Parker (fictional criminal)
Encyclopedia
Parker is a fictional character created by Donald E. Westlake
. He is the main protagonist of 24 of the 28 novels Westlake wrote under the pseudonym Richard Stark.
to get what he wants. His first name is never mentioned in the novels, and there are many details about him which remain unknown.
in 1992, and as Payback in 1999), in which he chases his ex-partners and his ex-wife, who have betrayed him in a heist and left him for dead. He survives, but is arrested by the police. Slowly and methodically, Parker kills his betrayers one by one. When the mob protects one of them, Parker takes on the mob.
In subsequent novels, Parker is often at work, putting together a team of professionals to plan and execute a series of daring heists. Parker's numerous memorable adventures including robbing an entire town in The Score, a football
stadium in The Seventh, an island casino in The Handle, an Air Force base in The Green Eagle Score, and a rock concert in Deadly Edge. Always perfectly blueprinted heists, Parker's plans tend to go awry in the execution ... sometimes due to bad luck, more often due to greed or incompetence on the part of Parker's less-experienced partners. The tension in the novels often comes from Parker having to work his way out of increasingly dangerous situations on the fly, as his carefully planned heist collapses around him—all while he tries to keep hold of both the money he stole, and his life.
Throughout the course of the series, Parker has operated under a number of pseudonyms, and it is implied that the name Parker itself is an alias. In the first novel in the series, Parker is arrested for vagrancy and is imprisoned in a work camp under the name Ronald Kasper, a name that is linked to his real fingerprints. In the next five novels in the series, The Man With the Getaway Face
, The Outfit, The Mourner, The Score, and The Jugger, Parker lives comfortably in a Florida
hotel under the name Charles Willis between jobs, but is forced to abandon this identity (and the money that goes with it) when police show up at his hotel at the end of The Jugger.
In the novel The Rare Coin Score, Parker meets Claire Carroll, the woman who will become his girlfriend for the rest of the series. They live together somewhere in northern New Jersey in a lake house owned under the name Claire Willis (she took this surname from Parker's past). In the novel Backflash, their home is described as "a house on a lake called Colliver Pond, seventy miles from New York
, a deep rural corner where New York
and New Jersey
and Pennsylvania
meet ... mostly a resort community, lower-level white-collar
, people who came here three months every summer and left their 'cottages' unoccupied the rest of the year ... For Parker, it was ideal. A place to stay, to lie low when nothing was going on, a 'home' as people called it, and no neighbors. In the summer, when the clerks came out to swim and fish and boat, Parker and Claire went somewhere else."
No mention is ever made of Parker's family. While the events of previous novels are frequently referred to throughout the series, very little that happened in Parker's life before his appearance in The Hunter is ever discussed. A brief mention is made in The Hunter of Parker first having used a gun in Germany
(implying that he served in World War II
), which is then confirmed in The Outfit, where its stated that he had been in the Army from 1942 to 1944 and had been given a BCD for blackmarketeering. (Note that if Parker was 38 in 1966, as per The Handle, he would have joined the army at the age of 14!)
The closest Westlake has ever come to alluding to Parker's childhood is in the novel Butcher's Moon, when Parker surveys the fictional city of Tyler and thinks to himself that it is a very different place from where he grew up. As well, in The Sour Lemon Score, it's mentioned that Parker was "born and raised in cities", but no further details are offered. In The Outfit Parker does state he had already been a thief for 18 years, and refers to a heist he committed in 1949.
In Luc Sante
's essay The Gentrification of Crime, which appeared in the March 28, 1985 issue of The New York Review of Books, he offered the following analysis of the character:
In a similar tone, Irish
author Ian Sansom
, in The Guardian
(March 3, 2007), wrote of Parker as
Physically, Parker is described in the opening paragraphs of The Hunter as "big and shaggy, with flat square shoulders... His hands, swinging curve-fingered at his sides, looked like they were molded of brown clay by a sculptor who thought big and liked veins. His hair was brown and dry and dead, blowing around his head like a poor toupee about to fly loose. His face was a chipped chunk of concrete, with eyes of flawed onyx. His mouth was a quick stroke, bloodless." When asked about who he would cast as Parker, Westlake stated: "Usually I don’t put an actor’s face to the character, though with Parker, in the early days, I did think he probably looked something like Jack Palance
. That may be partly because you knew Palance wasn’t faking it, and Parker wasn’t faking it either. Never once have I caught him winking at the reader."
, who is Parker seen through a comic mirror. The third Dortmunder novel, Jimmy the Kid (1974), features a plot in which Dortmunder and his associates base a kidnapping on a plan from a (fictitious) Parker novel called Child Heist. Good Behavior (1985) was originally intended as the seventeenth Parker novel following Butcher's Moon (1974), but, like The Hot Rock, was rewritten for Dortmunder. Good Behavior bore the dedication "To P., 1962-1974" -- the dates the original Parker novels were published.
The Parker novel Plunder Squad (1972) contains a brief encounter with a San Francisco detective named Kearney, who is not looking for Parker but for one of his associates. The same encounter is described from Kearney's point of view in the Joe Gores
DKA novel Dead Skip (1972).
Westlake and Gores repeated the same trick in 1990 with matching sequences in the DKA novel 32 Cadillacs and the Dortmunder novel Drowned Hopes.
(as Walker in Point Blank), Anna Karina
(as Paula Nelson in Made in U.S.A.), Jim Brown
(as McClain in The Split
), Robert Duvall
(as Earl Macklin in The Outfit
), Peter Coyote
(as Stone in Slayground), and Mel Gibson
(as Porter in Payback).
has paid homage to Westlake and his Parker character with three hard-boiled action novels featuring the character of Joe Kurtz, a past and current private investigator who spent time in Attica
prison. The first novel, Hardcase
, contains a dedication to Richard Stark/Donald Westlake from Simmons. In the third Kurtz novel, Hard as Nails
, Kurtz mentions that he did not know his father, but that he was a career criminal thief who went by a single name and would have sex with women after a job, a clear connection to Parker.
Max Allan Collins
authored a series of novels with a protagonist named "Nolan" who was an homage to Westlake's Parker. Collins said of the character: "[T]he concept was to take a Parker-like character who has reached the ancient age of 48 and wants badly to retire, and of course needs one last heist to do so."
The television series Leverage
features a character named "Parker". As played by Beth Riesgraf
, Parker is an expert thief, cat-burglar, pickpocket and safe-cracker. Like Stark's Parker, this character is also only known by the single name "Parker".
Also appears in:
Donald E. Westlake
Donald Edwin Westlake was an American writer, with over a hundred novels and non-fiction books to his credit. He specialized in crime fiction, especially comic capers, with an occasional foray into science fiction or other genres...
. He is the main protagonist of 24 of the 28 novels Westlake wrote under the pseudonym Richard Stark.
Character overview
A ruthless career criminal, Parker has almost no traditional redeeming qualities, aside from efficiency and professionalism. Parker is cold, methodical, and perfectly willing to commit murderMurder
Murder is the unlawful killing, with malice aforethought, of another human being, and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide...
to get what he wants. His first name is never mentioned in the novels, and there are many details about him which remain unknown.
The series
The first novel in Parker's series is The Hunter (adapted three times, as Point Blank in 1967, as Full ContactFull Contact
Full Contact is a 1992 Hong Kong action film produced and directed by Ringo Lam. The film stars Chow Yun-fat, Simon Yam, Anthony Wong, and Ann Bridgewater. It was based upon Donald Westlake's novel The Hunter, with Chow Yun-Fat's character, Gou Fei, analogous to the novel's main character,...
in 1992, and as Payback in 1999), in which he chases his ex-partners and his ex-wife, who have betrayed him in a heist and left him for dead. He survives, but is arrested by the police. Slowly and methodically, Parker kills his betrayers one by one. When the mob protects one of them, Parker takes on the mob.
In subsequent novels, Parker is often at work, putting together a team of professionals to plan and execute a series of daring heists. Parker's numerous memorable adventures including robbing an entire town in The Score, a football
American football
American football is a sport played between two teams of eleven with the objective of scoring points by advancing the ball into the opposing team's end zone. Known in the United States simply as football, it may also be referred to informally as gridiron football. The ball can be advanced by...
stadium in The Seventh, an island casino in The Handle, an Air Force base in The Green Eagle Score, and a rock concert in Deadly Edge. Always perfectly blueprinted heists, Parker's plans tend to go awry in the execution ... sometimes due to bad luck, more often due to greed or incompetence on the part of Parker's less-experienced partners. The tension in the novels often comes from Parker having to work his way out of increasingly dangerous situations on the fly, as his carefully planned heist collapses around him—all while he tries to keep hold of both the money he stole, and his life.
Throughout the course of the series, Parker has operated under a number of pseudonyms, and it is implied that the name Parker itself is an alias. In the first novel in the series, Parker is arrested for vagrancy and is imprisoned in a work camp under the name Ronald Kasper, a name that is linked to his real fingerprints. In the next five novels in the series, The Man With the Getaway Face
The Man With the Getaway Face
The Man with the Getaway Face is a crime thriller novel, written by Donald E. Westlake under the pseudonym Richard Stark. It was also published under the title The Steel Hit....
, The Outfit, The Mourner, The Score, and The Jugger, Parker lives comfortably in a Florida
Florida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...
hotel under the name Charles Willis between jobs, but is forced to abandon this identity (and the money that goes with it) when police show up at his hotel at the end of The Jugger.
In the novel The Rare Coin Score, Parker meets Claire Carroll, the woman who will become his girlfriend for the rest of the series. They live together somewhere in northern New Jersey in a lake house owned under the name Claire Willis (she took this surname from Parker's past). In the novel Backflash, their home is described as "a house on a lake called Colliver Pond, seventy miles from New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, a deep rural corner where New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
and New Jersey
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...
and Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...
meet ... mostly a resort community, lower-level white-collar
White-collar worker
The term white-collar worker refers to a person who performs professional, managerial, or administrative work, in contrast with a blue-collar worker, whose job requires manual labor...
, people who came here three months every summer and left their 'cottages' unoccupied the rest of the year ... For Parker, it was ideal. A place to stay, to lie low when nothing was going on, a 'home' as people called it, and no neighbors. In the summer, when the clerks came out to swim and fish and boat, Parker and Claire went somewhere else."
Background and character
While in 1966's The Handle Parker's age is explicitly stated to be 38, Parker is, essentially, an ageless character -- in the various Parker novels that were written and take place over a span of 45 years, Parker always appears to be somewhere around 40.No mention is ever made of Parker's family. While the events of previous novels are frequently referred to throughout the series, very little that happened in Parker's life before his appearance in The Hunter is ever discussed. A brief mention is made in The Hunter of Parker first having used a gun in Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
(implying that he served in World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
), which is then confirmed in The Outfit, where its stated that he had been in the Army from 1942 to 1944 and had been given a BCD for blackmarketeering. (Note that if Parker was 38 in 1966, as per The Handle, he would have joined the army at the age of 14!)
The closest Westlake has ever come to alluding to Parker's childhood is in the novel Butcher's Moon, when Parker surveys the fictional city of Tyler and thinks to himself that it is a very different place from where he grew up. As well, in The Sour Lemon Score, it's mentioned that Parker was "born and raised in cities", but no further details are offered. In The Outfit Parker does state he had already been a thief for 18 years, and refers to a heist he committed in 1949.
In Luc Sante
Luc Sante
-Early life:Born in Verviers, Belgium, Sante emigrated to the United States in the early 1960s. He attended school in New York City, first at Regis High School in Manhattan and then at Columbia University.-Writing:...
's essay The Gentrification of Crime, which appeared in the March 28, 1985 issue of The New York Review of Books, he offered the following analysis of the character:
In Parker's world there is no good or evilEvilEvil is the violation of, or intent to violate, some moral code. Evil is usually seen as the dualistic opposite of good. Definitions of evil vary along with analysis of its root motive causes, however general actions commonly considered evil include: conscious and deliberate wrongdoing,...
, but simply different styles of crime. There is no law, so Parker cannot be caught, but merely injured or delayed. The subversive implication is not that crime pays, but that all business is crime. Among the HomerHomerIn the Western classical tradition Homer , is the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, and is revered as the greatest ancient Greek epic poet. These epics lie at the beginning of the Western canon of literature, and have had an enormous influence on the history of literature.When he lived is...
ic epithets that follow Parker from book to book is: 'He had to be a businessman of some kind. The way he looked, big and square and hard, it had to be a tough and competitive business; used cars maybe, or jukeboxes.' He is a loner, competing with conglomeratesConglomerate (company)A conglomerate is a combination of two or more corporations engaged in entirely different businesses that fall under one corporate structure , usually involving a parent company and several subsidiaries. Often, a conglomerate is a multi-industry company...
(the syndicate) and fending off marginal elements (psychoticsPsychosisPsychosis means abnormal condition of the mind, and is a generic psychiatric term for a mental state often described as involving a "loss of contact with reality"...
, amateurs). He has no interest in society except as a given, like the weather, and none in power. He is a freebooter who acquires money in order to buy himself periods of vegetative quiet.
In a similar tone, Irish
Irish people
The Irish people are an ethnic group who originate in Ireland, an island in northwestern Europe. Ireland has been populated for around 9,000 years , with the Irish people's earliest ancestors recorded having legends of being descended from groups such as the Nemedians, Fomorians, Fir Bolg, Tuatha...
author Ian Sansom
Ian Sansom
Ian Sansom is the author of the popular Mobile Library Mystery Series.Born 4 December 1966 in England, he is a frequent contributor and critic for The Guardian and the London Review of Books....
, in The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
(March 3, 2007), wrote of Parker as
...always restless, always on the move; forever hunted, forever hunting, crisscrossing the country following the mighty dollar, trying to make his way in the only way he knows how: through scheming, cheating, and the exercise of brute force. But Parker is by no means merely evilEvilEvil is the violation of, or intent to violate, some moral code. Evil is usually seen as the dualistic opposite of good. Definitions of evil vary along with analysis of its root motive causes, however general actions commonly considered evil include: conscious and deliberate wrongdoing,...
, merciless or insane; the brilliance of the books lies in their blurring of the distinction between madness and sanitySanitySanity refers to the soundness, rationality and healthiness of the human mind, as opposed to insanity. A person is sane if they are rational...
, justice and mercy. Parker is not so much sick as blank, with the deep blankness of... humanityHuman conditionThe human condition encompasses the experiences of being human in a social, cultural, and personal context. It can be described as the irreducible part of humanity that is inherent and not connected to gender, race, class, etc. — a search for purpose, sense of curiosity, the inevitability of...
stripped to its essentials... [he is] callous, unable to feel guilt for his actions, completely lacking in empathyEmpathyEmpathy is the capacity to recognize and, to some extent, share feelings that are being experienced by another sapient or semi-sapient being. Someone may need to have a certain amount of empathy before they are able to feel compassion. The English word was coined in 1909 by E.B...
and incapable of learning from his own bitter experience... we admire and yearn for Parker's demented sense of purpose: he feels no embarrassment or shame... he is never afflicted or careworn; he is, in the way of all existential heroes and madmen, somehow stenchless, blameless and utterly free.
Physically, Parker is described in the opening paragraphs of The Hunter as "big and shaggy, with flat square shoulders... His hands, swinging curve-fingered at his sides, looked like they were molded of brown clay by a sculptor who thought big and liked veins. His hair was brown and dry and dead, blowing around his head like a poor toupee about to fly loose. His face was a chipped chunk of concrete, with eyes of flawed onyx. His mouth was a quick stroke, bloodless." When asked about who he would cast as Parker, Westlake stated: "Usually I don’t put an actor’s face to the character, though with Parker, in the early days, I did think he probably looked something like Jack Palance
Jack Palance
Jack Palance , was an American actor. During half a century of film and television appearances, Palance was nominated for three Academy Awards, all as Best Actor in a Supporting Role, winning in 1991 for his role in City Slickers.-Early life:Palance, one of five children, was born Volodymyr...
. That may be partly because you knew Palance wasn’t faking it, and Parker wasn’t faking it either. Never once have I caught him winking at the reader."
Other recurring characters
- Claire: Parker gained a steady companion in Claire Carroll as of 1968's The Rare Coin Score. Claire is perfectly aware of what Parker does for a living, and has no qualms about it. However, she is not involved in any of his heists, and prefers to know as little specific information about Parker's illegal activities as practical—for both their sakes. Consequently, although Claire is a consistent presence in the later books, she is often an 'offstage' character.
- Joe Sheer and Handy McKay: People who want to contact Parker in a professional capacity cannot do so directly, but must arrange a meeting through a third party contact. For the first few books in the series, Parker's contact is retired felon Joe Sheer, who lives in Oklahoma. After the events of The Jugger, Parker's contact becomes Handy McKay. McKay is seen in a few early books as a compatriot of Parker. Having made enough money to retire on (and worried that he might be losing a step or two), Handy quits being an active criminal, and buys a diner in Presque Isle, MainePresque Isle, MainePresque Isle is the commercial center and largest city in the sparsely populated Aroostook County, Maine, United States. The population was 9,692 at the 2010 census...
. Working in Maine, he still acts as the contact for Parker and several other criminals.
- Alan Grofield: Parker sometimes associates with an actor named Alan GrofieldAlan GrofieldAlan Grofield is a fictional character created by Donald E. Westlake. He is the main protagonist of four of the 28 novels Westlake has written under the pseudonym Richard Stark, and a supporting character in an additional four...
, who moonlights as a criminal to finance his theatrical ventures. The wisecracking Grofield first appeared in The Score (1964), and made his last appearance in Butcher's Moon (1974). A ladies' man with a theatrical flair, Grofield also stars in four Stark-penned novels of his own: The Damsel (1967), The Dame (1969), The Blackbird (1969) and Lemons Never Lie (1971). Grofield differs significantly from Parker in that he can be friendly, chatty and gregarious in all types of company—but, similar to Parker, Grofield does not hesitate to use brutal violence (when necessary) in the furtherance of his goals.
- Note that The Stark novels The Blackbird (1969) and Slayground (1971) have near-identical first chapters, detailing a failed robbery involving Grofield and Parker. The Blackbird then follows Grofield's escape from the robbery scene, while Slayground follows Parker's.
- Ed and Brenda Mackey: A dependable husband and wife team Parker works with on several occasions.
Literary spinoffs and crossovers
The Westlake novel The Hot Rock (1970) was originally intended to feature Parker, but the plot, which involves a precious gem that is stolen, lost, stolen again, lost again, and so on seemed too comic a situation for the hard-boiled Parker, so Westlake rewrote the novel with a more bumbling and likable cast of characters, including John DortmunderJohn Dortmunder
John Archibald Dortmunder is a fictional character created by Donald E. Westlake, and who is the 'hero' of 14 novels and 11 short stories published between 1970 and 2009. He first appeared in the novel The Hot Rock, published in 1970....
, who is Parker seen through a comic mirror. The third Dortmunder novel, Jimmy the Kid (1974), features a plot in which Dortmunder and his associates base a kidnapping on a plan from a (fictitious) Parker novel called Child Heist. Good Behavior (1985) was originally intended as the seventeenth Parker novel following Butcher's Moon (1974), but, like The Hot Rock, was rewritten for Dortmunder. Good Behavior bore the dedication "To P., 1962-1974" -- the dates the original Parker novels were published.
The Parker novel Plunder Squad (1972) contains a brief encounter with a San Francisco detective named Kearney, who is not looking for Parker but for one of his associates. The same encounter is described from Kearney's point of view in the Joe Gores
Joe Gores
Joe Gores was an American mystery writer...
DKA novel Dead Skip (1972).
Westlake and Gores repeated the same trick in 1990 with matching sequences in the DKA novel 32 Cadillacs and the Dortmunder novel Drowned Hopes.
Fictional portrayals
Parker has been portrayed numerous times in films although never with the name "Parker." The following actors have portrayed the character: Lee MarvinLee Marvin
Lee Marvin was an American film actor. Known for his gravelly voice, white hair and 6' 2" stature, Marvin at first did supporting roles, mostly villains, soldiers and other hardboiled characters, but after winning an Academy Award for Best Actor for his dual roles in Cat Ballou , he landed more...
(as Walker in Point Blank), Anna Karina
Anna Karina
Anna Karina is a Danish film actress, director, and screenwriter who has spent most of her working life in France. Karina is known as a muse of the director, Jean-Luc Godard, one of the pioneers of the French New Wave...
(as Paula Nelson in Made in U.S.A.), Jim Brown
Jim Brown
James Nathaniel "Jim" Brown is an American former professional football player who has also made his mark as an actor. He is best known for his exceptional and record-setting nine-year career as a running back for the NFL Cleveland Browns from 1957 to 1965. In 2002, he was named by Sporting News...
(as McClain in The Split
The Split
The Split is a 1968 film directed by Gordon Flemyng and written by Robert Sabaroff based upon the novel by Donald E. Westlake.-Plot synopsis:...
), Robert Duvall
Robert Duvall
Robert Selden Duvall is an American actor and director. He has won an Academy Award, two Emmy Awards, four Golden Globe Awards and a BAFTA over the course of his career....
(as Earl Macklin in The Outfit
The Outfit (1973 film)
The Outfit is a 1973 film directed by John Flynn. It stars Robert Duvall, Karen Black, Joe Don Baker and Robert Ryan. The film is an adaptation of the book of the same name by Richard Stark and features a character modeled on Parker, who was introduced in The Hunter.- Plot :Released from prison In...
), Peter Coyote
Peter Coyote
Peter Coyote is an American actor, author, director, screenwriter and narrator of films, theatre, television and audio books. His voice work includes narrating the opening ceremony of the 2002 Winter Olympics and Apple's iPad campaign. He has also served as on-camera co-host of the 2000 Oscar...
(as Stone in Slayground), and Mel Gibson
Mel Gibson
Mel Colm-Cille Gerard Gibson, AO is an American actor, film director, producer and screenwriter. Born in Peekskill, New York, Gibson moved with his parents to Sydney, Australia when he was 12 years old and later studied acting at the Australian National Institute of Dramatic Art.After appearing in...
(as Porter in Payback).
Homages
Author Dan SimmonsDan Simmons
Dan Simmons is an American author most widely known for his Hugo Award-winning science fiction series, known as the Hyperion Cantos, and for his Locus-winning Ilium/Olympos cycle....
has paid homage to Westlake and his Parker character with three hard-boiled action novels featuring the character of Joe Kurtz, a past and current private investigator who spent time in Attica
Attica
Attica is a historical region of Greece, containing Athens, the current capital of Greece. The historical region is centered on the Attic peninsula, which projects into the Aegean Sea...
prison. The first novel, Hardcase
Hardcase (novel)
Hardcase is a 2001 novel by American writer Dan Simmons. It is the first of three hardboiled detective novels featuring the character of Joe Kurtz....
, contains a dedication to Richard Stark/Donald Westlake from Simmons. In the third Kurtz novel, Hard as Nails
Hard as Nails (novel)
Hard as Nails is a 2003 novel by American writer Dan Simmons. It is the third of three hardboiled detective novels featuring the character of Joe Kurtz....
, Kurtz mentions that he did not know his father, but that he was a career criminal thief who went by a single name and would have sex with women after a job, a clear connection to Parker.
Max Allan Collins
Max Allan Collins
Max Allan Collins is an American mystery writer. He has written novels, screenplays, comic books, comic strips, trading cards, short stories, movie novelizations and historical fiction. He wrote the graphic novel Road to Perdition , created the comic book private eye Ms...
authored a series of novels with a protagonist named "Nolan" who was an homage to Westlake's Parker. Collins said of the character: "[T]he concept was to take a Parker-like character who has reached the ancient age of 48 and wants badly to retire, and of course needs one last heist to do so."
The television series Leverage
Leverage (TV series)
Leverage is an American television drama series on TNT that premiered in December 2008. The series is produced by director/executive producer Dean Devlin's production company Electric Television...
features a character named "Parker". As played by Beth Riesgraf
Beth Riesgraf
Beth Jean Riesgraf is an American actress, best known for her portrayal of Parker in the TNT TV series Leverage.Originally from Belle Plaine, Minnesota - Riesgraf is the youngest of six girls...
, Parker is an expert thief, cat-burglar, pickpocket and safe-cracker. Like Stark's Parker, this character is also only known by the single name "Parker".
Novels by Richard Stark
- The Hunter (1962, aka Point Blank, Payback, University of Chicago PressUniversity of Chicago PressThe University of Chicago Press is the largest university press in the United States. It is operated by the University of Chicago and publishes a wide variety of academic titles, including The Chicago Manual of Style, dozens of academic journals, including Critical Inquiry, and a wide array of...
reprint 2008) ISBN 978-0-226-77099-4 - The Man With the Getaway FaceThe Man With the Getaway FaceThe Man with the Getaway Face is a crime thriller novel, written by Donald E. Westlake under the pseudonym Richard Stark. It was also published under the title The Steel Hit....
(1963, aka The Steel Hit, University Chicago Press reprint 2008) ISBN 978-0-226-77100-7 - The Outfit (1963, University of Chicago Press reprint 2008) ISBN 978-0-226-77101-4
- The Mourner (1963, University of Chicago Press reprint 2009) ISBN 978-0-226-77103-8
- The Score (1964, aka Killtown, University of Chicago Press reprint 2009) ISBN 978-0-226-77104-5
- The Jugger (1965, University of Chicago Press reprint 2009) ISBN 978-0-226-77102-1
- The Seventh (1966, aka The Split, University of Chicago Press reprint 2009) ISBN 978-0-226-77105-2
- The Handle (1966, aka Run Lethal, University of Chicago Press reprint 2009) ISBN 978-0-226-77106-9
- The Rare Coin Score (1967, University of Chicago Press reprint 2009) ISBN 978-0-226-77107-6
- The Green Eagle Score (1967, University of Chicago Press reprint 2010) ISBN 978-0-226-77108-3
- The Black Ice Score (1968, University of Chicago Press reprint 2010) ISBN 978-0-226-77109-0
- The Sour Lemon Score (1969, University of Chicago Press reprint 2010) ISBN 978-0-226-77110-6
- Deadly Edge (1971, University of Chicago Press reprint 2010) ISBN 0 7490 0087 2 and 978-0-226-77091-8
- Slayground (1971, University of Chicago Press reprint 2010) — First chapter shared with The Blackbird, a novel in Westlake's Alan GrofieldAlan GrofieldAlan Grofield is a fictional character created by Donald E. Westlake. He is the main protagonist of four of the 28 novels Westlake has written under the pseudonym Richard Stark, and a supporting character in an additional four...
series. ISBN 978-0-226-77092-5 - Plunder Squad (1972, University of Chicago Press reprint 2010) ISBN 978-0-226-77093-2
- Butcher's Moon (1974)
- Comeback (1997)
- Backflash (1998)
- Flashfire (2000)
- Firebreak (2001)
- Breakout (2002)
- Nobody Runs Forever (2004)
- Ask the Parrot (2006)
- Dirty Money (2008)
Also appears in:
- The Blackbird (1969) by Richard Stark — Parker appears only the first chapter of this novel starring Alan GrofieldAlan GrofieldAlan Grofield is a fictional character created by Donald E. Westlake. He is the main protagonist of four of the 28 novels Westlake has written under the pseudonym Richard Stark, and a supporting character in an additional four...
. - Dead Skip (1972) by Joe GoresJoe GoresJoe Gores was an American mystery writer...
— Parker appears briefly in a sequence that was also described (from a different viewpoint) in Plunder Squad (1972). - Jimmy The Kid (1974) by Donald E. Westlake — This novel in Westlake's John DortmunderJohn DortmunderJohn Archibald Dortmunder is a fictional character created by Donald E. Westlake, and who is the 'hero' of 14 novels and 11 short stories published between 1970 and 2009. He first appeared in the novel The Hot Rock, published in 1970....
series features the gang planning a caper based on a Parker novel they have. Chapters alternate between Parker committing a kidnapping (in the otherwise unavailable novel Child Heist) and the Dortmunder gang screwing it up as they try to imitate Parker. Only a few chapters of Child Heist are featured, and this particular Parker story is not complete on its own.
Films
- Made in USA (1966) was unofficially based on the novel The Jugger and directed by Jean-Luc GodardJean-Luc GodardJean-Luc Godard is a French-Swiss film director, screenwriter and film critic. He is often identified with the 1960s French film movement, French Nouvelle Vague, or "New Wave"....
. It starred Anna KarinaAnna KarinaAnna Karina is a Danish film actress, director, and screenwriter who has spent most of her working life in France. Karina is known as a muse of the director, Jean-Luc Godard, one of the pioneers of the French New Wave...
as a journalist investigating the disappearance of her boyfriend. Godard adapted the book without permission, so after litigation Westlake was given American and Canadian rights to the film. The film is also known for characters named after the writer David GoodisDavid GoodisDavid Loeb Goodis was an American noir fiction writer.Born to a respectable Jewish family in Philadelphia, Goodis had two younger brothers, but one died of meningitis at the age of three...
, director Don SiegelDon SiegelDonald Siegel was an influential American film director and producer. His name variously appeared in the credits of his films as both Don Siegel and Donald Siegel.-Early life:...
and actor Richard WidmarkRichard WidmarkRichard Weedt Widmark was an American film, stage and television actor.He was nominated for an Academy Award for his role as the villainous Tommy Udo in his debut film, Kiss of Death...
— people influential in the genre of film noirFilm noirFilm noir is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and sexual motivations. Hollywood's classic film noir period is generally regarded as extending from the early 1940s to the late 1950s...
. - Point Blank (1967, MGM) was based on the novel The Hunter. It was directed by John BoormanJohn BoormanJohn Boorman is a British filmmaker who is a long time resident of Ireland and is best known for his feature films such as Point Blank, Deliverance, Zardoz, Excalibur, The Emerald Forest, Hope and Glory, The General and The Tailor of Panama.-Early life:Boorman was born in Shepperton, Surrey,...
and starred Lee MarvinLee MarvinLee Marvin was an American film actor. Known for his gravelly voice, white hair and 6' 2" stature, Marvin at first did supporting roles, mostly villains, soldiers and other hardboiled characters, but after winning an Academy Award for Best Actor for his dual roles in Cat Ballou , he landed more...
as Walker, the Parker character. The film also starred Angie DickinsonAngie DickinsonAngie Dickinson is an American actress. She has appeared in more than fifty films, including Rio Bravo, Ocean's Eleven, Dressed to Kill and Pay It Forward, and starred on television as Sergeant Suzanne "Pepper" Anderson on the 1970s crime series Police Woman.-Early life:Dickinson, the second of...
, John VernonJohn VernonJohn Keith Vernon was a Canadian actor. He made a career in Hollywood after achieving initial television stardom in Canada.-Early life:...
, Carroll O'ConnorCarroll O'ConnorJohn Carroll O'Connor best known as Carroll O'Connor, was an American actor, producer and director whose television career spanned four decades...
and Keenan WynnKeenan WynnKeenan Wynn was an American character actor. His bristling mustache and expressive face were his stock in trade, and though he rarely had a lead role, he got prominent billing in most of his film and TV parts....
. - Mise à sac (1967) was a French filmCinema of FranceThe Cinema of France comprises the art of film and creative movies made within the nation of France or by French filmmakers abroad.France is the birthplace of cinema and was responsible for many of its early significant contributions. Several important cinematic movements, including the Nouvelle...
based on the novel The Score and directed by Alain CavalierAlain CavalierAlain Cavalier is a French film director. He was born in Vendôme, Loir-et-Cher and studied film at the Institut des hautes études cinématographiques. He won several awards, including the César Award for Best Film and César Award for Best Director for his film Thérèse in 1987...
. - The SplitThe SplitThe Split is a 1968 film directed by Gordon Flemyng and written by Robert Sabaroff based upon the novel by Donald E. Westlake.-Plot synopsis:...
(1968, MGM) was based on the novel The Seventh. It starred Jim BrownJim BrownJames Nathaniel "Jim" Brown is an American former professional football player who has also made his mark as an actor. He is best known for his exceptional and record-setting nine-year career as a running back for the NFL Cleveland Browns from 1957 to 1965. In 2002, he was named by Sporting News...
as McClain, the Parker character. It also starred Gene HackmanGene HackmanEugene Allen "Gene" Hackman is an American actor and novelist.Nominated for five Academy Awards, winning two, Hackman has also won three Golden Globes and two BAFTAs in a career that spanned five decades. He first came to fame in 1967 with his performance as Buck Barrow in Bonnie and Clyde...
, Julie HarrisJulie HarrisJulia Ann "Julie" Harris is an American stage, screen, and television actress. She has won five Tony Awards, three Emmy Awards and a Grammy Award, and was nominated for an Academy Award. In 1994, she was awarded the National Medal of Arts. She is a member of the American Theatre Hall of Fame...
, Diahann Carroll, Jack KlugmanJack KlugmanJacob Joachim "Jack" Klugman is an American stage, film and television actor known for his roles in sitcoms, movies, and television and on Broadway...
, Donald SutherlandDonald SutherlandDonald McNichol Sutherland, OC is a Canadian actor with a film career spanning nearly 50 years. Some of Sutherland's more notable movie roles included offbeat warriors in such war movies as The Dirty Dozen, , MASH , and Kelly's Heroes , as well as in such popular films as Klute, Invasion of the...
, Warren OatesWarren OatesWarren Mercer Oates was an American actor best known for his performances in several films directed by Sam Peckinpah including The Wild Bunch and Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia...
, James WhitmoreJames WhitmoreJames Allen Whitmore, Jr. was an American film and stage actor.-Early life:Born in White Plains, New York, to Florence Belle and James Allen Whitmore, Sr., a park commission official, Whitmore attended Amherst Central High School in Snyder, New York, before graduating from The Choate School in...
and Ernest BorgnineErnest BorgnineErnest Borgnine is an American actor of television and film. His career has spanned more than six decades. He was an unconventional lead in many films of the 1950s, including his Academy Award-winning turn in the 1955 film Marty...
. - The OutfitThe Outfit (1973 film)The Outfit is a 1973 film directed by John Flynn. It stars Robert Duvall, Karen Black, Joe Don Baker and Robert Ryan. The film is an adaptation of the book of the same name by Richard Stark and features a character modeled on Parker, who was introduced in The Hunter.- Plot :Released from prison In...
(1973, MGM) was based on the novel of the same name. It was directed by John FlynnJohn Flynn (director)John Flynn was an American film director and screenwriter known for making efficient, no-nonsense crime-thrillers The Outfit and Rolling Thunder....
and starred Robert DuvallRobert DuvallRobert Selden Duvall is an American actor and director. He has won an Academy Award, two Emmy Awards, four Golden Globe Awards and a BAFTA over the course of his career....
as Earl Macklin, the Parker character. It also starred Joe Don BakerJoe Don BakerJoe Don Baker is an American film actor, perhaps best known for his roles as a Mafia hitman in Charley Varrick, deputy sheriff Thomas Jefferson Geronimo III in Final Justice, real-life Tennessee Sheriff Buford Pusser in Walking Tall, brute force with a badge detective Mitchell in Mitchell, James...
, Karen BlackKaren BlackKaren Black is an American actress, screenwriter, singer, and songwriter. She is noted for appearing in such films as Easy Rider, Five Easy Pieces, The Great Gatsby, Rhinoceros, The Day of the Locust, Nashville, Airport 1975, and Alfred Hitchcock's final film, Family Plot...
and Robert RyanRobert RyanRobert Bushnell Ryan was an American actor who often played hardened cops and ruthless villains.-Early life and career:...
. - Slayground (1983) was based on the novel of the same name. It was directed by Terry Bradford and starred Peter CoyotePeter CoyotePeter Coyote is an American actor, author, director, screenwriter and narrator of films, theatre, television and audio books. His voice work includes narrating the opening ceremony of the 2002 Winter Olympics and Apple's iPad campaign. He has also served as on-camera co-host of the 2000 Oscar...
as Stone. - Payback (1999) was based on the novel The Hunter. Writer/director Brian HelgelandBrian HelgelandBrian Thomas Helgeland is an American screenwriter, film producer and director. He is most known for writing the screenplays for L.A...
abandoned the project after test screenings and new footage was written by Terry HayesTerry HayesTerry Hayes is an English screenwriter and producer born on the 8 October 1951. In 2001, he was nominated for the Bram Stoker Award for Best Screenplay for his work on From Hell...
and directed by John Myhre. The film starred Mel GibsonMel GibsonMel Colm-Cille Gerard Gibson, AO is an American actor, film director, producer and screenwriter. Born in Peekskill, New York, Gibson moved with his parents to Sydney, Australia when he was 12 years old and later studied acting at the Australian National Institute of Dramatic Art.After appearing in...
as Porter, the Parker character. It also featured Gregg HenryGregg HenryGregg Lee Henry is an American theatre, film and television character actor and rock, blues and country musician.-Biography:...
, Maria BelloMaria BelloMaria Elena Bello is an American actress and singer known for her appearances in the movies Coyote Ugly, The Jane Austen Book Club, Permanent Midnight, Thank You for Smoking, A History of Violence, Payback, and The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor. For television she is known for her role as Dr...
, David PaymerDavid PaymerDavid Paymer is an American actor and television director, seen in such films as Quiz Show, Searching for Bobby Fischer, City Slickers, Crazy People, State and Main, Payback, Get Shorty, Carpool, The American President, Ocean's Thirteen, and Drag Me to Hell...
, Deborah Kara UngerDeborah Kara UngerDeborah Kara Unger is a Canadian actress. She is known for her roles in the films Crash , The Game , The Hurricane , White Noise , Silent Hill and 88 Minutes...
, Kris KristoffersonKris KristoffersonKristoffer "Kris" Kristofferson is an American musician, actor, and writer. He is known for hits such as "Me and Bobby McGee", "For the Good Times", "Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down", and "Help Me Make It Through the Night"...
, Lucy LiuLucy LiuLucy Alexis Liu is an American actress and film producer. She became known for playing the role of the vicious and ill-mannered Ling Woo in the television series Ally McBeal , and has also appeared in several Hollywood films including Charlie's Angels, Chicago, Kill Bill, and Kung Fu Panda.-Early...
and an uncredited James CoburnJames CoburnJames Harrison Coburn III was an American film and television actor. Coburn appeared in nearly 70 films and made over 100 television appearances during his 45-year career, and played a wide range of roles and won an Academy Award for his supporting role as Glen Whitehouse in Affliction.A capable,...
. - Payback: Straight Up - The Director's Cut (2006) had a very small theatrical run and was released on DVDDVDA DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
in 2007. It is Helgeland's preferred cut of the film, sticking closer to the original novel, dispensing completely with Kristofferson's character and introducing a gang boss played by Sally KellermanSally KellermanSally Clare Kellerman is an American actress and singer known for her role as Major Margaret "Hot Lips" Houlihan in the film MASH , for which she was nominated for an Oscar for Best Actress in a Supporting Role.-Early life:...
, who is never seen, only heard (in an earlier cut, Angie DickinsonAngie DickinsonAngie Dickinson is an American actress. She has appeared in more than fifty films, including Rio Bravo, Ocean's Eleven, Dressed to Kill and Pay It Forward, and starred on television as Sergeant Suzanne "Pepper" Anderson on the 1970s crime series Police Woman.-Early life:Dickinson, the second of...
of Point Blank gave voice to the role). - ParkerParkerParker may refer to people with first name Parker or the surname Parker.-Place names in the United States:*Parker, Arizona*Parker, Colorado*Parker, Florida*Parker, Idaho*Parker, Kansas*Parker, Pennsylvania*Parker, South Carolina*Parker, South Dakota...
An upcoming adaptation of the character has been announced, it is set to star Jason Statham as the titular character and Michael Chiklis as the films main antagonist
Comics
- Darwyn CookeDarwyn CookeDarwyn Cooke is an Eisner Award-winning comic book writer, artist, cartoonist and animator, best known for his work on the comic books Catwoman, DC: The New Frontier, The Spirit and Richard Stark's Parker: The Hunter.-Career:...
wrote and illustrated a graphic novel based on The Hunter published by IDWIDW PublishingIDW Publishing, also known as Idea + Design Works, LLC and IDW, is an American publisher of comic books and comic strip collections. The company was founded in 1999 and has been awarded the title "Publisher of the Year Under 5% Market Share" for the years 2004, 2005 and 2006 by Diamond Comic...
in July 2009. The story is a faithful adaptation of the novel, retaining its 1962 setting. Cooke produced the work in consultation with Westlake (who died before he could see the final product). Westlake was reportedly impressed enough that gave his blessing for Cooke to use the name Parker for the central character—something he had not allowed with any film adaptation of the Parker novels. This was the first of four Parker novels that Cooke will adapt; the second is The Outfit, which was released in October 2010.