Wambaugh Opens Police ‘Files’ to TV Audience

Ex-cop Joseph Wambaugh can now add a new twist to his resume: TV show host.

The best-selling author will provide the on-air introductions for “From the Files of Joseph Wambaugh,” a potential two-hour anthology series debuting this fall on NBC.

The first drama, “Jury of One,” stars John Spencer (who plays lawyer Tommy Mullaney on “L.A. Law”).

Wambaugh, whose Lido Isle home is still on the market more than two years after he and his wife, Dee, moved to San Diego County’s exclusive Rancho Santa Fe community, describes the pilot episode as “sort of typical Wambaugh stuff. It’s a cop who’s stressed out, guilt-ridden, burned out, drinking too much and involved in a mysterious series of murders involving Latino gangs.”

Each episode of the proposed series, which is expected to air three times a year a la “Perry Mason” and “Columbo,” will feature a different story and different stars, according to Wambaugh. A second script--about women cops--has been ordered and is being written.

Contrary to early press reports, Wambaugh says the anthology series is not inspired by his real-life experiences as a Los Angeles police officer. He also has no hand in writing any of the scripts.

“I’m doing it the way we did ‘Police Story’: I introduce writers to the cops (who have stories to tell),” he said, referring to the hourlong police anthology series that aired in the ‘70s.

With the exception of TV interviews, Wambaugh’s hosting chores mark his first time in front of a camera.

The author says the experience was so “nerve-racking” that he tried to relax by thinking of a role model. At first he thought of Rod Serling, but then he dismissed “The Twilight Zone” host as “too commanding.” Alfred Hitchcock, he said, was “too droll” and Alistair Cooke was “too distinguished.”

“And then I finally hit on it,” Wambaugh said. “I watch ‘Mystery’ on PBS every Thursday. I thought I’d be a slightly more butch version of Diana Rigg.”

Of his pending TV debut, tough guy Wambaugh admitted: “I’m still nervous about people seeing me on camera. But this will not be the silliest film performance of the last year. Kevin Costner gets that for ‘Robin Hood.’ I’m second.”

Greg Bills of Corona del Mar, a 1991 graduate of the UC Irvine Program in Writing, has sold the hardcover and paperback rights to his first novel, “Consider This Home,” to Simon & Schuster.

Bills says the novel, which is due out in the winter of 1994, is drawn from the Bible story of Abraham and Isaac and provides a commentary on patriarchy and sacrifice in the Mormon religion.

“It’s about a Mormon woman and her son who flee Utah to begin a new life in Las Vegas. But they must return to Utah to face the woman’s past and the boy’s stepfather, who wants to immerse his son in the church,” says Bills, who grew up in Midvale, Utah, and received his bachelor’s degree in English from the University of Utah.

Bill began writing the novel while he was a graduate student at UCI. He is the third of his Program in Writing classmates to sell a first novel. “Copper Crown” by Lane von Herzen was published by William Morrow and Co. in 1991, and Katherine Vaz’s “Suadade” is due out by Ballantine Books this winter.

Scott Cheney has been named literary services coordinator for READ/Orange County, the Orange County Public Library’s new literacy program.

The program will be offered in five literacy centers, which will open between now and October in library branches in La Habra, San Juan Capistrano, Garden Grove, Tustin and Westminster.

An estimated one in five American adults is functionally illiterate, according to Cheney, former executive director for Literacy Volunteers of America in San Diego. “READ/Orange County is designed to reach the ‘hard to reach’ learner.”

The literary services, according to Cheney, “will be highly goal oriented,” with tutors structuring the learning process around individual goals such as obtaining a driver’s license, filling out a job application or reading to children.

READ/Orange County, which is designed to complement existing literacy services in the county, is funded by a five-year grant through the California State Library’s California Literacy Campaign.

For more information, call (714) 566-3070.

Book Signings. Peter Robinson (“A Necessary End”) and Judith Van Gieson (“The Wolf Path”) will sign at 3 p.m. Saturday at Book Carnival, 348 S. Tustin Ave., Orange. . . . Lori Herter (“Confession”) will sign from 1 to 3 p.m. Saturday at Tustin Used Books, 215 W. First St., Tustin. . . . Mystery writers Serita Stevens (“Red Sea, Dead Sea”), Jill M. Morgan (“Between the Devil and the Deep”), Liza Pennywitt Taylor (“The Drummer was the First to Die”) and Nicholae Baker Gerstner (“Finders Keepers”) will sign from 2 to 4 p.m. Sunday at Mystery Ink, 332 Forest Ave., Laguna Beach.

Poetry Readings. Laguna Poets will hold an open reading at 8 p.m. Friday at the Laguna Beach Public Library, 363 Glenneyre St. Free. . . . “Degrees of Expression,” a monthly open poetry reading will be held at 7 p.m. Sunday at Fahrenheit 451, 540 S. Coast Highway, Laguna Beach.

Silent Auction. The Friends of the Westminster Library are holding a silent auction of history books through Sept. 19 at the library, 8180 13th St. Included are books on the Civil War, the Spanish-American War and biographies.

Send information about book-related events to: Books & Authors, View, The Times, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, Calif. 92626.