Bye to Bosson and Belzer

I recently discovered that episodes of the 1987-1989 ABC-TV comedy-drama series Hooperman, starring John Ritter, are available on YouTube. Although I hadn’t seen it in decades, I remembered that the show—created by Steven Bochco and Terry Louise Fisher (L.A. Law)—was better than average small-screen fare for its era. A large portion of that credit belongs to Ritter, who plays a perpetually put-upon San Francisco police inspector. However, the show also had a fine supporting cast, including Barbara Bosson, who played the inspector’s divorced boss, Captain Celeste “C.Z.” Stern.

So I was saddened to read that Bosson passed away on February 18, aged 83. According to Variety, Bosson was born in Charleroi, Pennsylvania, in 1939, and her first (uncredited) feature film role found her playing a nurse in the 1968 Steve McQueen film Bullitt. Two years later, she married TV writer-producer Bochco, who proceeded to cast her regularly in his own programs. “From 1981 to 1986,” Variety explains, “Bosson was a main cast member on Hill Street Blues, portraying Fay Furillo, the ex-wife to police captain Frank Furillo (Daniel J. Travanti). She received five Emmy nominations for best supporting actress in a drama series throughout her tenure on the series. She was nominated in the same category in 1995 for Murder One, which shows the life of prominent attorney Theodore Hoffman at a Los Angeles firm, in which Bosson played Miriam Grasso.” Over the years, Bosson appeared as well on Mannix, Alias Smith and Jones, McMillan & Wife, Richie Brockelman, Private Eye, Cop Rock, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and NYPD Blue.

Bochco and Bosson divorced back in 1997. Their son, TV director-producer Jesse Boscho, is quoted in the Los Angeles Times as saying his mother died “peacefully ... [and] surrounded by her family and loved ones.” No specific cause for her demise was reported.

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Let us bid farewell, too, to comedian, actor, and author Richard Belzer, who is best known for playing police detective John Munch on the 1993-1999 NBC-TV crime drama Homicide: Life on the Street, and then reprising that role in several Law & Order franchise series. The New York Times says Belzer, 78, died on February 19 at his home in Beaulieu-sur-Mer, France. A novelist friend, Bill Scheft, has said the actor’s final words were, “Fuck you, motherfucker”

“As Detective Munch,” the Times’ Alex Taub writes, “Mr. Belzer was brainy but hard-boiled, cynical but sensitive. He wore sunglasses at night and listened to the horror stories of rape victims in stony silence. He was the kind of cop who made casual references to Friedrich Nietzsche and the novelist Elmore Leonard. He spoke in quips; when accused of being a dirty old man, he responded: ‘Who are you calling old?’ In a 2010 interview with AARP: The Magazine, Mr. Belzer …described his television alter ego as ‘Lenny Bruce with a badge.’”

A Washington Post obituary notes:

Richard Jay Belzer was born on Aug. 4, 1944 in Bridgeport, Conn. He struggled with what he called a “bitter childhood”: His abusive mother died when he was 20, and his father killed himself four years later. He took on odd jobs, including a stint as a writer for the Bridgeport Post newspaper.

In 1971, Mr. Belzer decided to try out for a part in an underground theater production ... That role launched his career. He took on other jobs as a stand-up comic, including on Saturday Night Live when it was launched in 1975.

Belzer made his film debut in 1974’s The Groove Tube and was later found on the big screen in Fame and The Bonfire of the Vanities. He portrayed a U.S. president in the 1988 science fiction/horror film Species II. In his blog, A Shroud of Thoughts, Terence Towles Canote mentions Belzer’s appearances in Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, Mad About You, 3rd Rock from the Sun, and 30 Rock.

“While Richard Belzer did play other roles,” Canote concludes, “I think there can be no doubt that he will always be remembered as Detective John Munch. Not only did he play the character for decades, but he played him on multiple shows. And it is largely because of Richard Belzer that John Munch may be one of the greatest television characters of all time. Detective Munch was cynical and sarcastic. His politics veered towards the left and he had a tendency to believe in conspiracy theories. While John Munch might often doubt the overall honesty of the human race, he ultimately cared about his fellow human beings. If he was dogged in pursuing cases, it was because he cared about the victims of those crimes. It is little wonder that audiences loved and still love John Munch.”

READ MORE: “A Hawaii Five-O Scribe Dies,” by Bill Koenig (The Spy Command); “Ted Bell, Adman Turned Author of Best-Selling Thrillers, Is Dead at 76,” by Sam Roberts (The New York Times).

The Best TV Crime Drama Openers, #8

Series Title: Homicide: Life on the Street | Years: 1993-1999, NBC | Starring: Yaphet Kotto, Andre Braugher, Clark Johnson, Melissa Leo, Richard Belzer, Jon Polito, Ned Beatty, Kyle Secor, Daniel Baldwin | Theme Music: Lynn F. Kowal

A Baltimore Police homicide detective taught me how to carry a wallet. OK, it was a fictional TV detective, but so what? Detective Frank Pembleton, brought to life with brilliant intensity by Andre Braugher on Homicide: Life on the Street, explained to his partner, Tim Bayliss (Kyle Secor), that men should carry their wallets in the front pants pocket. Like most men, I had always carried mine in my back pocket. Pembleton pointed out that carrying the wallet in the back pocket throws off proper alignment of the spine whenever you’re sitting down and makes it easier for a pickpocket to grab your wallet undetected. I’ve carried my wallet in the left front pocket of my pants ever since.

Homicide: Life on the Street ran for seven seasons on NBC-TV, from 1993 to 1999. It was based on a non-fiction book by David Simon, a longtime crime reporter for the Baltimore Sun (and the husband of newsie-turned-novelist Laura Lippman). In 1987, Simon took a year off from the newspaper to shadow a team of homicide detectives from the Baltimore Police Department. His book about that experience, Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets, was published in 1991. Although the TV show was fictional, it often depicted situations from actual cases worked by Charm City police detectives.

The show’s best-known main title sequence (click the image above) is done in black-and-white, signaling a no-frills, serious-minded program to come. The drums-heavy music by songwriter and composer Lynn F. Kowal is more a series of punctuation notes than a melodic theme. You see, one by one, the shadowed faces of the cast. You see a burning cigarette in an ashtray next to a half-drunk cup of coffee. You see a large dog barking aggressively at someone on the other side of a chain-link fence who’s out of our sight. You see a random set of storefront signs flash by. You see a mid-’50s Ford passenger car making a left turn. You see an old photo of Baltimore cops from the early 1900s. And finally, as you look at the door to the Homicide unit, you hear a telephone ringing until Detective John Munch’s voice announces “homicide.”

It’s what novelist-screenwriter Lee Goldberg would call a “mood sequence.” It conveys the “feeling and tone” of the show it introduces.

Homicide was a great ensemble series, blessed with strong writing and a superb cast. Lieutenant Al Giardello (Kotto) led a squad of eight detectives, who were paired off in teams of two: Stan Bolander (Beatty) and John Munch (Belzer); Steve Crosetti (Polito) and Meldrick Lewis (Johnson); Frank Pembleton (Braugher) and Tim Bayliss (Secor); Beau Felton (Baldwin) and Kay Howard (Leo). The detectives’ job, as Giardello delighted in reminding them, was to turn the names written in red on the squad room’s case board (open) into names written in black (cleared). Here, the lieutenant waxes poetic about that board:

“It’s pretty, isn’t it? The way the board just stands there. A silent sentry to the dead and gone. I love the way the red and black meld together in harmony. A haiku of color and vengeance.”

The unit’s interrogation room, where detectives coaxed, tricked, sweet-talked, and browbeat suspects into confessing their crimes, was known as “The Box.” Pembleton was the acknowledged master of The Box; he owned The Box. Here, he addresses a fellow detective who will join him in questioning a suspect:

“What you will be privileged to witness will not be an interrogation, but an act of salesmanship as silver-tongued and thieving as ever moved used cars, Florida swamp land, or bibles. For what I am selling is a long prison term to a client who has no genuine use for the product.”

Every fan of the show has favorite Homicide episodes, and I’m no exception. But the one episode that caught the widest attention--and drew the highest critical acclaim--was titled “Subway.” It aired on December 5, 1997, during the sixth season. In this hour, played as real-time 60 minutes, a man named John Lange falls (or was pushed) between a subway car and the edge of the platform and is crushed between the two. Although the paramedics soon realize that if the subway car moves, Lange, whose spine is broken, will die instantly, he recognizes the hopelessness of his predicament only gradually. Vincent D’Onofrio (Law & Order: Criminal Intent) earned an Emmy nomination for his tour-de-force portrayal of Lange. In a second Emmy-nominated performance, Andre Braugher, as Detective Pembleton, stays with Lange the entire hour. Watching the relationship between those two strangers develop is an emotionally compelling experience. You’d be hard-pressed to find a more powerful hour of dramatic television.