Inspired by a famous Russian novel.......

Development and actors who played Columbo[edit]

The character of Columbo was created by William Link, who said that Columbo was partially inspired by the Crime and Punishment character Porfiry Petrovich as well as G. K. Chesterton's humble cleric-detectiveFather Brown. Other sources claim Columbo's character is also influenced by Inspector Fichet from the 1955 French suspense-thriller Les Diaboliques.^[14]

The character first appeared in a 1960 episode of the television-anthology series The Chevy Mystery Show, entitled Enough Rope. This was adapted by Levinson and Link from their short story "May I Come In", which had been published as "Dear Corpus Delicti" in an issue of the Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine. This story did not include Columbo as a character.^[15] The first actor to portray Columbo, Bert Freed, was a stocky character actor with a thatch of grey hair. Freed's Columbo wore a rumpled suit and smoked a cigar, but he otherwise had few of the other now-familiar Columbo mannerisms. However, the character is still recognizably Columbo, and uses some of the same methods of misdirecting and distracting his suspects. During the course of the show, the increasingly frightened murderer brings pressure from the district attorney's office to have Columbo taken off the case, but the detective fights back with his own contacts. Although Freed received third billing, he wound up with almost as much screen time as the killer and appeared immediately after the first commercial. This teleplay is available for viewing in the archives of the Paley Center for Media in New York City and Los Angeles.