Most detective characters who earn enduring fame in movies or on TV—from Sherlock William Link and Holmes to Inspector Morse, Sam Spade to Peter Falk as Lt. Columbo Perry Mason—sprang from the pages of pub - lished fiction. One notable exception is Lieutenant Columbo, the Los Angeles homicide detective brought to vivid life by actor Peter Falk in sev - eral years’ worth of television movies and se - ries episodes. That cigar-chewing cop in the rumpled raincoat, with his tenacious insis - tence on asking “just one more question,” was

the creation o f the phenomenal writing —and (later) production—team of Richard Levin - son and William Link, who first conjured him, away back in 1960, specifically for the TV screen. But now, in the fullness of time, Columbo is reversing that usual page-to-screen jour - ney, in a volume of original short stories, The Columbo Collection (Crippen & Landru), written by the character’s surviving creator, Vital William Link. It should come as no surprise, perhaps, that the good lieutenant, after all these years, LINK seems right at home between bound covers. Columbo (no first name, please) was the brainchild of two lifelong friends from WILLIAM LINK REVISITS HIS Philadelphia for whom mystery novels and short stories were as important in their form - MOST FAMOUS CREATION WITH ative years as were movies, radio, the the - ater, and comic books. A NEW SHORT STORY COLLECTION The short and skinny Mr. Link met the tall and skinny Mr. Levinson—both of whom also liked doing magic tricks—on their first day of

junior high school. Almost at once, they formed d n

by Tom Nolan a l k

a team and began pulling fictional rabbits out r i K s a l g u

1 MYSTERY SCENE MAGAZINE WWW.MYSTERYSCENEMAG.COM A special reprint from the 2010 Summer Issue #115, courtesy of Mystery Scene Magazine. o D of hats. They sold their first story to Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine while still in col - lege; they wrote theatrical shows at the Uni - “Bernard Shaw once said, versity of Pennsylvania; and, after a spell at ‘There are some people so the Wharton School of Business, they part - nered to become TV writers. valuable and so important in And while they set their sights on the small- your life that you only lose screen medium, their major influences were print authors. them with your death’… “I’ll tell you the people I really loved,” Bill and I find in the case of Link said recently, from his home in Los An - geles. “Georges Simenon: There was a man Dick Levinson, that’s who knew character, through and through very, very true.” … I read over two hundred Simenons…John Dickson Carr: There was the cerebral mys - tery, we thought, at its best. He was great with clues; Dick and I learned how to for - was not a big Simenon fan, I was; but it did - William Link and the late Richard Levinson (left), mulate clues in things from John Dickson n’t matter. Simenon was not great on con - shown here in 1987, also created such TV classics Carr. Ellery Queen was another favorite.… struction, and we prized the people who could as Murder, She Wrote and Mannix . Erle Stanley Gardner: [his stories] were bril - really put the story together—because we were liantly constructed.… Oh there was a private- both gifted with that.” a script…about a murdering psychiatrist who eye detective, [written by] two guys—an - By the late 1950s , Levinson and Link were kills his wife,” Bill Link recalls, “and a cop called other team, [known as Wade Miller]… Dick in Hollywood writing for Four Star Produc - Columbo starts a dance with him, of wits—be - and I loved them. tions. And in 1960, they wrote an original script cause Columbo knows he killed the wife but “That was the quartet, or more, of the ones for The Chevy Mystery Show , a live-TV series he can’t prove it.” that really inspired us, for mysteries.… Dick broadcast that summer by NBC. “We beat out Link and Levinson thought this script had

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H Back issues available. See our website l i a for an annotated list. 331 W. 57th Street, Suite 148 New York, NY 10019, U.S. www.mysteryscenemag.com G • • • stage play potential and expanded these short stories, Link is also pro - it into Prescription: Murder , which longing happy associations with two a New York producer optioned for of the people who’ve meant so much West and East Coast productions to him, both in life and in art. featuring character actor Thomas “I see Falk, with every line [I Mitchell as the dogged police lieu - write] of Columbo’s,” he admits. tenant. The writers’ agent then sold “Yes, he’s really in my mind.” the stage play to Universal Studios As for the late Dick Levinson... for adaptation by its authors into a “I think Dick sits on my shoul - two-hour TV-movie to air in 1968. der all the time,” Link says. “I was By then Thomas Mitchell had with him, you know, forty-three died, and the role of Columbo was years; we saw each other more than blessed with the perfect casting of we saw our wives. It was unbe - Peter Falk. lievable.… We grew up and for - “We knew Peter, and we liked mulated what we thought about life him,” Link says. “He was a very en - and what we thought about this gaging guy, funny, very smart—and world, together .… Bernard Shaw he wasn’t good-looking, because we once said, ‘There are some people didn’t want a good-looking cop. You so valuable and so important in know, he was a Joe Regular: He was - your life that you only lose them n’t ugly in any sense of the word, but with your death”...and I find in the he wasn’t handsome.” case of Dick Levinson, that’s very, Prescription: Murder was a num - very true.” ber-one ratings hit, and three years May Levinson, and Link, and later, a second Columbo movie was Falk, and Columbo yet be with us a similar success. In ’71, a series en - all for a good long time.
sued, with every episode employing the device used from that very first Tom Nolan’s latest book is Three 1960 play: the audience sees the crime Chords for Beauty’s Sake: The Life committed, then watches as the de - “Columbo is the regular of Artie Shaw (Norton) . tective pins the deed on the culprit. working-class guy—who’s got “We admitted in a lot of inter - views,” Bill Link says, “our template a brilliant mind but for Columbo was Petrovich, the de - doesn’t really tout it, you know? tective-inspector in Crime and Pun - ishment , Dostoevsky’s great novel; He’s humble, even to the murderer! Dick and I both read it in college. And people identify with that; And we were very open about that, but we added a lot of other things. they like that. And Falk, you know, gave it a whole And also, they like Peter, new spin, because the cop in the Dostoevsky book was not humor - I mean let’s face it.” ous at all.” There was something else unique about this protagonist. “I have a the - ory,” says Link, “… that in [this] one man, you Columbo was an international sensation, have both Sherlock Holmes and Watson. and Falk’s personification of the character be - There’s the intellectual, the very clever, great came an iconic figure as far away as Roma - detective Sherlock Holmes; and then you have nia. Levinson and Link created many other the Everyman Watson. And those two are successful mystery series for television, from combined, with Falk as the character. He’s a Mannix to Murder She Wrote —the New York . n o i

regular Joe: He’s the kind of guy you sit down, Times once called them “the Mr. Rolls and the s s i m r

have a drink, a cup of coffee with, he’s very Mr. Royce of American television”—but their e p y open—but also, hidden behind that, is the firstborn remained their best-known. b d e s computer brain for detection; and that’s the Aft er Dick Levinson’s death in 1987, at 52, u , k l a

Holmes part of it. Bill Link continued writing in the short-story F r e t e

“He’s the regular working-class guy—who’s for m he and his late partner had started with P y b got a brilliant mind but doesn’t really tout it, in their high school days. And in a lot of his h c t e k you know? He’s humble, even to the murderer! tales, he cast Columbo as the hero. “I said: ‘Most This pen and ink sketch by the actor Peter Falk of S . C B

And people identify with that; they like that. popular character we ever created; why not ?’” himself in his most famous role is one of the N : o t

And also, they like Peter, I mean let’s face it.” In extending Lt. Columbo’s career through highlights of the Mystery Scene art collection. o h P

3 MYSTERY SCENE MAGAZINE WWW.MYSTERYSCENEMAG.COM A special reprint from the 2010 Summer Issue #115, courtesy of Mystery Scene Magazine.