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. The second Dortmunder novel, Bank Shot has Dortmunder's new accomplice Herman X claim to have been involved in a robbery with Stan Devers, Mort Kobler (who appears in The Outfit) and George Cathcart (who briefly appears in the final Grofield novel, Lemons Never Lie). Dortmunder is familiar with Kobler and his friend Kelp knows Catchcart. Portrayals Parker has been portrayed numerous times in films. Westlake refused to allow productions to use the name unless a whole series of films were planned based on the novels. Substitute names were created—starting with Lee Marvin starring as Walker in Point Blank (based on The Hunter), Michel Constantin as Georges in Pillaged (based on The Score), Anna Karina as Paula Nelson in Made in U.S.A. (partly based on The Jugger), 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 (the second screen adaptation based on The Hunter). After Westlake's death, his widow, Abby, sold the screen rights to the novel Flashfire to producer Les Alexander and allowed for the name Parker to be used in the adaptation, with the option of further novels being adapted should the first one prove successful. Jason Statham was cast as the titular character in Parker. A decade later, it was reported that Shane Black had written a script for a film he's attached to direct titled Play Dirty, which is said to be based on the Parker series overall without specifying the novel it was based on. The project is intended to launch a franchise with a shared universe consisting of films and television series for Amazon Studios with the possibility of featuring other Westlake characters. Robert Downey, Jr. is set to portray Parker. Homages Author Dan Simmons 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, is dedicated to Richard Stark/Donald Westlake. In the third Kurtz novel, Hard as Nails, Kurtz mentions that he did not know his father, but that he was a