Andre Braugher's Breakout Homicide: Life On The Street Role Was Based On A Real Cop

Long before he was promoted to captain for "Brooklyn Nine-Nine," Andre Braugher stunned viewers with an Emmy-winning performance as Detective Frank Pembleton on "Homicide: Life on the Street." The seven-season NBC series was inspired by David Simon's non-fiction work "Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets," with many characters pulled directly from the book itself. Braugher's Pembleton, for instance, was based on real-life Baltimore detective Harry Edgerton.

"When we were shooting the pilot, I sat for about six hours with Harry, asking him questions, mostly revolving around interviews in the box with suspects, accomplices, or witnesses and how to elicit information," Braugher once told the Television Academy. "He gave me the real skinny, and I would employ those techniques over the next six years." It's no wonder that Pembleton had the most "black on the board" – that is, the department's highest number of solved cases.

Aside from interrogation techniques used in the best episode of "Homicide," Braugher's character shared plenty of personality similarities to the real-life detective. Described by Simon as "an enigma to his colleagues," the quips the other on-screen detectives make about Pembleton in the pilot, "Gone for Goode" — ribbing on his ties, his penchant for Emmylou Harris, and his New York attitude — are all spot on. Edgerton was also something of a loner, a trait that naturally carried over to television.

Of course, just because Frank Pembleton was inspired by Harry Edgerton doesn't mean that he's a 1:1 adaptation. While both were highly educated Black men from New York who challenged common stereotypes at the time, the "Homicide" series ultimately took the character in a different direction. One example can be found in Pembleton's struggles with his Catholic faith in the third season — something Edgerton never hinted at — as well as the circumstances surrounding his retirement.

"They used the book as a jumping-off point," Simon told the Television Academy. "Andre Braugher's Detective Pembleton and Richard Belzer's character [Detective John Munch] had much more going on in their brains than actual detectives, a lot of whom were, 'Get the job done, f*** this, f*** that, solve the case, go home, drink a beer.'" Clearly, to become one of the best police procedurals on television, one must go above and beyond real life.

While every member of the "Homicide" cast pulled their weight during the show's run, Braugher was the breakout star. Frank Pembleton rose above his real-life inspiration to become a television icon — one who came to define good police work on the small screen.