Steven Bochco — Emmy-winning producer of hit dramas ‘Hill Street Blues,’ ‘L.A. Law’
Steven Bochco, the Emmywinning television writerproducer who brought “Hill Street Blues,” “L.A. Law” and “NYPD Blue” to the small screen, died Sunday. He was 74.
A family spokesman told the Associated Press that Bochco died in his sleep after a battle with cancer. Bochco was known to have been battling leukemia for several years. In 2014, he received a stem cell transplant that was credited with prolonging his life.
Bochco was the driving force behind some of TV’s most popular series for more than 30 years, with a specialty for serialized dramas with large ensemble casts and edgy plots. Known for his headstrong ways, the celebrated producer was nominated for 30 Emmys and won 10.
While Bochco’s boundarypushing ways as a producer made network executives skittish, they often deferred to him and were ultimately rewarded with strong ratings and critical kudos, a combination that was rare in the pre-Peak TV era of the 1980s and ’90s.
“Even though the network is supposed to be the authority, I always looked at Steven as my teacher, my mentor, the genius that led me to the best decision,” said Ted Harbert, who worked with Bochco when he brought “Doogie Howser, M.D” and “NYPD Blue” to ABC.
A New York City native, Steven Ronald Bochco was born on Dec. 16, 1943, to a violinist father and a painter-jewelry designer mother. He attended the High School of Music and Art in Manhattan for singing before spending a year at New York University. He graduated from Carnegie Mellon University with a theater degree in 1966.
While attending Carnegie Mellon, he received a fellowship from MCA that helped him pay for school and landed him summer jobs at Universal Studios his last two years before graduating.
Bochco began at Universal in the mid-1960s, where he earned a reputation for being strong-willed. His refusal to allow the network to dictate his work earned him unprecedented creative control throughout his 50 years in the industry.
He produced the Emmywinning show “Hill Street Blues” and “L.A. Law” for NBC before decamping to ABC in the late 1980s.
In 1987, CBS legend William Paley offered the then-44-yearold the job of president of the network’s entertainment division. Instead, Bochco signed a six-year, 10-series deal at ABC, worth around $10 million.
“There will be an awful lot of angry people if I screw this one up,” he told the Los Angeles Times in 1987. “I want to justify the enormous commitment they (ABC) have made to me. If I can’t do that, I’ll kill it for the next person who comes down the road.”
It was there that he produced hits like “NYPD Blue” with David Milch and “Doogie Howser, M.D.” with David Kelley, as well as some misses, including the musical drama “Cop Rock” and the serialized courtroom drama “Murder One.”
At NBC, Bochco expanded the idea of a broadcast television cop show when he created “Hill Street Blues” with Michael Kozoll in 1981, and he did it again at ABC with “NYPD Blue” in 1993.
“What we did with ‘NYPD Blue’ opened up the world,” he told the Times in 2014. “We were certainly aware of advancing the agenda.
“When I left ‘Hill Street,’ I said, ‘I’m never going to do another police show ever’ because I couldn’t imagine doing one better,” he said in 1995. “But a dozen years later (in ‘NYPD Blue’), there’s everything to wring from that old towel because the prevailing attitudes of the society shift.” The series lasted 12 seasons.
Bochco married three times, the first time to Gabrielle Levin and then to Barbara Bosson, who co-starred in “Hill Street Blues.” He later married TV executive Dayna Kalins in 2000. He is survived by his daughter, Melissa, and sons Jeffrey and Jesse.