Roscoe Lee Browne would have been a more than formidable villain. He literally screen tested his believable depth in Rest In Peace, Mrs. Columbo. Without opportunity in these lead roles, talent is languishing and ideologies perpetuate about capabilities that couldn't be more farther from the truth. African-Americans didn't lead in the older episodes neither the later episodes ending in 2003. I am a mammoth Columbo fan, but that ostentatious lack of opportunity would have to be my Just One More Thing question and not necessarily for the character himself, but for the stakeholders behind the scenes.

I think there were no Black killers because they couldn't come up with a storyline which would have a brilliant rich Black person devising an intricate murder plot.
They wore the blinders which were common at the time - Black people were considered to be intellectually inferior.
But, consider Johnny Cash's character. They cast a Southern country & gospel musician as a killer who comes up with a plot that almost fools Columbo. A Southerner! Like me! Other than that one part, I don't remember any other time when a Southerner nearly outsmarts Columbo. That's because we were often depicted as laughably ignorant.
What about Ricardo Montalban's Mexican bullfighter? He is rich and has Caucasian facial features. But his victim does not look like an upper class white man. That episode is cringe-worthy because of the stereotypical Mexicans, like the taxi driver and the fat lady.
Black people in Columbo were cops, football players, cab drivers, servants, or background extras.

My sentiments exactly.

Yup

It was crucial that Columbo always be the underdog, and never be seen (even in the viewer's unconscious mind) as "picking on" somebody who is socially disadvantaged compared to himself.

There were real-life black millionaires, even then, but we had not yet reached a point in TV-Land where viewers could readily accept a black character as an oppressor, rather than the oppressed -- especially in a show as "class"-oriented as "Columbo". It's a very, very sticky subject, and it has to do with the archetypes (or if you insist,stereotypes) of TV story-telling in shows that present parables rather than real life. Yet, it's interesting that, as was pointed out, the producers actually did want to do an episode with James Earl Jones.

That's probably true. Of course, along with James Earl Jones, there were some other black actors, even when Columbo started, who were so "high-profile" that what you mention wouldn't have been a problem with them. As far as TV actors in, say, 1971, I can't help thinking of Bill Cosby and Dianne Carroll.

Diahann Carroll would have worked. She could have played the character of the fading dancer who killed her unsupportive husband and was bailed out by her dance partner. It's simple where there is a will there is a way.

I'm glad I posted the original question, because responses like this have given me what I was looking for. It's given me different ways to look at a situation that was really perplexing to me. I have a feeling that each of us who has given their theories have probably hit on the true reasons. I also have no doubt that if Peter Falk were young enough to have Columbo be a regular series again, we would finally have our first black murderer! (Gary Coleman, anyone?? just joking...)

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It was crucial that Columbo always be the underdog, and never be seen (even in the viewer's unconscious mind) as "picking on" somebody who is socially disadvantaged compared to himself.

There were real-life black millionaires, even then, but we had not yet reached a point in TV-Land where viewers could readily accept a black character as an oppressor, rather than the oppressed -- especially in a show as "class"-oriented as "Columbo". It's a very, very sticky subject, and it has to do with the archetypes (or if you insist,stereotypes) of TV story-telling in shows that present parables rather than real life. Yet, it's interesting that, as was pointed out, the producers actually did want to do an episode with James Earl Jones.

Levinson and Link are on record as saying they always wanted to have a black guest star, particularly James Earl Jones or Sammy Davis, Jr.

However, at a panel discussion in Los Angeles in the 1990s, Peter Falk said he would certainly have objected to the idea, had he ever heard it during production. He said, and I am paraphrasing, that the audience roots for Columbo because he is a regular guy, and the murderer is someone with every advantage in the world. Falk said that a black murderer would seem more like Columbo than like a villain who has squandered his advantages in life. He went on to say that it might have become different by the time of the event--perhaps society had evolved enough to allow the lack of sympathy he felt was necessary.

The most interesting part for me was seeing that Falk and Levinson & Link had obviously never discussed the question in 25 years.

Thanks, Lee. I'd say you can't get any more accurate an answer than what you posted...coming from the mouth of Peter Falk, himself. To hear that he was honest enough to say that he would have rejected the notion of a black murderer back then was surprising, but his reasoning makes sense to me, especially given the time period.

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Levinson and Link are on record as saying they always wanted to have a black guest star, particularly James Earl Jones or Sammy Davis, Jr.

However, at a panel discussion in Los Angeles in the 1990s, Peter Falk said he would certainly have objected to the idea, had he ever heard it during production. He said, and I am paraphrasing, that the audience roots for Columbo because he is a regular guy, and the murderer is someone with every advantage in the world. Falk said that a black murderer would seem more like Columbo than like a villain who has squandered his advantages in life. He went on to say that it might have become different by the time of the event--perhaps society had evolved enough to allow the lack of sympathy he felt was necessary.

The most interesting part for me was seeing that Falk and Levinson & Link had obviously never discussed the question in 25 years.

I can understand Falk's comments in the context of the 1970s, but can that same defence be used for the episodes which ran throughout the 90s and the 00s?

I am from the UK so cannot lay claim to being an expert on social class in the US, but it strikes me as bizarre that even in the 1990s a black person, whatever their job or upbringing, would not have enough social status to be a workable Columbo villain.

Thanks Lee for sharing the research information you gathered. I understand what Peter is saying but view it from the angle that Peter was speaking in terms of extreme absolutes when a character such as Tommy Brown or Beth Chadwick to a lesser extent or Kay Freestone, for example, may be considered sympathetic villains. Again, thanks for your research.

I can't help thinking that James McEachin would have made a good killer, along with the two roles he did play. And he was all over TV at the time, so a third COLUMBO wouldn't be strange.
Maybe he never got completely out of the "character actor" category, but in a way that's true of some other actors who played killers, like Clive Revill (at least in this country).

James would have been an excellent choice.

It's late, I'm tired, I want to go to sleep but I don't like your answer Ted for too many reasons. No matter what the 'times' that this particular show was produced, writers are all about creativity and different techniques. They were smart enough to have done a show or shows with African-American lead actors.

I can't speak for Peter Falk but, in fairness, I'm not sure he would have had the same thoughts on this subject in the 1990s, or would have given the same quote, as he did during the original series.

In answering the question at the event I saw, which was in the 1990's, Falk seemed to decide right at that moment that things might have changed enough for it to work. He was not running out to call casting agents, but he acknowledged that race relations had progressed in the previous 20 years.

And just to clarify...there was no implied racism in Falk's analysis at all! Just the opposite, actually, as he cited prejudicial treatment of black Americans as the reason he had not favored the casting choice earlier.