Edward W. Egan was born in
Queens, New York City on January 3, 1930, to Irish-American parents. Raised by his grandmother after being orphaned at age 12, he joined the
U.S. Marine Corps in 1947. After his second discharge, he joined the
New York City Police Department (NYPD) in 1955. The book was adapted into a motion picture
of the same name, released in 1971. The movie was highly fictionalized and very successful. The character based on Egan,
Jimmy "Popeye" Doyle, was played by
Gene Hackman, who won an
Academy Award for his performance (the film also won Oscars for Best Picture, Director, Screenplay, and Editing). The character was called
"Popeye" because that was Egan's nickname in real life. Egan played a role in the movie as Hackman's supervisor, Simonson. Egan and Grosso were also technical advisors. Soon after the film was released, Egan asked to retire from the NYPD. He won an appeal, and his pension was reinstated. Egan played Lt. Scanlon in the movie, once again (like in
The French Connection) as an authority figure more or less sympathetic to the protagonist whose personality is based on himself. Also in 1973,
ABC ordered and aired a television pilot entitled
Egan, this time with
Eugene Roche playing Egan, a tough
NYPD cop transferred to
Los Angeles, but it failed to go to series. In 1986, Fox developed
Popeye Doyle, a proposed series based on the fictionalized character from the two films rather than Egan himself, with
Ed O'Neill playing the title character. Although the series was never produced, the pilot was broadcast as an NBC-TV Movie and has been shown in syndication. After retiring from the NYPD, Egan became a full-time actor, usually playing law-enforcement figures. He portrayed the head of the NYPD's
Son of Sam task force in the 1985 movie
Out of the Darkness, and throughout his career, he played roles in more than 20 movies and television series. He moved to
Fort Lauderdale, Florida, in 1984. ==Death==