Page "Broderick Crawford" Paragraph 8

In 1955 television producer Frederick Ziv of ZIV Television Productions offered Crawford the lead role as " Chief Dan Mathews " in the police drama Highway Patrol, which dramatized law enforcement activities of the California Highway Patrol ( CHP ).

ZIV operated on an extremely low budget of $ 25, 000 per episode of Highway Patrol, with ten percent of gross receipts due to Crawford under his contract.

While the show's scripts were largely fictional, the use of realistic dialogue and Crawford's convincing portrayal of a hard-as-nails police chief helped make the show an instant success.

Highway Patrol remained popular during its four years ( 1955 – 1959 ) of first-run syndication, and would continue in repeat syndication on local stations across the U. S. A. for many years afterward.

For much of the period from 1955 until 1965 most of Crawford's television roles involved ZIV Television, who was among the relative handful of producers willing to accept the occasional challenges inherent in working with the hard-living Crawford.

Years later Ziv admitted to an interviewer, " To be honest, Broderick could be a handful!