Joseph Wambaugh, who drew on his own experience working for the Los Angeles Police Department in his bestselling novels and works of nonfiction, has died at 88, the New York Times reports.
Wambaugh was born and raised in East Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, before moving with his family to California when he was 14, according to a biography on his website. He served in the U.S. Marine Corps for three years before earning an English degree from California State University, Los Angeles.
He became an LAPD officer in 1960 and published his first book, the novel The New Centurions, in 1971, while still working as an LAPD detective. It became a New York Times bestseller and was adapted into a 1972 film starring George C. Scott and Stacy Keach.
In 1973, he published his first work of nonfiction, The Onion Field, about two LAPD officers who were kidnapped in 1963. It also was adapted into a movie with John Savage and James Woods.
Wambaugh’s other books included the novels The Choirboys, The Black Marble, and The Secrets of Harry Bright, and the nonfiction books Lines and Shadows, Echoes in the Darkness, and The Blooding. His most recent book, the novel Harbor Nocturne, was published in 2012.
In a 2019 interview with the San Diego Union-Tribune, Wambaugh, asked if he was done writing, replied, “Hell, I’m almost done living. I’m 82.” Responding to the question of how he would like to be remembered, he said, “Cop writer. That will work.”
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
