Steve Kosareff

Steve Kosareff wears multiple creative hats due to many interests.  He is an author, graphic designer, historian, screenwriter, film director, editor and producer. His first book, WINDOW TO THE FUTURE: THE GOLDEN AGE OF TELEVISION MARKETING AND ADVERTISING, was published by Chronicle Books in 2005. The book fondly looks back at the culture of marketing and advertising television sets during the golden age of American manufacturing in the 1950s and 60s. Kosareff next wrote, produced and directed a related documentary, TV MAN: THE SEARCH FOR THE LAST INDEPENDENT DEALER about the few remaining mom-and-pop stores which sold and repaired television sets in the United States.

Also a student of film noir, Kosareff for several years considered writing a book about Los Angeles’ most famous midcentury murder case. Motivated to produce a treatment for a television producer, he finally began writing the book after extensive research. The resulting true crime memoir, SATIN PUMPS: THE MOONLIT MURDER THAT MESMERIZED THE NATION will be published by WildBlue Press on February 2, 2021.

In the book, Kosareff revisits the infamous 1959 Finch-Tregoff murder case. Dr. Bernard Finch and his girlfriend and medical assistant, Carole Tregoff, conspired with others to murder his wife, Barbara Jean at their hilltop West Covina home. Kosareff was just eight years old when Finch (who also happened to be the family doctor) murdered his wife. Kosareff’s personal connections to the principles and his close physical proximity to events proved to be invaluable in building the story from his point of view as a child and later as an adult looking back at contradictions that have plagued the case for sixty years. Through extensive research and conclusions based on fact, Kosareff believes he has arrived at long sought-after answers.