, a study of international narcotics trafficking. His books The Panic in Needle Park and Report to the Commissioner were later made into major motion pictures by 20th Century Fox and United Artists respectively. The credibility of The Underground Empire was challenged in a lengthy front-page article in the Los Angeles Times.

Life and career

Mills worked for UPI, Life magazine, and for three U.S. commercial television networks as a writer and consultant.

The 1971 film The Panic in Needle Park, starring Al Pacino in his second film appearance, was based on Mills' book of the same name about the heroin culture at Verdi Square and Sherman Square on New York City's Upper West Side near 72nd Street and Broadway. The screenplay was written by Joan Didion and John Gregory Dunne.

The Harvard Crimson review stated of Report to the Commissioner that: "James Mills has created just such an interloper: a story of deep suspense which moves on several planes of confrontation, ambition and human interaction. Slickly written, carefully strung together, Report to the Commissioner skirts the obvious and pivots on the unexpected; in the best tradition of detective stories The 1975 film version of Report to the Commissioner, featuring Richard Gere in his screen debut with a minor supporting role, was made after "the movie rights were snapped up by a motion picture industry starved for clever suspense stories."

On July 17, 1986, after the publication of The Underground Empire, Mills was invited to speak at a hearing of the United States House Committee on Foreign Affairs investigating the torture murder of Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agent Kiki Camarena.

On October 2, 1986, the Los Angeles Times published a 5,000-word investigation into The Underground Empire by David Cay Johnston, naming more than 40 sources, subjects, and witnesses who asserted that Mills had fabricated significant claims and misstated many facts. In a sidebar article on journalistic ethics, Mills acknowledged to the newspaper that he never verified many facts. Later, a criminal appeals lawyer who Mills accused of being involved in drug trafficking, Barry Tarlow, sued Mills and his publisher. While the amount paid to settle the case was sealed, Tarlow said in 1992 that he would use part of the settlement money to buy a beachfront Malibu home.

Mills died in Saint-Laurent-du-Var, France on December 4, 2011, at the age of 79.

Nonfiction books

• The Prosecutor. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1969. ISBN 0-374-23836-7
• On the Edge. Doubleday, 1975. ISBN 0-385-09853-7
• The Underground Empire: Where Crime and Governments Embrace. Doubleday, 1986. ISBN 0-385-17535-3

Fiction books

• The Panic in Needle Park. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1966. ISBN 0-374-22968-6
• Report to the Commissioner. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1972. ISBN 0-374-24940-7
• One Just Man. Simon and Schuster, 1974. ISBN 0-671-21837-9
• The Seventh Power. E. P. Dutton, 1976. ISBN 0-525-20050-9
• The Truth About Peter Harley. E. P. Dutton, 1979. ISBN 0-525-22393-2
• The Power. Warner Books, 1990. ISBN 0-446-513938
• Haywire. Warner Books, 1995. ISBN 978-0-446-51619-8
• The Hearing. Warner Books, 1998. ISBN 978-0-446-51958-8

Filmography

• The Panic in Needle Park
• Report to the Commissioner

References

1. Shepard, Richard F., "Strolling Up Broadway, The West Side's Spine", The New York Times, April 8, 1988
2. Greenspun, Roger (1971-07-14). "Screen: Schatzberg's 'The Panic in Needle Park'; Drug Addicts Trapped on Upper West Side Kitty Winn and Pacino Are Ill-Fated Lovers". The New York Times. Filmmuseum Berlin - Deutsche Kinemathek Archived 2012-02-20 at the Wayback Machine
3. ^ Decherd, Robert (1972-07-28). "Report to the Commissioner | News | The Harvard Crimson". Thecrimson.com. Retrieved 2013-11-25.
4. United States-Mexican cooperation in narcotics control efforts: Hearing before the Committee on Foreign Affairs, House of Representatives, Ninety-ninth Congress, second session, July 17, 1986. 1986.
5. "'Underground Empire' : Credibility of Drug Book Challenged - Los Angeles Times". Los Angeles Times. 2 October 1986.
6. "Publisher Calls Documentation Valid, Stands Behind Book on Drugs - Los Angeles Times". Los Angeles Times. 2 October 1986.
7. "Lawyer's Libel Suit Against Publisher, Writer Settled : Courts: Barry Tarlow said 1986 Doubleday book wrongly implicated him in several crimes. He terms payment to be made in the case 'substantial.' - Los Angeles Times". Los Angeles Times. 3 September 1992.
8. "M. James Spencer Mills". Décès en France. Retrieved 28 January 2024.
9. "James Spencer Mills III". Legacy. Retrieved 28 January 2024.

External links

• James Mills at IMDb

• 1932 births
• 2011 deaths
• American male screenwriters
• American male novelists
• 21st-century American novelists
• 20th-century American novelists
• 20th-century American male writers
• 21st-century American male writers