William Link, a writer and producer known for co-creating “Columbo” and “Murder, She Wrote,” died of congestive heart failure in Los Angeles on Sunday, his niece confirmed to Variety. He was 87.
Over the course of Link’s decades-long television career, he became known for working alongside screenwriter and producer Richard Levinson. The duo collaborated on a number of projects, including both “Columbo” and “Murder, She Wrote.”
Steven Spielberg, who directed the first episode of “Columbo,” paid tribute to Link on Tuesday.
“Bill’s truly good nature always inspired me to do good work for a man who, along with Dick Levinson, was a huge part of what became my own personal film school on the Universal lot,” Spielberg said in a statement. “Bill was one of my favorite and most patient teachers and, more than anything, I learned so much from him about the true anatomy of a plot. I...
Over the course of Link’s decades-long television career, he became known for working alongside screenwriter and producer Richard Levinson. The duo collaborated on a number of projects, including both “Columbo” and “Murder, She Wrote.”
Steven Spielberg, who directed the first episode of “Columbo,” paid tribute to Link on Tuesday.
“Bill’s truly good nature always inspired me to do good work for a man who, along with Dick Levinson, was a huge part of what became my own personal film school on the Universal lot,” Spielberg said in a statement. “Bill was one of my favorite and most patient teachers and, more than anything, I learned so much from him about the true anatomy of a plot. I...
- 12/29/2020
- by Eli Countryman
- Variety Film + TV
Prolific television writer-producer William Link, co-creator of classic TV series including Columbo and Murder She Wrote among others, died Sunday, December 27 of congestive heart failure in Los Angeles, his wife, Margery Nelson, told Deadline. He was 87.
Link was born in Elkins Park, Pa, a suburb of Philadelphia, on December 15, 1933.
In a career spanning more than 60 years, Link was best known for his collaboration with the late Richard Levinson. The two – who first met at the age of 14 and began collaborating almost immediately on stories, radio scripts, and dramas – saw television’s potential to capture the current scene and contribute to the national discussion about such subjects as race relations, student unrest, and gun violence.
Co-created by Link and Levinson, Columbo, starring Peter Falk as LAPD homicide detective Columbo aired on NBC from 1971 to 1978. The character and show popularized the inverted detective story format, which begins by showing the commission of the crime and its perpetrator.
Link was born in Elkins Park, Pa, a suburb of Philadelphia, on December 15, 1933.
In a career spanning more than 60 years, Link was best known for his collaboration with the late Richard Levinson. The two – who first met at the age of 14 and began collaborating almost immediately on stories, radio scripts, and dramas – saw television’s potential to capture the current scene and contribute to the national discussion about such subjects as race relations, student unrest, and gun violence.
Co-created by Link and Levinson, Columbo, starring Peter Falk as LAPD homicide detective Columbo aired on NBC from 1971 to 1978. The character and show popularized the inverted detective story format, which begins by showing the commission of the crime and its perpetrator.
- 12/29/2020
- by Denise Petski
- Deadline Film + TV
The Oh in Ohio
Screened at South by Southwest
AUSTIN -- The "oh" in "The Oh In Ohio" is sexual climax, and the film is obsessed with it -- women searching for or addicted to it, men defining themselves by their ability to deliver it. The topic is good for a lot of laughs, though the frankness of such jokes might limit the movie's prospects with mainstream audiences.
Equally likely to hobble the film commercially is a nagging issue with its tone. Halfway through, viewers might find they're not getting the tale the first half led them to expect. Like the lead characters, who struggle to get "almost there" and fail, the movie provides a good time but isn't wholly satisfying in the end.
Parker Posey and Paul Rudd are Priscilla and Jack, a couple who looks perfectly matched from the outside but have suffered 10 years of failure in the bedroom. Priscilla, never having known physical satisfaction, channels her energies into being Cleveland's peppy and perfect civic evangelist; Jack, on the other hand, is so hangdog that a beautiful female student passes him a note reading "You're in pain. I want to help".
After a halfhearted stab at marital counseling -- they're advised to buy a vibrator, and respond with nervous ridicule -- Jack and Priscilla separate. Each pursues a self-improvement campaign: she by attending a masturbation seminar (her instructor is played to rah-rah extremes by Liza Minnelli) and discovering battery-operated fun, he by renting a bachelor pad and making the natural leap into his student's arms.
Decades of romantic comedy have trained us to expect this couple to reunite after sampling greener pastures and learning something about themselves. But no matter what forces tug in this direction, the film has other things in mind. Rudd's performance is tuned to the familiar story arc. But Posey, instead of morphing from a career-gal stereotype into a fully rounded human, segues from one thin characterization into another. Adam Wierzbianski's screenplay doesn't supply enough development to pull this shift off convincingly, and first-time feature director Billy Kent doesn't fill in the gaps.
The filmmakers make their job difficult by grabbing laughs wherever they can along the way: warm and believable here, arch there, over-the-top when a gag demands it. The shifts in tone are especially difficult with the supporting character played by Danny DeVito: First played as a one-dimensional joke and then as a kind of fairy-tale episode in Priscilla's sexual development, he winds up responsible for the tale's emotional resolution. DeVito is surprisingly winning in the role, but that's a lot of weight for him to carry in so little screen time.
Some viewers will be happy enough with the screenplay's flashes of wit that they won't mind the movie's shifting gears and broad strokes. Others, though, will be disappointed by a story that was almost an antidote to the cookie-cutter rom-coms out there but couldn't quite make it happen.
THE OH IN OHIO
Cyan Pictures
Ambush Entertainment
Credits:
Director: Billy Kent
Screenwriter: Adam Wierzbianski
Producers: Amy Salko Robertson, Francey Grace, Miranda Bailey
Executive producers: Debra Grieco, Matthew Leutwyler, Jun Tan
Director of photography: Ramsey Nickell
Production designer: Martina Buckley
Music: Bruno Coon
Co-producer: Julie Sandor
Costumes: Bruce Finlayson
Editors: Michael R. Miller, Paul Bertino
Cast:
Priscilla: Parker Posey
Jack: Paul Rudd
Wayne: Danny DeVito
Kristen: Mischa Barton
Sherri: Miranda Bailey
Alyssa Donahue: Liza Minnelli
Coach: Keith David
No MPAA rating
Running time -- 90 minutes...
AUSTIN -- The "oh" in "The Oh In Ohio" is sexual climax, and the film is obsessed with it -- women searching for or addicted to it, men defining themselves by their ability to deliver it. The topic is good for a lot of laughs, though the frankness of such jokes might limit the movie's prospects with mainstream audiences.
Equally likely to hobble the film commercially is a nagging issue with its tone. Halfway through, viewers might find they're not getting the tale the first half led them to expect. Like the lead characters, who struggle to get "almost there" and fail, the movie provides a good time but isn't wholly satisfying in the end.
Parker Posey and Paul Rudd are Priscilla and Jack, a couple who looks perfectly matched from the outside but have suffered 10 years of failure in the bedroom. Priscilla, never having known physical satisfaction, channels her energies into being Cleveland's peppy and perfect civic evangelist; Jack, on the other hand, is so hangdog that a beautiful female student passes him a note reading "You're in pain. I want to help".
After a halfhearted stab at marital counseling -- they're advised to buy a vibrator, and respond with nervous ridicule -- Jack and Priscilla separate. Each pursues a self-improvement campaign: she by attending a masturbation seminar (her instructor is played to rah-rah extremes by Liza Minnelli) and discovering battery-operated fun, he by renting a bachelor pad and making the natural leap into his student's arms.
Decades of romantic comedy have trained us to expect this couple to reunite after sampling greener pastures and learning something about themselves. But no matter what forces tug in this direction, the film has other things in mind. Rudd's performance is tuned to the familiar story arc. But Posey, instead of morphing from a career-gal stereotype into a fully rounded human, segues from one thin characterization into another. Adam Wierzbianski's screenplay doesn't supply enough development to pull this shift off convincingly, and first-time feature director Billy Kent doesn't fill in the gaps.
The filmmakers make their job difficult by grabbing laughs wherever they can along the way: warm and believable here, arch there, over-the-top when a gag demands it. The shifts in tone are especially difficult with the supporting character played by Danny DeVito: First played as a one-dimensional joke and then as a kind of fairy-tale episode in Priscilla's sexual development, he winds up responsible for the tale's emotional resolution. DeVito is surprisingly winning in the role, but that's a lot of weight for him to carry in so little screen time.
Some viewers will be happy enough with the screenplay's flashes of wit that they won't mind the movie's shifting gears and broad strokes. Others, though, will be disappointed by a story that was almost an antidote to the cookie-cutter rom-coms out there but couldn't quite make it happen.
THE OH IN OHIO
Cyan Pictures
Ambush Entertainment
Credits:
Director: Billy Kent
Screenwriter: Adam Wierzbianski
Producers: Amy Salko Robertson, Francey Grace, Miranda Bailey
Executive producers: Debra Grieco, Matthew Leutwyler, Jun Tan
Director of photography: Ramsey Nickell
Production designer: Martina Buckley
Music: Bruno Coon
Co-producer: Julie Sandor
Costumes: Bruce Finlayson
Editors: Michael R. Miller, Paul Bertino
Cast:
Priscilla: Parker Posey
Jack: Paul Rudd
Wayne: Danny DeVito
Kristen: Mischa Barton
Sherri: Miranda Bailey
Alyssa Donahue: Liza Minnelli
Coach: Keith David
No MPAA rating
Running time -- 90 minutes...
- 3/15/2006
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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