Friday the 13th

Hack wrote this spy thriller with high hopes of selling the movie rights, starting a franchise that would spring to the collective mind every time a Friday the 13th appeared on the calendar. When he learned that there was already a series of horror films based on that strategy, he made another of his many failed suicide attempts by jumping out a window but broke his fall by landing on the woman who would become his sixth wife. After they were divorced three months later, Hack said that he wished that he’d stuck with his original title of “Goldfinger.”