Jack Webb is a California native born in Santa Monica, California, in 1920. He grew up in Los Angeles with his mother, as his father left home before young Jack was born. Young Jack was Catholic and an altar boy at his church in Echo Park. He attended Belmont High School near downtown LA, where he was student body president as a senior. 

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Jack enlisted in the US Army Air Corps but was "washed out" of pilot training. He later received a hardship discharge because he was his mother and grandmother's primary financial support.

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His radio career started in San Francisco at KGO Radio. He hosted "The Jack Webb Show," a half-hour comedy airing on ABC Radio. He left his comedy career behind by 1949 by starring in "Pat Novak For Hire" with up-and-coming Raymond Burr. It featured some initial examples of "hard-boiled" dialog, sometimes humorous, but always profound. 

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He also starred in "Johnny Madero," "Pier 23," "Jeff Regan, Investigator," (below), "Pete Kelly's Blues," "Murder and Mr. Malone,"  and "One Out of Seven" (which dealt with racial prejudice).

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Mr. Webb's turn to law enforcement for professional material for a string of radio dramas, films, and television began in 1948. "Dragnet" premiered on NBC radio in 1949 with the help of LAPD chief William H. Parker. The radio series episodes would later start with the words "The Big..." Episodes had titles like "The Big Steal" or "The Big Deal." The series included a realistic portrayal of the police with intricate sound effects, including long stretches of footsteps down hallways, steps, and the like and small talk between Webb and his assistant. 

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He also penned a book about the LAPD police department and the individual stories of various policemen and women. He would always side with the police officers and write about the low pay and high injury rate of officers who sometimes lost their jobs due to illness or injury. 

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The TV series "Dragnet" began and ran concurrently with the radio show for its entire run. The original TV series premiered before being seen across mid-Illinois on January 3, 1952, and aired through September 1959. Even while doing "Dragnet" on radio and/or television, he performed roles in several films, including "Sunset Boulevard" with William Holden, "Dark City" with Charlton Heston, Lizabeth Scott, Dean Jagger, Don DeFore, Ed Begley, and Harry Morgan. Morgan and Webb would team up almost 18 years later in the re-incarnation of "Dragnet" in 1967. He also appeared in Marlon Brando's first film, "The Men," when Webb and Brando played former soldiers with paraplegia at a VA hospital. In 1955, he produced, directed, and starred in "Pete Kelly's Blues," a film in which he played a coronet player for a jazz band and was a private investigator. 

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In the early 1960s, after the cancellation of both "Dragnet" TV and radio series, he became the executive producer of the anthology series "GE True," an anthology series in which he narrated, acted, and even directed a few episodes. Webb took a significant step in February 1963 when he took the job formerly held by William T. Orr (he was married to Jack L. Warner's stepdaughter) as executive in charge of Warner Brothers Television. 

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First, I'm a big fan of Jack Webb. Although, I had a massive problem with one of his first moves as head of the WB Television Productions. He destroyed the once popular series, "77 Sunset Strip," by firing all the regulars except for Efrem Zimbalist, Jr.. He removed all of the charm of the original series and the chemistry of the supporting cast members. The music and location changed, and the first seven episodes were the most bazaar ever seen on television at the time, with a standard storyline. It had Stuart Baily (played by Zimbalist) going worldwide to solve a murder. It featured many famous and up-and-coming guest stars, each introducing themselves with a close-up headshot at the beginning of each episode, one after another, including Zimbalist. The result was a disaster for the series and ABC; as expected, the critics hated it. It resulted in him leaving Warner Brothers by December 1963 (unrelated to the song by Frankie Valli).

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After the second "Dragnet" left the airwaves, he was still producing other series. They included "The DA," starring Robert Conrad and Harry Morgan(before M*A*S*H), "O'Hara, United States Treasury," "Harry O," and "Emergency!" "Hec Ramsey," "Project UFO," along with a 1983 try at "Dragnet" with him co-starring with Kent McCord (of "Adam-12") as his younger partner. Five episodes were filmed but never shown.

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It's been reported that he owned over 6,000 jazz record albums and even played on some, as he was a coronet player. He married jazz singer Julie London in 1947 but divorced in 1954. They had two daughters. Later, Jack approved the casting of his ex-wife, Julie London, with London's husband, Bobby Troupe, in the TV series Emergency! in the 70s.

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His daughter Stacy Webb also authorized and collaborated on a book about her father, Jack Webb, entitled "Just the Facts, Ma'am: The Authorized Biography of Jack Webb, Creator of Dragnet, Adam-12 and Emergency!" Finally, in 1999, the book she collaborated on was published. Still, she didn't live to see it published as she was killed in an automobile accident with a California State Police vehicle three years earlier.

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Jack Webb died from a heart attack at 62 on December 23, 1982. On his death, LAPD Chief Daryl Gates announced that badge number 714 would be retired. Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley had all flags in the city lowered to half-staff in honor of Jack Webb. He was buried with a replica LAPD badge with the number 714.