Truth Is A Total Defense

“An inside look at television from the man who transformed it. The origins of today’s golden age of television dramas can be traced to one man: Steven Bochco. This juicy and fascinating account tells you how he did it. A must read.” —David E. Kelley, Emmy Award winner and prolific creator of TV hits “Picket Fences,” “Chicago Hope,”  “The Practice,” “Ally McBeal,” “Boston Public,” and “Boston Legal”

“It’s raucous, it’s witty, and very savvy on the business of television. It’s master storyteller Steven Bochco telling the story of his life and his life’s work—creating groundbreaking TV shows. Fascinating and funny. Read it.” —Danny DeVito, Golden Globe and Emmy Award-winning actor, director, and producer

In his insightful, candid, and utterly entertaining memoir TRUTH IS A TOTAL DEFENSE: My Fifty Years in Television, the legendary Steven Bochco reveals the mad genius, vision, mayhem, and brilliance behind his groundbreaking, widely popular hits (and near misses). Sparing no one, including himself, he shares insider anecdotes from his triumphs and turbulent times in broadcast TV, discerning thoughts on the business of television writing and production, and personal lessons from his life-threatening and altering battle with a rare form of leukemia.

From January 1981 through May 2005, Bochco never had less than one show, and sometimes two or three, on the air. In TRUTH IS A TOTAL DEFENSE, his remembrances and from-the-hip assessments combine with gracious praise and tales from the wild side in stories that include:

• Rescuing the first cut of “Hill Street Station” (before it became “Blues”) from disaster
• “NYPD Blue” co-creator David Milch asking for an advance because he’d lost $1 million betting on football games that day
• Stephen J. Cannell turning down a cop show pilot at ABC, telling their head of development that “Hill Street Blues” was the best cop show ever made, and he didn’t want to compete with it
• Rupert Murdoch being slapped with a subpoena by a pleasant little lady in the commissary

A revealing, wryly humorous page turner, TRUTH IS A TOTAL DEFENSE is a window into the inception of the second Golden Age of television, by the man who helped create it.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Ten-time Emmy-award winning television producer and writer Steven Bochco “owned” Thursday night at 10:00 for 15 years. For 25 years, his shows—“Hill Street Blues,” “L.A. Law,” “Doogie Howser, M.D.,” and “NYPD Blue” were enormously successful must-watch TV that irrevocably changed the landscape of television. More than 30 million people watched the premiere of “LA Law.” His hot, homicide detective TNT show “Murder in the First” premiered its third season in late June.