Steven Bochco dies: Innovative producer behind NYPD Blue, L.A. Law and Hill Street Blues was 74

Variety

Bochco, whose three biggest hit shows won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Drama Series within seven years of each other, died in his sleep Sunday after battling cancer. Bochco underwent a stem cell transplant in 2014 after he was diagnosed with leukemia. Bochco was nominated for an Emmy 30 times, winning 10, with the multiple series he co-created dominating the TV landscape throughout the 1980s and 1990s, including NYPD Blue, L.A. Law, Murder One, Doogie Howser, M.D., Cop Rock and Hill Street Blues. Bochco, says Cynthia Littleton, "reveled in pushing boundaries and challenging the status quo. Behind the scenes, Bochco ... expertly leveraged his status as an A-list showrunner. In 1987 he commanded a still-unprecedented six-year, 10-series deal with ABC. Bochco in his prime helped usher in the contemporary Golden Age of TV dramas by insisting that NYPD Blue, which ran from 1993 to 2005 on ABC, move the needle on the content restrictions that had traditionally defined broadcast TV. Bochco often used the phrase '… and the Republic didn’t fall' when asked about the controversy stirred by his shows."

ALSO:

• Stars pay tribute to Bochco: "It was his vision, style, taste and tenacity that made me love watching TV," tweeted NYPD Blue's Sharon Lawrence
• Disney CEO Bob Iger called Bochco "a visionary, a creative force, a risk taker, a witty, urbane story teller with an uncanny ability to know what the world wanted"
• Read an excerpt from Bochco's 2016 memoir, Truth is a Total Defense