As a writer and TV producer, Huggins created some of the most memorable TV shows of all time: Maverick (1957-1962), 77 Sunset Strip (1958-1964), The Fugitive (1963-1967), and The Rockford Files (1974-1980). Plus many others that are not so well known — he wrote at least 350 TV and movie scripts.
In 1961 an episode of his series Bus Stop dealt with a psychopathic killer; around the same time, Federal Communications Commission chairman criticized TV as “a vast wasteland”, and Bus Stop was held up as an example. In response, Huggins wrote that “The public arts are created for a mass audience and for a profit; that is their essential nature. But they can at times achieve truth and beauty, and given freedom they will achieve it more and more often.” And he went on to prove that before he died, on April 5 in Santa Monica, Calif., at 87.