Free Republic

After 41 years with the Los Angeles Police Department, the last nine as its chief, Charlie Beck retired on Wednesday, handing his badge and collar stars to his successor, Michel Moore (yes, that’s how he spells his first name). The occasion of Beck’s retirement has been marked by a good deal of adoring press attention, not the least of which was a 2,200-word retrospective on his career in Sunday’s Los Angeles Times. The story, by Times writer Cindy Chang, noted some of Beck’s missteps as chief, such as when a horse owned by his daughter, also an LAPD officer, made...

The unwavering TV writer-producer, winner of 10 Emmys, butted heads with networks and almost always won. Steven Bochco, the strong-willed writer and producer who brought gritty realism and sprawling ensemble casts to the small screen with such iconic series as Hill Street Blues, L.A. Law and NYPD Blue, died Sunday morning, a family spokesman told The Hollywood Reporter. He was 74. Suffering with leukemia, Bochco received a stem cell transplant from an anonymous 23-year-old in late 2014. "Steven fought cancer with strength, courage, grace and his unsurpassed sense of humor," spokesman Phillip Arnold said. "He died peacefully in his sleep...

Emmy Award-winning actor Larry Drake has died, his agent Michael Eisenstadt confirmed to ABC News. He was 66 years old. "Larry was such a nice man and a great and versatile actor," Eisenstadt said. Drake was perhaps best known for playing Benny Stulwicz, a developmentally delayed law firm employee on "L.A. Law" from 1987 to 1994. He won two Emmys for the role, in 1989 and 1983.

Richard Dysart, the Emmy-winning actor who portrayed the cranky senior partner Leland McKenzie in the slick, long-running NBC drama L.A. Law, has died. He was 86.Dysart, who also played Coach in the original 1972 Broadway production of Jason Miller’s Pulitzer Prize-winning That Championship Season, died Sunday at home in Santa Monica after a long illness, his wife, artist Kathryn Jacobi, told The Hollywood Reporter ...He ... was the bad guy who battled Clint Eastwood in Pale Rider ...

Kelleyvision A year or two ago, Chi McBride, then starring in the Fox TV series Boston Public (2001-2004), said that we needed a new phrase to describe the world of Boston Public creator-producer-writer, David E. Kelley: “Kelleyvision.” Though McBride meant the term as a compliment, it is a double-edged sword. “Kelleyvision” embraces the absurd, the magical, and the love of love. Unfortunately, it also embraces the politically correct, hatred of the law, talking heads drama, the limited attention span of the MTV generation and the reduction of even the absurd and the magical to paint-by-the-numbers hackery. Well, Kelleyvision is back....