Everyone has to start somewhere, and for film great Michael Mann, an iconic '70s cop show was not a bad place to do it.

Besides a couple of short-film projects that were never widely released, Michael Mann's first-ever screen credit was for writing a first-season episode of "Starsky and Hutch" in 1975. Indeed, the first few years of his career were spent writing scripts here and there for cop shows -- between 1975 and 1978, he also wrote episodes of "Police Story," "Police Woman" and "Bronk" (a forgotten show that starred Jack Palance, and only lasted a season).

By 1978, he was given his own show to create and write, "Vega$," starring Robert Urich. That ran until 1981, the year he released his first feature film, "Thief," which he wrote, produced and directed, and which is now considered a crime-cinema classic.

Though this introduced Mann to the big screen, he never abandoned TV. Most notably, he created "Miami Vice" a few years later (some episodes of which were directed by Paul Michael Glaser, better known as Dave Starsky in "Starsky and Hutch").

Mann's eye recently turned to the small screen again. He'll be producing, writing and directing the miniseries "Hue 1968," about the Vietnam War.

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