Denne Bart Petitclerc and Briney Jarvis were friends and reporters for the San Francisco Chronicle in the early 1960's. Denne had been writing screen scripts for TV shows, and came up with the idea for TCB after having known Birney Jarvis. The Bronson character is modeled after Birney and portrays many of his traits. The deal was made with MGM, and you can see in the opening credits that Birney was listed as the assistant to the producer who was Robert Justman.