The Original Version

You may think this is odd, but I actually enjoy finding out that TV shows I grew up with were ripped off from another source. Most television shows lean heavily on something else for inspiration (Arrested Development would not have existed without The Royal Tenenbaums, for example), so it's not really an indictment of a show to say that its premise is borrowed from something else. But it had escaped my notice where Remington Steele came from: Theodore Tinsley's "Carrie Cashin":

A former department store detective, Carrie now runs the Cash and Carry Detective Agency, whose standard fee is a whopping $1000. Mind you, she gets the job done, never letting little things like the law get in the way. Breaking and entering, lieing to the police, even a little armed robbery or kidnapping, if that's what it took. Posing as her boss, and fronting the agency is Carrie's partner, muscular Aleck Burton, a tough, but easy-going guy... but it's Carrie's show all the way.

Robert Butler, the veteran director who came up with the idea for Remington Steele, was obviously trying to re-do Carrie Cashin, but without actually calling it that.