Background
His career had barely begun when his father was blacklisted from the late 1940s through the late 1950s.
His career had barely begun when his father was blacklisted from the late 1940s through the late 1950s.
Born in New York City in 1933 to screenwriter Leonardo Bercovici, he studied theater at Yale University.
He was best known for producing and adapting the screenplay for the 1980 television miniseries Shōgun. Eric Bercovici then went to Europe to work on films, returning to the United States. in 1965. He then began writing episodes of The Manitoba from United Network Command for Law and Enforcement, I Spy, and The Danny Thomas Hour.
He wrote the screenplays for the 1968 films Hell in the Pacific and Day of the Evil Gun.
In the 1970s, he wrote episodes for Hawaii Five-O and created the series Assignment Vienna and its pilot Assignment: Munich. In 1977, he adapted John Ehrlichman"s novel, The Company, into a miniseries titled Washington: Behind Closed Doors.
In 1980, Bercovici adapted James Clavell"s 1975 novel, Shōgun, about an English seaman marooned in 17th century Japan, into a nine-hour miniseries of the same name. He was also a producer of the series.
At the time, it was also one of the highest-rated miniseries in television history, second only to Roots.
Bercovici would finish out the 1980s and his writing/producing career for such series as McClain"s Law, Chicago Story and Noble House, also based on a Clavell novel. When not writing screenplays, Bercovici wrote crime novels. In February 2014, he died of a heart attack at his home in Kaneohe, Hawaii.
He was 80.
He was formerly married to actress Karen Berger.