Philadelphia Inquirer (14/Mar/1987) - Richard Levinson, 52

Details

• article: Richard Levinson, 52
• author(s): David Bianculli
• newspaper: Philadelphia Inquirer (14/Mar/1987)
• keywords: Alfred Hitchcock Presents (TV), Richard Levinson, William Link

Article

Richard Levinson, 52

OBITUARY

The Levinson-Link team won Emmys for Columbo and the 1970 telemovie My Sweet Charlie and they are currently represented on TV by CBS's Murder, She Wrote and Hard Copy. As partners, their collaboration dates back nearly four decades, long before their American TV debuts (at age 24) as scriptwriters for the "Chain of Command" episode of Desilu Playhouse.

"We met on the first day of junior high school," Link recalled, telephoned yesterday at his Los Angeles home. "I was told to find a tall guy who liked to do magic and read mysteries, and he was told, 'There's a short guy who reads mysteries and does magic.' "

Their literary partnership began almost immediately and jelled during their years at the University of Pennsylvania. They wrote several Mask and Wig revues, wrote film criticism for the Daily Pennsylvanian and founded the school's Highball humor magazine.

After graduation, Link was drafted for two years; Mr. Levinson served briefly, then worked at what is now WCAU-TV (Channel 10), moving sets and directing weather programs.

During that period, they collaborated by mail. After Link's return, he and Mr. Levinson sold the script to Desilu and moved to Los Angeles. They wrote everything as a team; Mr. Levinson, though, was the one at the typewriter.

"Our sensibilities coincided as people," Link said. "We were both products of upper-middle-class families. Politically, we were liberal. We grew up together. In our formative years, we read the same books, saw the same movies, did the same things. . . .

"We had respect for each other, which was very important. Oscar Hammerstein said that a collaboration is the exact same thing as a good marriage, but without the sex. And that's exactly what it was like for us."

Their joint resume includes episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Fugitive and The Rogues and the creation of such literate, entertaining series as The Adventures of Ellery Queen and, of course, Columbo, which developed such talents as director Steven Spielberg and writer-producer Steven Bochco, and turned Peter Falk into a TV superstar and presented one of television's most lovable and original characters.

Mr. Levinson, in a not-yet-published interview with Mark Dawidziak (an Akron Beacon Journal TV critic writing a book about Columbo), said somewhat presciently that "if we're remembered for anything, it may say Columbo on our gravestones." Mr. Levinson also described what he felt was the onus — and the appeal — of that memorable NBC series.

"The problem with Columbo was that you had no other characters, and the leading man didn't enter until the second act," Mr. Levinson said. "You had to create a perfect crime that had a loophole, then provide a perfect clue.

"After the crime, since Bill and I refused to put any violence into the show, we had to have a conversation between two individuals for 90 minutes."

Such departures from the norm were commonplace for Mr. Levinson and Link, who tackled interracial love in My Sweet Charlie and homosexuality in That Certain Summer, and created one of TV's finest docudramas in The Execution of Private Slovik, which Link still feels is "the most powerful piece of work we were lucky enough to put on film."

Mr. Levinson is survived by his wife, Rosanna, and a daughter, Christine.