Barbara Bosson passed away on February 18 at a hospital in Santa Monica, California. She was an actress who turned a fleeting cameo as a frustrated single mother on the popular station-house drama series “Hill Street Blues” into a regular role as the tenacious ex-wife of a police captain. She was 83 years old.
Jesse Bochco, her son, confirmed the passing but did not give a reason.
During its 1981–1987 run, “Hill Street Blues,” which Steven Bochco, the then-husband of Ms. Bosson, co-created, reinvented the police-show genre with cinéma vérité-style camera work and characters whose flaws, fears, and contradictions were on full display. Few characters carried as much emotional weight as Ms. Bosson’s Fay Furillo.
As Capt. Frank Furillo’s child support check bounced, and Fay stormed into the station in the NBC series’ first episode to confront him. Daniel J. Travanti played the character. Without holding back, Fay scolds the captain in front of the other officers.
According to Steven Bochco, Ms. Bosson’s scene was planned as an isolated incident to prevent conflicts with network officials regarding nepotism. However, viewers voiced their opinions. Fay swiftly joined the show after proving to be popular.
As a result of playing a character who reinvents herself to aid crime victims and adopts a cheeky confidence with catchphrases like “Hey, buster,” Ms. Bosson has gotten five Emmy Award nominations in as many years.
In 1987, Ms. Bosson told The Washington Post, “I sort of had a constituency.
Women would write to her, she claimed, expressing how much they related to Fay’s issues and saying things like, “You are me, and if you can do well, I can, too.”
So I started to feel like I represented some essential folks who aren’t portrayed on television, Ms. Bosson said.
After the fourth season, Steven Bochco departed the program because to disagreements with MTM Enterprises, the show’s producers, regarding the cost and plots. Michael Kozoll, the show’s co-creator, left during the second season. After the fifth season of the show, Ms. Bosson left, claiming that the show’s creators and producers were steadily robbing her character of its complexity.
In an interview with Playboy magazine in 1983, she claimed, “I’m like Fay in some of the amusing ways. I occasionally become so enraged by something that I speak out loud in public. Fay is a victim forever.
Ms. Bosson frequently remarked that one of her most satisfying experiences came from researching the role of a victim advocate and convincing Bochco to include it in the development of her “Hill Street Blues” character.
“The people who do this job are truly courageous,” she told The Post. “So I looked up what that position entailed, and I said my husband, ‘Come on, let’s make Fay a victims’ advocate. She’s the classic victim, for God’s sake. It’s an excellent progression. While it took him a full year, he eventually gave in to me.
The program developed a devoted following of viewers who puzzled over elements like the locale (a gritty, nameless northern metropolis that Steven Bochco once suggested was a combination of “Chicago, Pittsburgh, New York, and Newark”). Be careful out there! is a remark used by Sgt? Phil Esterhaus (Michael Conrad) at the conclusion of the precinct’s morning briefing that has become commonplace over the years.
The program had a tremendous impact on a generation of later television dramas, like Bochco’s “NYPD Blue” on ABC from 1993 to 2005 and NBC’s “St. Elsewhere” (1982–1988), which linked plotlines and the character intricacies.
Ms. Bosson continued to appear in crime dramas, including three that Bochco created for ABC: “Hooperman” (1987–1989), in which she co-starred with John Ritter as a police captain; “Cop Rock” (1990), in which she played a mayor; and “Murder One” (1995–1997), in which she played a deputy district attorney. She was nominated for a sixth Emmy for supporting actress in a drama series for that performance.
Barbara Ann Bosson was born on November 1, 1939, in Charleroi, Pennsylvania, and raised in the nearby community of Belle Vernon, which is located south of Pittsburgh. Her mother was a stay-at-home mom, and her father, an ambitious tennis instructor, also worked as a milkman. While Ms. Bosson was a senior in high school, the family relocated to Gulfport, Florida.
Despite being accepted into Carnegie Tech’s (now Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh) theater program, she was unable to pay the fees. She relocated to New York and performed a variety of jobs while enrolling in acting school, including hostess at the Playboy Club in Manhattan and assistant in television production.
She enrolled in Carnegie Tech as a freshman in 1965 at the age of 26. There, she met aspiring actors Bruce Weitz and Charles Haid, who would later work with her on “Hill Street Blues,” and Bochco (they were married in 1969). Ms. Bosson was hired by the Committee, a San Francisco-based improv group, while she was on summer vacation. She didn’t go back to Pittsburgh to finish her degree.
Ms. Bosson made her acting debut as a nurse in the 1968 crime drama “Bullitt,” which starred Steve McQueen. She also participated in the 1974 film adaptation of the Broadway musical “Mame,” which starred Lucille Ball, and the thriller “Capricorn One” (1977).
The union between Ms. Bosson and Bochco was dissolved. She is survived by her son as well as a daughter named Melissa Bochco, a brother, and two grandchildren.
Ms. Bosson was pleased that her performance in “Hill Street Blues” touched viewers. She stated there were two forms of fan mail in an interview from 1983.
It’s evident from the messages I receive from men who claim to despise me that they believe I to be their ex-wife, she added. “Yet, the majority of my feedback comes from folks who express gratitude for witnessing some of their difficulties on television. I had no idea I even existed.
