William Link, the co-creator of Columbo and Murder She Wrote is dead at the age of 87. Link reportedly passed away on December 27 in Los Angeles, due to congestive heart failure, according to his wife Margery Nelson. Link was a longtime writer and producer for television, whose partnership with childhood friend Richard Levinson led to the creation of detective procedural Columbo, and later, the two worked with Peter S. Fischer to create the hugely successful Murder, She Wrote, starring Angela Lansbury as an aging mystery novelist/amateur sleuth. Link was also well known for pushing progressive boundaries of TV, when it came to race, age, gender, and sexuality.
William Link was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1933, and eventually earned his degree from PENN’s Wharton School of Business, before heading off to serve in the US Army from 1956 to 1958. He produced his first play with Richard Levinson in 1959, having worked with Levinson since they were teenagers, including writing film criticism for the PENN college paper, as well as Playboy. After the play, the pair wrote for Alfred Hitchcock Presents and The Fugitive TV series. That led to a string of TV series projects like Mannix, Columbo, Murder She Wrote and Ellery Queen. Link and Levinson are credited with pioneering ideas like Columbo‘s signature format of showing viewers the criminal committing the crime, before the investigation begins; they also defied all expectations by turning Murder She Wrote into a 12-year hit, starring an middle-aged female lead, in a detective show with no sex and little violence. Link and Levinson would continue to work on TV shows, movies, and TV movies through the 1970s and 1980s, as well as creating the Broadway musical magic show Merlin.
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After Richard Levinson’s untimely death in 1987, William Link continued with his creative work across several media platforms. He worked on The Cosby Mysteries in the ’90s, and wrote for mystery magazines like Ellery Queen and Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine.
William Link leaves behind a large family in addition to the massive legacy of his work. In addition to his wife Margery, William Link is survived by nieces and nephews Amy Salko Robertson and John Robertson, Karen Salko Nieberg and Owen Nieberg; grandchildren Anabelle Robertson, Bennett, Fin, and Levi Nieberg; sisters-in- law Elizabeth Nelson and Laurie Nelson, and brother-in-law Jonathan P. Nelson.
We offer our condolences to William Link’s family and friends, in their time of grieving.
