A tribute to Law & Order's Adam Schiff, Steven Hill

Longtime readers of this blog know of my deep affection for LAW & ORDER. It was one of three shows (the other two being ER and HOMICIDE) that acted as my gateway drugs into modern television drama in the mid-90s. For my money there has never been a better procedural drama than the original L&O. The caliber of writing was not just the best of its era, but it stands above many shows even in this later period of "peak TV." 26 years after its debut, the writing of the early seasons still holds up, save for a few instances where everyone has rather quaint views about the internet and cell phones. I'm trying to imagine TV drama from the 1970s holding up as well during the time frame when I discovered L&O.

I came into L&O casually in the fifth season and then fell hard for the show in season six after it did a then-unusual crossover with HOMICIDE. Pretty much concurrent with this, I was channel-surfing and stumbled upon L&O reruns on A&E. Except... there was something weird. There was no Jerry Orbach, no Sam Waterston. They were replaced by Michael Moriarty (whom I vaguely recalled having seen stories about a couple years earlier, when he quit the show after attacking the Attorney General in the press) and Paul Sorvino. So how did I know that this was Law & Order?

Because Adam Schiff was there.

Even with so much around him that was different, Steven Hill still held court with the same wry wisdom and "Make a deal" drive I was so familiar with from his scenes overseeing Sam Waterston. He was a comfortable presence, a constant amid the regularly changing casts. For a long time he was an answer to the trivia question, "Who was the longest-serving cast member of Law & Order?" Sometimes it was inaccurately claimed he was the only one left from the very beginning, though actually joined in the first episode after the original pilot. Still, he outlasted everyone else from the first season by the time he departed the show after season 10.

Steven Hill died this week at the age of 94. Just looking at that number makes me feel like we should be celebrating his longevity rather than dwelling on mourning his loss. It's never quite that easy, though, is it? The man's resume is quite remarkable. It makes it all the more ironic that to the best of my memory, the only project I saw him in outside L&O was The Firm. This is not a career-encompassing obituary. For that, I'll direct you to Variety's excellent memorial.

In the Law & Order: The Unofficial Companion written by Kevin Courrier & Susan Greer, Hill's co-star Jill Hennessy recalls an exchange with Robert Duvall. "On the set of The Paper, Robert Duvall said to me, 'So I hear you work with Steven Hill on that Law & Order. He's the best working actor today, bar none.'" In another anecdote, showrunner Rene Balcer fondly stated, "I love writing for Steven Hill more than anyone else. He's one of the few actors who will call and tell the writers to give him fewer lines. And then when you give him the lines, he'll say give him fewer words. Then you give him the words and he'll say 'Give me fewer syllables.'" He didn't need long speeches to make an impact.

Hill never thought the show would be a huge hit. "I felt, especially in the beginning, the format was so predictable," the Companion quotes him as saying. "I wondered how long people were going to be able to take this. I was never a detective story buff; I could really care less. I didn't have the patience for the whodunit puzzle but the audience never tires of it."

Schiff would usually pop up for three or four scenes in most episodes, often to get cranky about the state of the case on McCoy or Stone's desk and to advise them to "make a deal!" A lesser actor might have played Schiff like the demanding boss from hell. Instead, Hill was a presence that was at once fatherly, Yoda-like and disciplinarian.

Though he had been on the show for four years before Waterston arrived, the two actors quickly fell into a dynamic reminiscent of a father and son. With Jack's complicated history with his father, it was easy to see how he'd look up to Schiff, even while his rebellous nature often put him at odds with that same affection he sought. Jack McCoy needed Adam Schiff. The younger man's righteous crusades were as noble as often as they needed to be reigned in. In Schiff existed the one person who could yank McCoy's leash when needed and still have his back.

Law & Order always worked best when Jack was the crusader for justice who wielded the law like a sword in pursuit of what was right. But a character like that can only exist so long as he has someone above him bound by the rules of the real world, someone who can throw cold water on Jack's windmill tilting. Neither Dianne Wiest nor Fred Thompson's characters were up to that task after Hill left. Wiest was a wishy-washy presence at best. Thompson's character's more conservative nature led to some interesting clashes with Jack, but you never felt like McCoy respected him in the same way he did Schiff. If Jack pulled an end run that Schiff disapproved of, even if he got away with it in the courtroom, you knew there'd be consequences for the two men's friendship. Thompson's Arthur Branch felt like the sort of arrogant boss one would enjoy disobeying.

(This is also why I feel like Abbie Carmichael was a lesser assistant for Jack. On paper it seems interesting to give him a partner who's even more of a loose cannon than he is. The problem is that it weakens Jack to not be cowboy in the room, and it forces him to play Schiff's role, thereby rendering much of the Schiff/McCoy dynamic moot. It worked better when years later, karma got its revenge on McCoy by putting him in Schiff's office where he didn't have the luxury of bending the rules so far. And naturally, he was given an Executive Assistant DA who bent the rules even more aggressively than Jack himself did.)

People who accuse Law & Order of being nothing more than a plot-driven procedural have overlooked how much the character relationships are woven into the fabric of the cases. It's also escaped them just how important the actors and their characters are to the stories. Steven Hill was irreplaceable as Schiff. His dry comments often either helped cut to the core of a point for the audience, while bringing a bit of humor to the moment. I recall one moment when Claire Kincaid expressed frustration with a miscarriage of justice, only to be reminded by Schiff, "We don't make the system, we just try to survive in it." Hill gave those words the weight of a lifetime of experience. You could easily understand that he meant "we can argue about how the world SHOULD be for hours, but at the end of it, we'll still be back here with the same problem. Find a solution that works."

In another episode, former ADA Jamie Ross returned as a defense attorney and twice out-maneuvered her former bosses. Upon hearing that Ross's strategy had caught even McCoy with his pants down, Schiff remarked, "I knew there was a reason I hired that young lady." He even has the opportunity to rub it in later when another of Jack's strategies blows up in his face.

Steven Hill always played Schiff like he was the smartest guy in the room even as he was resigned to the reality he'd be ignored until proven right. And maybe three or four times a year, the writers would give Hill a story where Schiff had even more to work with. The seventh season finale "Terminal" involves a case where the governor wants the DA to seek the death penalty, but Schiff feels it's not warranted. Concurrent with this, Schiff's wife has suffered a stroke and is hospitalized on a ventilator. The governor removes Schiff under the pretense that the family crisis has impaired the DA's judgement. McCoy follows Schiff out the door and the two of them take the governor to court. There's a nice moment where the courtroom histrionics of McCoy and his adversary are trumped when the soft-spoken Schiff stands up and sums it up in a brief speech that ends, "The governor thinks he's above the law. He's not." Few actors have the presence that could make such a simple statement carry real import.

And then there's the moment at the end of that episode. After signing the DNR for his wife, Schiff stands by his wife's bedside as her ventilator is turned off. The entire action of the scene is played on his face. We hear the machines, the breathing and the heart monitor. We hear the ventilator deactivated, the heartbeat briefly continuing... and then clear beeps of distress preceding a flatline. Hill lets out a whimper - not an agonized cry but a brief whimper that one might mistake for "No..."

Even typing this now, I can hear that moan in my head and it's agonizing. His wife dies right before his eyes, and rather than going for overwrought tears, Hill chooses to play Schiff's pain in a more subtle way. It's all in his eyes and he looks so... lost. It's one of the most affecting depictions of death I can recall seeing on TV, and it's all evoked with such minimalist directing and acting. Hill made you feel Schiff's loss by allowing the audience to project their emotions onto him.

I could quote Schiff all day. My favorite Schiff one-liner might be from "Double Down," where he notes a defendant "confessed to a murder to avoid being prosecuted for a murder. I'm putting this one in my memoirs."

Someone pointed me to a collection of his best one-liners, and I'd like to end this on my favorite McCoy/Schiff exchange from "Showtime."

Schiff: "Started with a murder, ends with an execution. You got what you wanted. Take the rest of the week off."
McCoy: "It's Friday, Adam."
Schiff: "So it is. See you on Monday."

Farewell, Steven Hill.

A Farewell to Law & Order and Jack McCoy, TV's greatest prosecutor

Farewell, Jack McCoy.

If that name has no meaning for you, then you likely haven't turned on a TV in the last sixteen years or so. Since the 1994-95 season, Sam Waterston has brought the character of Jack McCoy to life each week on Law & Order. Introduced as the Executive Assistant District Attorney, McCoy finally got a promotion to New York's District Attorney three seasons ago. He's the prosecutor we all wish was representing us, the guy who looks beyond politics and goes strictly after justice.




Tonight, after 20 seasons on NBC Law & Order will air its last original episode. 20 seasons! The only scripted show on TV that is older than that is The Simpsons, which beats L&O's first airdate by nine months. That kind of achievement is likely to never be seen again in TV. Think about this - there are students graduating college this spring who cannot remember a world where Law & Order wasn't on the air.

As the final episode was shot while it was still assumed the series would get a 21st season, the finale will likely offer no closure for long-time fans. It's utterly shameful that NBC would treat a long-time cornerstone of its lineup with this much disrespect, and one hopes that the rumors of a two-hour TV movie to tie up all the lose ends prove to be true.

It was one of the first major series to tackle issues like abortion and child abuse. The show regularly "rips from the headlines," often borrowing details of set-ups from real life cases before spinning them into new directions. Executive Producer Dick Wolf always says, "The first half of the show is a legal mystery, the second half is a moral mystery."

I started watching the show occasionally in the fifth season, McCoy's first, and became a full-blown regular viewer in season six. For me, the golden age of Law & Order is pretty much Seasons 5-10 and 18-20. When I did Mock Trial for two years in high school, I modeled my performance on Jack McCoy and walked away with three "Best Attorney" awards.

(How did I get three awards in two years? Well, each team has to compete in two trials, one as the plaintiff and one as the defendant. Usually each team member only takes one part in one trial. I handled the closing arguments and cross-examinations for both sides. So after spending the morning fighting for the plaintiff and totally demolishing the defense's witnesses on the stand, I then played the defense attorney in the afternoon and likewise cleaned the prosecution's clock.)

Late in my high school years, I discovered that A&E ran two episodes a day and within a matter of months I'd seen most of the series. When I entered college, I even scheduled my classes around the afternoon reruns. (That might - MIGHT - be an exaggeration. Or it might not.) I became a true crime buff and there might have even been a brief point when I considered pursuing law as a career. The reason I didn't? Because I don't think I wanted to be a lawyer so much as I wanted to be Jack McCoy. The thing I love about Jack is that he's always out for justice. He's not political - he's neither Republican nor Democrat even though his values and motives often coincide with one side of the aisle or the other - and neither is the show.

Now, there are some pinheads out there who are probably already set to disagree with that statement. Head to Deadline.com and you can find a few people complaining loudly that the show promotes a "leftist agenda" and is little more than "hippie liberal propaganda," just as a trip over to sites like Television without Pity will fairly easily lead you to some poster decrying executive producer Dick Wolf for using the show as a platform for conservative, ring-wing ideals. Anytime each political party is accusing you of shilling for the other guy, you're doing something right.

I remember when I first fully realized that I was neither Republican nor Democrat, but what I call a Jack McCoy-ican. The ninth-season finale of the series was a two-part episode called "Refuge," wherein Jack took on the Russian mob. The second part opened with the aftermath of a brutal hit that claimed the life of an ADA on the case, left an 8 year-old witness critically wounded and killed his mother. Already Jack had dealt with the opposing attorneys leaking information so that jurors could be intimidated and when the Russians plant a bomb in the basement of Police headquarters, Jack has had enough. He announces he plans on having the suspects rounded up. When his second chair and his boss remind him he doesn't have enough evidence to make the arraignments stick, Jack says he's not going to present them for arraignment. His boss, the always crusty (and much missed) Adam Schiff isn't pleased:

Adam Schiff: I see. You're planning to violate three, no, five amendments to the Constitution.
Jack McCoy: It's time someone talked to Mr. Volsky in a language he understands.
Adam Schiff: And what language is that?
Jack McCoy: Adam, unless you order me not to do it ...
Adam Schiff: I'm ordering you! (leaves)
Jack McCoy: (to his second chair ADA) Hand me that stack of arrest warrants.

Thus, Jack has his suspects locked up in what amounts to a suspension of habeas corpus, appealing to higher and higher courts to keep them locked up indefinitely.

Notably, this episode aired in 1999. Had this been done post-9/11, it would be difficult not to draw comparisons between this and the legal shellgame that the Bush Administration played with the Guantanamo detainees, many of whom might not have belonged there. The difference is, when Jack does it it's for justice and not for political gain. I defy anyone to watch that two-parter and not cheer as Jack not only locks these men up without a second thought, but then defiantly argues in higher and higher courts to keep them where they belong. And as much as the episode has characters call Jack on this behavior, it's pretty clear we're supposed to see him as heroic.

So if you look at that today, you'd be expecting Jack to be on the same side of the political spectrum as Karl Rove, right?

In the very next episode "Gunshow," the tenth season opener, deals with a case where a gunman shoots a dozen or so women in a park. The investigation quickly uncovers that the gun was a legal semi-automatic that had be easily modified into a fully-automatic weapon. McCoy learns that to make the gun tamper-proof, it would have added about $50 to the manufacturing cost of a gun that retailed for over a thousand. Outraged at the negligence, he prosecutes the gun company.

Before long, the DAs get some disturbing evidence. An internal memo shows that they not only knew about the flaw, but felt that making the gun tamper-proof would have actually hurt sales. As Jack says, the gun's vulnerability is their whole marketing plan. In doing so, he gives one of the greatest closing arguments in the series history (one I can't quote effectively because it relies on some visual components) and actually wins the case, only to have the judge set aside the verdict.

The "gun control" aspect of the plot likely ticked off a number of conservatives, just as the previous episode offended some liberals. But that's Law & Order. It deals with political issues, but it is not political itself. Everyone has had their turn as the target. No single political viewpoint is 100% right, and the show understands that better than people who make their living off of politics.

Five more Jack McCoy episodes that you MUST see:

Angel (season 6) - In a story inspired by the Susan Smith case, Jack prosecutes a mother who believes God wanted her to kill her baby, and is very nearly outmaneuvered by a green defense attorney (played by Fisher Stevens) who allows Jack to underestimate him.

Double Down (season 7) - One of the series' best episodes ever. McCoy makes a immunity deal with an armed robber who killed a cop while fleeing with his missing accomplice, agreeing to a light sentence in return for the location of a kidnapped taxi driver. When the driver is found dead, McCoy works to get the agreement nullified, then stops as soon the cops discover the robber's accomplice dead. The cops are perplexed until McCoy reveals his legal shellgame, arguing that the immunity applies only to the cop's murder and not the robber. Since he kept the robber's statement, he can use it as evidence that the two men worked together on the robbery. As Briscoe notes, "So he walks for killing a cop, but you nail him for killing the cop killer?" But it's still not that simple, and the twists keep coming right up until the end. (Netflix this one NOW!)

Thrill (season 8) - McCoy tangles with the Catholic Church to make a confession admissible in the prosecution of two teens who killed a delivery boy. This episode boasts some of Jack's slyest maneuvering as he gets the defendant's trials severed from each other to keep each boy from pointing the finger at the other as the real killer, then prosecutes them simultaneously in two different courtrooms.

Nullification (season 8) - McCoy takes on members of a right-wing militia who killed an armored truck driver while robbing an offtrack betting parlor. The militia leader represents all the men at trial and argues that they should be treated as POWs in a war against the government and push for the jury to nullify. Even when things turn against him at trial, Jack's win-at-all-costs attitude still won't allow him to use government records that should have been destroyed in order to bump one more juror and get a mistrial. After what has to be one of Jack's greatest closing arguments ever, the jury returns a hung verdict. The delighted militia leader gloats, "Admit it, Mr. McCoy. We won." With conviction in his voice, Jack says, "You didn't win anything. The system you wanted to destroy won. I'll see you back here in a couple months. Enjoy your freedom. While you still have it."

Under the Influence (season 8) - While prosecuting a drunk driver, Jack gets emotionally involved recalling how his previous assistant and lover was killed by a drunk driver. When he bends the rules to put away the defendant, he crosses a line that could get him disbarred.

There have been great episodes in the last few years too, as the new EADA Cutter has shown an even greater ingenuity than Jack in bending the rules. It's amusing to see Jack dealing with this younger, brasher version of himself. (Somewhere, Jack's former boss Adam Schiff must be smiling.) Even better, when McCoy calls Cutter on the carpet, Cutter is always quick to site an earlier episode where Jack bent the rules in similar ways. As a Law & Order fanboy, I enjoy trying to beat Cutter to his references and its nice to see a show that remembers its history even 10 or 15 years after the fact.

So farewell, Law & Order. We'll always have the reruns and the DVDs, but it won't be quite the same.