Who originally played TV's Los Angeles police lieutenant Columbo?

Bert Freed played Columbo in a live 1960 television episode of the "Chevy Mystery Theatre" entitled "Enough Rope". This was seven years before Peter Falk played the role, and also before Thomas Mitchell portrayed the eccentric police detective on stage prior to the Falk version. Freed, a stocky character actor with a thatch of grey hair, wore a rumpled suit and smoked a cigar, but he otherwise had few of the other now-familiar Columbo mannerisms. However, the character is still recognizably Columbo, and uses some of the same methods of misdirecting and distracting his suspects. During the course of the show, the increasingly frightened murderer brings pressure from the district attorney's office to have Columbo taken off the case, but the detective fights back with his own contacts. Although Freed received third billing, he wound up with almost as much screen time as the killer and appeared immediately after the first commercial. This teleplay is available for viewing in the archives of the Paley Center for Media in New York City and Los Angeles.