Joseph Wambaugh, Creator of ‘Police Story’ and ‘Onion Field’ Writer, Dies at 88
variety.comCarmel Dagan Staff WriterJoseph Wambaugh, whose experience as an LAPD officer enabled him to bring a warts-and-all realism to his novels about policing and the movies and TV shows like “Police Story,” died Friday in Rancho Mirage, Calif.
He was 88.The cause was esophageal cancer, a family friend told the New York Times.Wambaugh’s work in novels such as “The New Centurions,” “The Blue Knight” “The Choirboys” and best seller “The Onion Field” rendered the flat, idealized portrait of the Los Angeles Police Dept.
presented in “Dragnet” and “Adam-12” permanently outdated, and yet cops felt they understood him and got the way they talked, and they remained among his biggest fans over the course of his career as a novelist.
A highlight of Wambaugh’s relationship with Hollywood was the Harold Becker-directed feature “The Onion Field” (1979), with Wambaugh penning the screenplay based on his own true-crime novel.
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