Jack Webb Collection

Jack Webb
(1920 – 1982)

The square is one of the most important symbols of Freemasonry, and being "fair and square" has always been one of the most important of manly virtues. When Jazz became the music of the counterculture in the 1940s, being square meant being rigid and one-sided, stuck "in the box". Although he may never have expressed it, Jack Webb was a man with a mission. Jack Webb was going to make being square cool.

Webb was born in Santa Monica, California, April 2, 1920, and grew up in the slums of LA’s Bunker Hill district, just outside of downtown Los Angeles. His father left before he was born and Jack never knew him. His mother came from Irish and Native American stock and ran a boarding house with her mother.

According to the Jack Webb legend, one of the tenants at the boarding house was a broken down jazz musician who gave Jack a copy of Bix Beiderbecke’s "At the Jazz Band Ball". Jack developed a lifetime love of Jazz. Although he practiced for hours on the cornet trumpet, he never really mastered the instrument, but thanks to his dedication to the art form he was able to move through the smoky world of Jazz musicians. Although he couldn’t be a player, he did get a feel for show business.

During the War, Webb signed up for the Army Air Force but he "washed out" of flight school. He later received a hardship discharge because he was the sole means of support for his mother and grandmother. After leaving the service, Jack moved to San Francisco where the War had created a need for radio announcers. He landed a half-hour comedy spot in 1946 on the ABC affiliate KGO which was titled The Jack Webb Show. The Hard-boiled Detective genre was just beginning to take off, and The Jack Webb Show’s writer, Dick Breen, wrote a detective show, Pat Novak for Hire. Jack landed the lead in his friend’s new show and discovered that he was much more suited for serious roles than comedy.

Webb also worked on the commentary program One Out of Seven in 1946.  The premise of the program was to retell one of the seven most interesting news stories from the past week. The material was taken from the Associated Press and International News Service, and Webb performed all the voices on the show.

Breen and Webb followed up Pat Novak with Johnny Modero, Pier 23, on Mutual. Another example of the Hard-boiled school, Modero has a flavor as reminiscent of San Francisco as clam chowder and sourdough bread. The show was a summer replacement series and was not renewed for the fall season. Eventually, Webb gained an audience at CBS and put together Jeff Regan, Private Investigator for the 1948 season. As an operative for the International Detective Bureau, Regan had a wider range than Webb’s previous gumshoes, and he was partnered with Joe Canto, played by Barton Yarborough. Webb only stayed with Regan for one season. He was slowly trying to get into film and dropped hints in Variety that his next radio project would be built around a character named Friday.

The picture that gave Webb his movie start was He Walked by Night (1948), the story of a Glendale, California, cop gone bad. Webb played a relatively minor part as a forensics expert who matched the scratches on the bullet casings to the murder weapon.  One day on the set, Jack struck up a conversation with the film’s technical advisor, Detective Sgt Marty Wynn. The stories Wynn had to tell fascinated Webb, who realized that with the right treatment they could be great radio plays. The result was the highly realistic Dragnet.

After Dragnet became a runaway success for NBC, in 1951 the network gave Webb a chance to expound the music that was an important part of his life with Pete Kelly's Blues. Set in Prohibition-era Kansas City, the show was set around a Jazz band leader (a cornet player, no less) who played in a speakeasy and worked as a private eye on the side. The program was sustained by the network and only lasted through one summer, but the concept was compelling enough for Warner Bros. to put it on the big screen in 1955, and Webb’s Mark VII Productions put it on TV in 1959.

Dragnet was also a natural for TV. Debuting in 1951, it would go on to be one of the iconic police procedural dramas of all time. Webb’s Mark VII would also produce Adam 12 (1968-1975), Emergency! (1972-1977), Project UFO (1978-1979) among others.

Jack Webb died of a heart attack on Dec 23, 1982. Two Stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame honor Jack Webb, one at 6728 Hollywood Blvd for his contributions to Television, and the other at 7040 Hollywood Blvd for Radio. LAPD Chief Daryl Gates announced that badge number 714, Joe Friday’s badge, was retired from the LA Police Department.