As Broward’s sheriff, Nick Navarro was half-lawman, half-celebrity — allowing Cops TV crews to trail his deputies while launching a highly publicized obscenity crackdown against local rappers 2 Live Crew.

Out of office for almost two decades, Navarro’s controversial, colorful reputation is still one of the most famous chapters in Broward County history.

Navarro, 81, died Wednesday at home, his wife Sharron by his side. He had been suffering from colon cancer.

After being kicked out of office by Broward voters in ’92, Navarro ran a private security firm bearing his name.

But it was his eight-year tenure as Broward’s unorthodox sheriff that Navarro is most known for, thanks in part to his key role in permitting the television show Cops to film BSO deputies during its first season.

Other eyebrow-raising endeavors included Navarro ordering the arrest of rap group 2 Live Crew on obscenity charges, Navarro’s deputies cooking up their own crack cocaine to use in furtherance of drug stings, and Navarro coping with jail overcrowding by placing prisoners in a tent.

“He was on TV so much, he was on 60 Minutes,” said Nova Southeastern University law professor Bob Jarvis, who co-authored a book on the BSO’s history. “For the average person, if they could name only one Broward Sheriff, they would most likely be naming Nick Navarro.”

Even before his somewhat eccentric antics, Navarro was an unlikely sheriff due solely to his party affiliation: A Republican in a staunchly Democratic county.

The Cuban-born Navarro was sworn in as Broward’s top cop on Jan. 8, 1985, and promptly told the assembled reporters “you guys in the press are going to get a lot of ink out of me.”

Navarro kept that promise — and then some. He singlehandedly turned the Broward Sheriff’s Office into a celebrity law enforcement agency by allowing Cops to film his officers making arrests. As such, it’s fair to call Navarro one of the founders of the now-widespread genre known as reality TV.

In 1988, when television producer John Langley had the idea for a show where camera crews would tag along with policemen on their daily calls, the only law-enforcement official in America willing to cooperate was Navarro. These days police departments clamor for attention from Cops — now in its 24th season on Fox.

But during that first season, the show’s production crews followed only Broward sheriff’s deputies.

“Cops is the first reality-TV series, and Nick Navarro was instrumental in launching it,” Langley said Wednesday from his office in Hollywood, Calif. “When I called to ask him about it, he just said, ‘Come on down, let the chips fall where they may.’ He had guts, he had gumption, he was intrepid.”

Langley credits Navarro with ushering in a new era of transparency in law enforcement. Navarro’s critics, however, called him a relentless self-promoter who, somewhat ironically, routinely thumbed his nose at the rule of law. Rappers 2 Live Crew were ultimately acquitted of violating obscenity charges; Navarro’s practice of cooking up crack cocaine in police labs sparked outrage; the sheriff’s tent prisons had judges furious.

“Be a good Nick,” one judge famously told Navarro. “Not a god, Nick.”