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Some of TV's most memorable characters - Bret Maverick, Dr. Richard Kimble (The Fugitive), Stu Bailey of 77 Sunset Strip and Jim Rockford - all sprang from the mind and pen of Roy Huggins. This immensely talented screenwriter and producer of television left a legacy of work that is still being enjoyed by fans to this day.

Huggins was born in Litelle, Washington, and graduated from the University of California. After a civil service stint in World War II, he began writing, training himself by copying Raymond Chandler's Farewell, My Lovely in longhand. In 1946, he wrote his first novel, The Double Take. It was serialized in The Saturday Evening Post and introduced private eye Stu Bailey. This detective in the vein of Philip Marlowe would appear in three more Huggins short stories before becoming the principal character of 77 Sunset Strip. He wrote two more novels before he realized he could make a better living as a screenwriter. The Double Take was turned into a film, and Huggins wrote screenplays including The Fuller Brush Man and The Good Humor Man, and Hangman's Knot.

In 1955, Huggins moved on to television, working first for Warner Bros., and then for Universal. He created Maverick, which premiered in 1957 and starred James Garner as Bret Maverick, a silver-tongued gambler in the Old West who would talk a big game but hide like a coward when the fighting started. Huggins also brought his literary private eye, Stu Bailey, to TV in 77 Sunset Strip, starring Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. as Bailey.

In 1963, Huggins created The Fugitive, which would later be regarded as one of the finest anthology-drama series of all time. Starring David Janssen, the series focused on Dr. Richard Kimble, falsely convicted of the murder of his wife but freed en route to death row by a train wreck. Kimble criss-crossed the country, evading re-capture and searching for the one-armed man he saw fleeing the scene the night his wife died. The show was a huge success over its four season run(for many years, its finale was the highest rated program in TV history) and it in turn inspired an Academy-award winning film in 1993 starring Harrison Ford and Tommy Lee Jones, as well as another series in 2000.

Huggins also created Run for Your Life with Ben Gazarra, a moderately successful series inspired by The Fugitive; The Outsider, a private eye drama starring Darren McGavin; and, another great success, The Rockford Files. Reuniting with James Garner, Rockford turned the private eye genre on its ear just as Maverick had done a number on Westerns. Jim Rockford didn't have a leggy secretary, often was on the receiving end of beatings and hardly ever carried a gun. His charm, combined with the sharp writing and supporting cast, carried the series and today it is considered a classic. It was on this series that Huggins began working in earnest with Stephen J. Cannell. Cannell, now a successful writer/producer with several hits under his belt, credits the lessons he learned from Huggins with a great deal of his success in television.

While at Warners, Huggins ran afoul of studio executives who regularly tried to deny him credit and compensation for the shows he created. This led to Huggins demanding ownership of shows that he created, after incidents on 77 Sunset Strip saw his credit as creator taken away. The demand became known in the industry as the "Huggins contract." The best example of the "Huggins contract" in action was the deal Huggins struck for The Fugitive, which allowed him to sell the film rights for the 1993 film.

Though Huggins was a producer on Baretta and Alias Smith and Jones, he was not an active showrunner until his protege, Stephen J. Cannell, brough Huggins out of retirement to run Cannell's series Hunter for three seasons.

With the shows and protagonists he created, Roy Huggins broke the mold and gave TV some of its most memorable characters. His fellow writers, actors and producers loved working with him and acknowledge the huge influence he has had, both on crime programming and on television in general. As long as viewers still tune in to see Richard Kimble on the lam or Jim Rockford on the case, Roy Huggins' legacy will live on.