Steven Bochco, 74, creator of hit crime dramas LA Law, Hill Street Blues, and NYPD Blue, dies of leukemia

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Steven Bochco, the legendary producer behind hit television cop dramas like Hill Street Blues, LA Law, and NYPD Blue, has died.

A spokesperson for the family told The Hollywood Reporter that the 10-time Emmy Award winner succumbed to leukemia on Sunday. He was 74 years old. 

Bochco was diagnosed with a rare form of leukemia several years ago.

In 2014, he had a bone-marrow transplant which was credited with prolonging his life, according to Variety. 

'Steven fought cancer with strength, courage, grace and his unsurpassed sense of humor,' spokesman Phillip Arnold said. 

'He died peacefully in his sleep with his family close by.' 

Among Bochco's credits are the 1980s hit Doogie Howser, M.D. with Neil Patrick Harris as well as the TNT drama Murder in the First.

Steven Bochco, the legendary producer behind hit television cop dramas like Hill Street Blues, LA Law, and NYPD Blue, has died

'It was his vision, style, taste and tenacity that made me love watching TV,' actress Sharon Lawrence, who starred in NYPD Blue, tweeted in tribute to Bochco.

'It was being on NYPD Blue that made me love working on TV. 

'Thank you and rest well Steven Bochco. You were one of a kind.'

Bochco is considered one of the most successful writers and producers of television dramas in the last few decades.

A spokesperson for the family told The Hollywood Reporter that the 10-time Emmy Award winner succumbed to leukemia on Sunday. He was 74 years old. Bochco is seen above in 2016

Bochco and writer-producer Terry Louise Fisher, the co-creators of LA Law, attend the 39th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards on September 20, 1987 in Pasadena, California

Steven Bochco and wife Dayna arrive at the 32nd Annual Vision Awards on June 12, 2005 at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills

Bochco was married three times. He is pictured above with his third wife, Dayna, in Santa Monica in 2014

He had two sons with his second wife, actress Barbara Bosson (seen right with their son Jesse in 1988)

In the 1980s, he was the brains behind two highly successful crime dramas - LA Law and Hill Street Blues.

LA Law aired on NBC for eight seasons, generating big audiences and winning a total of 15 Emmy Awards.

Bochco scored another hit for NBC, this time with Hill Street Blues. In its seven seasons on the air, the show garnered 98 Emmy nominations.

It won eight Emmy Awards. 

In 1987, Bochco received an even larger jolt to his career.

He signed a landmark deal with ABC to produce ten series, leading him to create Steven Bochco Productions.

During his deal with ABC, Bochco created another hit show, Doogie Howser, M.D., starring Harris as a teen doctor.

LA Law, a 1980s legal drama, aired on NBC for eight seasons, generating big audiences and winning a total of 15 Emmy Awards. The cast of the show's eighth season is seen above

In 1993, Bochco brought to the air another cop drama that proved to be a hit with critics and audiences - NYPD Blue.

The cop drama was considered revolutionary at the time because of its explicit content, foul language, and occasional nudity - all part of the show's mission to tackle real-life, mature subject matter. 

In his self-published 2016 memoir Truth Is a Total Defense: My Fifty Years in Television, Bochco takes the reader through his prolific career, which he began at 22 as a story editor on a popular NBC drama, The Name of the Game, and continued up to 2016 with his last creation, Murder in the First, on TNT. 

Bochco grew up in Manhattan, the son of a painter and a concert violinist.

Viewers of his shows would remember seeing Rudolph Bochco fiddling away on the 'vanity card' that identifies each Steven Bochco production.

On arriving in Los Angeles after college, he wrote for several series at Universal Studios. Then he got a big break: writing the screenplay for the 1972 sci-fi film Silent Running.

It wasn't the paltry $1,500 fee that soured him on his fling with the big screen. 

In the 1980s, Bochco scored another hit for NBC, this time with Hill Street Blues. In its seven seasons on the air, the show garnered 98 Emmy nominations. It won eight Emmy Awards

It was the disrespect he confronted as the writer: 'Once you've delivered the screenplay they don't want you around, because you're gonna get in the way of someone else's vision.'

Bochco resolved to stick with television, despite what, then, was its second-class standing. 

He knew the strict schedule of completing an episode a week demands 'an informing voice, a central creative driver.' 

In TV, the writer's vision was likely to prevail.

Nowhere was the writer's vision more revered than at MTM Enterprises, a creative hotbed where, after leaving Universal, he was invited to cook up a new kind of cop drama.

He eventually teamed with Michael Kozoll.

'I was never a one-man band,' Bochco said of his career.

Bochco was game for such an opportunity, with one proviso: He and Kozoll would have creative control over the script.

The pilot script they wrote, and the series that resulted, redefined TV drama. 

In 1987, Bochco signed a landmark deal with ABC to produce ten series, leading him to create Steven Bochco Productions. During his deal with ABC, Bochco created another hit show, Doogie Howser, M.D., starring Neil Patrick Harris as a teen doctor

From The Sopranos to The Shield and Lost, from Game of Thrones to Mad Men and Orange Is the New Black, the fruits of TV's latter-day Golden Age stem from Hill Street Blues, which gave TV writers license to be TV trailblazers.

Hill Street Blues had a sprawling universe of engaging yet flawed characters, a zippy pace and layers of overlapping dialogue (all scripted, Bochco says), shot in a documentary style.

But what really set the show apart were the multiple narratives that interlaced each episode with those that came before and after. 

With the rare exception of the few prime-time soaps, almost every series up to that time — whether comedy or drama — made each episode freestanding, with a reset button for the one that came next.

In 2016, Bochco recalled a fan telling him that Hill Street Blues was the first TV series with a memory.

In 1993, Bochco brought to the air another cop drama that proved to be a hit with critics and audiences - NYPD Blue

'That's what I always thought of myself doing in the context of TV: craft a show that over time would have a memory,' he told AP in 2016. 

'I sensed that very early in my career. It just took me another 10 or 12 years to get to the point where I earned the right to take a shot at it.'

Premiering in January 1981, Hill Street Blues challenged, even confounded the meager audience that sampled it. 

Then, on a wave of critical acclaim, the series began to click with viewers, while scoring a history-making 27 Emmy nominations its first year.

During its seven-season run, it would win 26 Emmys and launch Bochco on a course that has led to dozens of series and earned him 10 Emmys and four Peabody awards.

'I had a 20-plus-year run where I was pretty much the captain of my own boat,' he said, 'and I loved it. But TV is a business where the goal posts keep moving.' 

Debra Messing, star of Will & Grace, was hired by Bochco to appear on NYPD Blue

Reginald Hudlin, the film writer and director, tweeted: 'This man meant the world to me'

'Damn. He truly innovated AMERICAN television,' actor Wendell Pierce, star of hit shows like The Wire and Suits, tweeted on Sunday

TV producer Jim Michaels tweeted: 'Television really lost a legend today... RIP Steven Bochco'

'He was a true maverick,' Jennifer Tilly, an Oscar-nominated actress who appeared on Hill Street Blues in 1984-85, tweeted on Sunday

Tributes for Bochco kept pouring in on Sunday.

'If you were a TV fan in the 80s you know what a huge loss this is,' tweeted actor Nik Carter.  

Debra Messing, the star of Will & Grace, was hired by Bochco to appear on NYPD Blue.

'So sad to hear of Steven Bochco's passing,' she tweeted.

'He was a pioneer, a gentleman, and gave me my first job in prime time tv.

'Rest well, sir. You will be missed.'

 'Damn. He truly innovated AMERICAN television,' actor Wendell Pierce, star of hit shows like The Wire and Suits, tweeted on Sunday.

'He was a true maverick,' Jennifer Tilly, an Oscar-nominated actress who appeared on Hill Street Blues in 1984-85, tweeted on Sunday.

'Hill Street Blues changed the way we watched TV. It was an honor to work with him.' 

Reginald Hudlin, the film writer and director, tweeted: 'This man meant the world to me. 

'Mentor is not a strong enough word. Nor is friend. 

'He taught me so much about the business, and life, and always had my back. 

'I'm so sad.' 

Bochco was married three times. He is survived by his wife, Dayna, and two children from a previous marriage to actress Barbara Bosson.