Michael Sloan , the television writer and producer who co-created The Equalizer alongside Richard Lindheim , died Wednesday in New York City. He was 78.

Born in New York City in 1946, Sloan grew up surrounded by show business. His grandfather, Fred Stone, was a vaudeville star best known for playing the Scarecrow in the 1902 Broadway production of The Wizard of Oz . His parents, Paula Stone and Michael Sloane , were Broadway producers, staging a string of plays throughout the 1940s and 1950s.

Sloan’s own career began in England, where he wrote and produced three early films — the 1972 short Hunted and the features Assassin (1973) and Moments (1974). By 1976, he had made a splash in American television, penning the Columbo episode “Now You See Him,” the show’s o

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