William Link
William Link · Arts & Literature
Co-creator of Columbo, Murder, She Wrote and Mannix; wrote That Certain Summer (1972), the first sympathetic portrait of a gay couple on American television
15 December 1933, Philadelphia, United States — 27 December 2020, Los Angeles, United States
United States
William Link is recognized among Jewish contributors to Arts & Literature — Co-creator of Columbo, Murder, She Wrote and Mannix; wrote That Certain Summer (1972), the first sympathetic portrait of a gay couple on American television
Origins and early life
William Theodore Link was born in Philadelphia on 15 December 1933 and met Richard Levinson on the first day of junior high school in 1946; their partnership lasted forty-three years, until Levinson's death in 1987.
Work and career
Together they created Columbo, Murder, She Wrote and Mannix, put sixteen series on the air, and wrote television films that broke ground — That Certain Summer (1972) was the first sympathetic portrait of a gay couple on American television. They won two Emmy Awards, a Peabody, four Edgar Awards and two Golden Globes, and were inducted into the Television Academy Hall of Fame. Link was raised as a non-Jew and lived his whole life as one; in 2011, at seventy-seven, his niece Amy opened a blue suitcase left in the family attic and found the genealogical research his father had commissioned during the Second World War — his paternal grandparents were Jewish, and the family tree named Ezekiel, Jacob and Sarah. He told the Jewish Journal that he could not have been happier.
Verify and go deeper with these external references.
Source: Jewish Journal — Tom Teicholz, 22 February 2011
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Co-creator of Columbo, Murder, She Wrote and Mannix; wrote That Certain Summer (1972), the first sympathetic portrait of a gay couple on American television
Source: Jewish Journal — Tom Teicholz, 22 February 2011
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