From Wikip:
Several movies and radio and television series have been based on the books in the Hammer series. The actor most closely identified with the character in recent years has been Stacy Keach, who portrayed Hammer in a CBS television series, Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer, which ran from 1984–1987 (24 episodes) and had a syndicated revival in 1997–1998. (An earlier syndicated version, originally aired in 1957–1958, starred Darren McGavin as Hammer.) Spillane himself played Hammer in a 1963 motion picture adaptation of The Girl Hunters. Spillane himself favoured ex-Marine and former Newburgh, New York police officer Jack Stang, on whom he based the character, to play him. Stang appeared with Spillane in the 1954 film Ring of Fear and in the film adaptation of I, the Jury.An early BEA thread about this very topic:
http://forum.bearchive.com/index.php/topic,1316.0.htmlIt has a nice quote from Delta Burke: "In her autobio, Delta Burke said all the gals on this show had to have that "Mike Hammer look". She explained that meant no matter how big your bosoms were, they padded 'em to be bigger."
And yes the bosom ratio dropped as the show went along.
The mid-80's were the last gasp of that ever more rare female TV image - the natural curvy woman. It would be another 25+ years till they started to reappear. In other words the offspring of these actors.