Steven Bochco was born on December 16, 1943, in New York, New York. He attended High School of Music and Art in Manhattan and eventually enrolled in Carnegie Mellon University, in Pittsburgh, to study play writing and theatre. He graduated with a degree in theatre in 1966.

Bochco entered the entertainment industry, and his television career, in 1965 when he snagged a writing job at Universal Studios during his junior and senior years of college. Soon afterwards his graduation from Carnegie Mellon, Bochco began working for Universal Studios as a writer. He worked with them for 12 years, working his way up from writer to story editor. He became a story editor for Robert Stack’s segments in the adventure and drama series The Name of the Game, which aired from 1968 to 1971, and later for Columbo. He finally produced his own work, Lt. Shuster’s Wife, a movie of the week for ABC in 1972.

Bochco became co-producer and wrote eight of the 20 scripts eventually broadcasted by Universal Studios. He soon met Michael Kozoll, with whom he later co-created and wrote Hill Street Blues. He also wrote a pair of episodes for McMillan and Wife during the run of that series.

Bochco left Universal in 1978 for MTM Enterprises. He felt that there was more out in the production world than what Universal Studios could offer. He first produced a 1979 movie of the week called Vampire, with Michael Kozoll. Then he and Kozoll wrote Paris, a police drama series that aired for 11 episodes.

In January 1980, NBC asked MTM if Bochco and Kozoll could come up with an innovative idea for a new series. NBC demanded an action and drama series about cops. Bochco and Kozoll agreed, and with their combined creativity came up with what led to the pinnacle of Steven Bochco’s career. Bochco and Kozoll together wrote Hill Street Blues, a cop show setting new rules for almost every aspect of the action-adventure formula, in 1981. The series won Bochco much fame, with Bochco receiving six Emmys for the hit series, three Golden Globes, and other awards. The series would run until 1987. Unfortunately, in 1985, Bochco was fired due to his unsuccessful run of The Bay City Blues on NBC.

In 1986, Bochco produced another long-running hit drama series, similar to Hill Street Blues, called L.A. Law for 20th Century Fox. He co-wrote the series with Terry Louise Fischer. It ran until 1994.

In 1989, with continued success, Bochco produced Doogie Howser, M.D. with David Kelley. This was an aberration from his normal legal dramatic series; the comedic series featured a precocious doctor who graduated medical school at age 16. In 1990, for Bochco also attempted to combine his usual cop show with musical theatre in Cop Rock for ABC. That venture failed.

Eventually, Bochco wrote another series, in 1993, which increased his fame: NYPD Blue. It won a few Emmys and became a hit series, with its creative action-packed dramatic cop mysteries. Its popularity and controversy—nudity and vulgar language to depict realism—became one of Bochco’s most acclaimed works, running until 2005. Unfortunately, after that, his success decreased.

In 1997, Bochco met Barbara Bosson who eventually became his wife. He and Barbara Bosson had two children, Jeffrey and Melissa. However, he later divorced her and remarried with Dayna Kalins, to whom he is still married.

Bochco also is the CEO of Steven Bochco Productions. In 2005, he signed up with Touchstone for three years to produce TV shows. In 2008, Bochco and David Feige created another new legal TV show called Raising the Bar, about classmates from law school who reunite in the courtroom. It was cancelled in December 2009 at the end of the show’s second season.

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