Cannell Gone

Stephen J. Cannell, Prolific TV Writer, Dies at 69

By Bill Carter

Stephen J. Cannell, one of television's most prolific writers and series creators, whose work encompassed the "The Rockford Files" and "Wiseguy" to "The A-Team" and "The Greatest American Hero," died Thursday at his home in Pasadena, Calif. He was 69.

Stephen J. Cannell created almost 20 series, including "The A-Team," with Dwight Schultz (in cap) and George Peppard. He also had a hand in "Wiseguy" and "21 Jump Street."

The cause was complications from melanoma, his family said.

For 30 years, beginning in the early 1970s and extending through the 1990s, television viewers could hardly go a week without running into a show written by Mr. Cannell. His writing credits include more than 1,000 episodes of various series, primarily crime dramas, and he is listed as the creator of almost 20 series -- some long-running hits like "The Rockford Files," and "The Commish," others quick flame-outs like "Booker. " At one point in 1989, Mr. Cannell's company was producing five series on three networks. One of them, "21 Jump Street," introduced a future Oscar nominee to public acclaim: Johnny Depp.

But that was not unusual. Mr. Cannell's shows often opened doors for emerging actors. Jeff Goldblum gained his first wide notice in a short-lived but well-remembered Cannell series, "Tenspeed and Brown Shoe." And "Wiseguy" gave another future Oscar winner, Kevin Spacey, a chance to stand out in a memorable extended turn as a villain.

Mr. Cannell, who regarded his writing less as an art than a craft to which he was both committed and devoted, never writing less than two hours a day, shifted late in his career to crime novels and again proved he had a popular touch. Several of his 16 books, many featuring the detective Shane Scully, were best sellers.

"Most of my things strike to the same theme," Mr. Cannell said in an interview this year in Success magazine, "which is not to take yourself so seriously that you can't grow."