to his wife play the piano and was described by his New York Times obituary as fond of "monogrammed, cream-colored silk underwear" and that off-duty he was "the gentlest of men." He was said to be upset by his portrayal by Robinson in Bullets or Ballots because Robinson was shown drinking and smoking. After his retirement he sold his life story to RKO Pictures for $75,000, to be made into a motion picture titled "Broadway's One-Man Riot Squad." A 1948 report said that the screenplay was to be by Herman J. Mankiewicz, who knew Broderick from his days as a newspaper reporter. The film, which was to star Robert Ryan, was never made, and plans to have a television series or musical made about his life persisted through 1959, but did not come to pass. He died of heart disease on his birthday at his farmhouse outside Middletown, New York, where he raised horses and dogs. He was survived by his wife, the former Marion McShea, his daughter, Marion Farinon, three sisters and nine grandchildren. He was buried in Pine Lawn Cemetery in Massapequa, Long Island. In 1933 it was reported that he had been married for 14 years at the time, and that he had two daughters, Margaret and Marion. Legacy The brutal methods used by Broderick and other officers were sanctioned by the police department during their era, and praised as "fearless." Beginning in the 1960s, however, New York police sought to curb that kind of conduct. Training programs were established teaching officers to observe the civil rights of suspects and the public. By the 1980s, it was feared that the pendulum had shifted back toward brutality, as complaints of assaults by police climbed. Broderick was cited by The New York Times in 1985 as an exemplar of the old methods of policing. At the time of his death in 1966, Walter Henning, an assistant chief inspector and a colleague of Broderick's, called him a "man of his time," and said that "under restrictions today, he'd have a difficult time doing the things he did." But during Prohibition, he said, "when these people [gangsters] went in and out of court it was like a revolving door, they had rather be locked up than to meet Johnny." In his 2011 book American Police a History, 1845–1945, Thomas A. Reppetto, a former Chicago detective commander and ex-president of the Citizens