According to Bochco's wife, Barbara Bosson, his work priorities reflected his uncertain upbringing. "Steven ... didn't use[d] to say 'I'm going to go into TV and win a bunch of Emmys," Span quoted. "He used to say, 'I'm gonna be a millionaire.'"
Millions were still just a dream while Bochco worked for Universal, which at that time was regarded as something of a television factory for the way it churned out shows. "What I did when I first started there--and it was tremendous hands-on training--was take unsold pilots and episodes of 'Chrysler Theatre' and write an additional hour's material for them," Bochco explained in American Film. "It would be filmed, spliced in, and the whole thing released as an overseas movie package for television. Really, it was very smart business." It was also a reasonably good living for Bochco. "I ended up pulling down $15,000 my very first year," he told Christensen. Bochco said his father was "happy, excited and nervous" about the job--nervous that Bochco would make a wrong move. "Because I don't think he'd ever made $15,000 a year in his whole life."
Eventually Bochco advanced to story editor of the detective series Columbo, which he assessed in American Film as "probably the single most fortunate thing that ever happened to me." The period was memorable to him for several reasons.
This is a free page. This page contains 175 words. This
biography contains 5,580 words (approx. 19 pages at 300
words per page).
Read the rest of this Biography with our Steven Bochco Access Pass.
