Exclusive interview with author Joseph Wambaugh Part 1 of 2

Joseph Wambaugh Photo by Dee Wambaugh

The year was 1951 and it’s snowing in East Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. A teenage boy is trudging through the snow covered streets of the borough dutifully making his rounds as he delivers the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette to his customers. Coming in the opposite direction he recognizes his freshman Latin teacher from East Pittsburgh High School. In a play for sympathy from one of his toughest instructors, the boy immediately transforms into the character of a frostbitten paper carrier slogging through the heavy Western Pennsylvania snowfall.

The snowbound delivery boy in this scene was none other than the famous LAPD cop turned author Joseph Wambaugh, in what may have been his first foray into the world of the creative arts. Although the character of the downtrodden delivery boy may not have reached the depth or nuance of the characters he would later create in his bestselling novels, the act seemed to have served its purpose. Soon afterward the Latin teacher surprisingly began to treat young Joe Wambaugh quite a bit more favorably in her class.

Consequently, this was one of the stories told by the famous author during a recent phone interview with the Pittsburgh Law Enforcement Examiner. The bestselling author of The Blue Knight, The Choirboys, and the Onion Field, is about to release his nineteenth book. Entitled Hollywood Moon it is the third in his line of Hollywood Station novels. The interview went on for over one hour and covered topics such as; Wambaugh’s memories of growing up in East Pittsburgh, his police career with the LAPD, his writing career, and the inside story on his new novel. Since the volume of information was too large for a single article this will be the first of two parts that cover the interview with Mr. Wambaugh.

Question: How long did you live in Pittsburgh?

Joseph Wambaugh: Until the end of my freshman year at East Pittsburgh High School I was 14 years old.

Q: Any vivid memories of Pittsburgh from that time?

Joseph Wambaugh: I remember East Pittsburgh very well. My dad was the Chief of Police in East Pittsburgh when I was a young child. I remember when one of the guys would drive by they would hit the siren for me. I had a good feeling for cops from an early age. I went to Catholic School at St William’s School thru the 8^th grade then 9^th grade I went to East Pittsburgh HS. And that was the end of my time there.

Q: Plan on ever coming back for a book signing or anything?

JW: I don’t have any plans right now but I will let you know if I do. I don’t get around much anymore I’m an old man.

Q: While you don’t sound like you are how you keep in touch with the phraseology in your books.

JW: I do a lot of research with cops as you can see from the acknowledgement page.

Q: Was your father a big influence on you becoming a police officer?

JW: Possibly, you know on some unconscious level, because I always had a good feeling toward cops. Probably because my dad was one, that probably had an effect on me subconsciously so I would probably have to say yes.

Q: When you were a police officer was there any particular case that sticks out in your mind that you could put a finger on that was a really important case for you?

JW: I don’t know about that so much but since I worked in LA most people want to know about show biz stuff. So when I worked at Wilshire station my first plain clothes assignment there, when I only had about 2 ½ years on the job we had what was called ‘Felony car’ we used to ride around in plain clothes in a plain car and look for felonies. It was kind of a patrol job but we were in plain clothes.

We spotted a couple of guys in a car in a parking lot at night. So we went and pulled them out and my partner took out the driver on his side and I took out the passenger. We got ID and patted them down and asked them ‘what are you doin’ out here?’ and my guy said ‘well we are at an actors studio up there and we came down and we got to talking and time got away from us. We are not doing anything wrong not doing dope or anything we are just sitting here.’

At this time he was not known to anyone, but I recognized him because I’m an old movie buff. Back in East Pittsburgh I used to go every Saturday afternoon to the theater, and see the double feature. I knew who all the child stars were, like ‘the little rascals’ and ‘our gang’ and I recognized this dude. He couldn’t believe it because he had left that all behind and wanted to be a real actor. At this time he was about 26 years old. I looked at his driver’s license and he said, ‘I m an actor really.’ Then I said I know who you are Mr. Blake.

Then many years later when I was a cop/writer I went on Johnny Carson. Blake was the highest paid actor in series television at the time because he had the show ‘Baretta’ and he was making a ton of money and was a big star.

The producer prepped me before the show and said, ‘we got a couple of guys on tonight you will be guests with have you ever met Robert Blake? And I said yeah and I described the story to him. They went out and prepped the audience and told them about Joe Wambaugh when he was working a plain clothes detail and pulled Robert Blake out of a car when Blake was a struggling nobody.

By that time when Blake was on the Johnny Carson show he had erased from his mind that he had been a child star on ‘Little rascals and our gang’ and he played in many feature films as a child actor. When I used to go to the Saturday matinee there used to be a serial called ‘Red Rider’. I used to have a ‘Red Rider’ BB gun when I was a kid. Red rider’s sidekick was a little Indian papoose. The papoose’s name was ‘little beaver’ and little beaver was Robert Blake. So I knew all this because I am a movie buff. So this is what I explained to the producer and the producer told the audience about this and all about ‘little beaver’.

Here is Blake who told people publicly that he was a starving actor on the streets and had to steal milk from the stoop next door in order for his family to survive. He had wiped out of his mind that he was a child star. So the audience is in on it all and Johnny is in on it all, Blake doesn’t know anything and doesn’t know what is going to happen.

So when I get called out, Blake was already done with his thing, he’s got that big cockatoo that was from the show. He had the bird on his shoulder and he is sitting there real cool. So I come out and Carson says here is the author/cop Joe Wambaugh. I sit down and Johnny says, “Joe have you ever met Robert Blake?” and I say “Oh yeah,” and the audience starts to giggle and Johnny has a little smirk and Blake looks puzzled. Then Johnny says, “Oh yeah? Well where?”

So I described it and I can see the light dawning on Blake. We get to the punch line; now remember it was all setup, so Johnny says “Did you arrest Mr. Blake for anything Joe; that night?”

And I said, “No way, I didn’t want to go down in motion picture history as the guy that busted ‘little beaver.’”

Now remember Blake has tried to hide all this from everybody. He was so pissed off he turned white and everybody is laughing. We go to commercial he jumps up the damn cockatoo goes flying he leaps up storms off the set and leaves. So I said to Johnny, “Was that kind of mean what we just did to that guy?”

Johnny said, “Screw him this is show biz.”

Q: Do you get your story ideas from a specific place?

JW: As I mentioned if you see the acknowledgement page you will see the names of a lot of cops. I interviewed 50 cops for Hollywood Station 50 more for Hollywood Crows 50 more for Hollywood Moon.

Q: When you start writing a story do you know how it is going to end or does it just evolve?

JW: Usually it evolves; I don’t know what is going to happen. I don’t use any outlines I just sort of start spinning a yarn around the anecdotes that the cops have given me and I hope it turns into a coherent novel.

Q: Can you put a time frame on how long that takes until you finish the first draft?

JW: The first draft on average takes a couple of months. Then about another month or two for the re-writes. So maybe about 4 or 5 months to finish the book 6 months tops.

Q: Any ideas on your next book?

JW: Well I had my first cop meeting the other night and trying to get another one going this weekend with three women officers and I’ve got calls in to several LAPD cops male and female asking if they can please set them up. I do a dinner and drinks meeting. I try to do four cops for dinner or lunch if they don’t have to go back to work. Lunch is fine, because you know you got to have a couple drinks to get them talking. With the women you don’t have to worry about it they will talk. But the guys need a couple drinks. I just sit there and listen to them, I don’t talk I listen and I have a big yellow legal pad and a pencil. No recording devices, cops don’t like recording devices. I just listen and take notes, keep the food and drinks coming and hope something happens. I don’t know if it is going to work until a later time when I sit down and review all my notes.

Q: In the book Hollywood Moon there is a reoccurring theme that in contemporary policing it can be very frustrating at times to be a police officer, do you thing that it is more difficult to be a police officer today than it was when you were a cop?

JW: Oh yes sure. A lot of PC going on, I don’t mean probable cause I mean political correctness, a lot of criticism going on from the outside, diversity, complaints of racial profiling. Back in my day there was none of that, LAPD back in my day kind of just ruled the streets.

Q: That brings me to the Federal Consent Decree for LAPD, that has been lifted correct?

JW: Actually it was lifted after I finished Hollywood Moon in Hollywood Moon they are still complaining about it. It created an atmosphere that was really bad, paperwork galore a horrible time for LAPD. Why? the Rodney King affair. My god that involved one sergeant basically. Instead of just saying ‘lets swarm this thug and handcuff him,’ he conducted that weird beating that was so strange. And then, the so called Rampart scandal where the cops stole dope, planted dope, that involved two guys. For that 9,000 cops had to suffer for years.

Q: In your book the plot is pretty complex where you have all the characters impacting each other’s lives in the end, you kind of answered this earlier, how do keep a handle on that so that it all makes sense and it all fits together?

JW: Well sometimes I just don’t know if it will all fit together as I am creating a puzzle and am if I am going to make all the pieces fit into place. Sometimes I am not sure when I am in the middle of the book. That is why I do something that very few writers do, I do not accept any money from my publisher until I have a book. Most writers, I would say about 99% of writers get money in advance. I won’t take any money for a book until I know I have a book. In other words I have the finished product, ‘here’s the thing that I wrote do you want to buy it?’ And I’ll let them even look at it. I don’t make any deals on the cuff; I won’t say ‘I want this much for a two book deal.’ I won’t do it. I am not satisfied that I’m gonna have a book until I see the book myself. So I really don’t know what’s gonna happen until I get there.

Q: Do you have any advice for Police officers that wish to become writers?

JW: Well they have to be good readers, if they are not good readers forget it, it is not gonna happen. So that’s the first thing, if they are not good readers they should find another hobby. But if they are good readers and they like to write I would say maybe a creative writing class at a community college might help, a literature class. But taking notes is probably the key. I used to have boxes full of notes that I took when I worked as a cop. I used to take notes on anything that I thought was worth writing down. So when I started writing I had all these piles of notes that I had stored for years. So keeping notes is of paramount importance, because you will not remember things that you think you will never forget. You will forget even a small thing write it down put it in a box. So if you do think you want to write a story dig out all of these things. You would be amazed that you could have a treasure trove in there that at the time it didn’t seem like much. It was just one little thing, but a lot of little things add up and they become more than the sum of their parts.

This is the end of part one of the interview look for the concluding article in the coming week. Also in late November the Pittsburgh Law Enforcement Examiner will publish a review of Joseph Wambaugh's new book Hollywood Moon.

Joseph Wambaugh's website: www.josephwambaugh.net/index.html