James Sikking, who starred as a hardened police lieutenant on “Hill Street Blues” and because the titular character’s kindhearted dad on “Doogie Howser, M.D.,” has died at 90.
Sikking died of issues from dementia, his publicist Cynthia Snyder mentioned in a press release Sunday night.
Born the youngest of 5 youngsters on March 5, 1934 in Los Angeles, his early performing ventures included an uncredited half in Roger Corman’s “Five Guns West” and a bit function in an episode of “Perry Mason.” He additionally secured visitor spots in a litany of well-liked Seventies tv sequence, from the action-packed “Mission: Impossible,” “M.A.S.H.” “The F.B.I.,” “The Rockford Files,” “Hawaii Five-O” and “Charlie’s Angels” to “Eight is Enough” and “Little House on the Prairie.”
“Hill Street Blues” would debut in 1981, a contemporary tackle the standard police procedural. Sikking performed Lt. Howard Hunter, a clean-cut Vietnam War veteran who headed the Emergency Action Team of the Metropolitan Police Department in a never-named metropolis.
The acclaimed present was a drama, however Sikking’s character’s uptight nature and quirks have been typically used to comedian impact. Sikking primarily based his efficiency on a drill teacher he’d had at primary coaching when navy service reduce by his time on the University of California, Los Angeles, from which he graduated in 1959.
“The drill instructor looked like he had steel for hair and his uniform had so much starch in it, you knew it would sit in the corner when he took it off in the barracks,” he advised The Fresno Bee in 2014, when he did a sequence of interviews with numerous publications marking the field set’s launch.
When it debuted on the heels of a Hollywood twin strike, the NBC present was met with low rankings and little fanfare. But the struggling community saved it on the air: “Up popped this word ‘demographic,’” Sikking advised the Star Tribune in 2014. “We were reaching people with a certain education and (who) made a certain kind of money. They called it the ‘Esquire audience.’”
The present finally ran till 1987, though for a quick second it wasn’t clear Sikking would make it that far. A December 1983 episode ended together with his character considering dying by suicide. The cliffhanger drew comparisons to the “Who shot J.R.?” thriller from “Dallas” not lengthy earlier than — though it was rapidly resolved when TV dietary supplements by chance ran a teaser abstract that made it clear Hunter had been saved.
“I remember when Howard tried to kill himself. My brother called and asked, ‘You still got a job?’ I said, ‘Yeah,’ and he said, ‘Oh good,’ and then hung up,” Sikking advised The Fresno Bee.
Sikking would earn an Emmy nomination for excellent supporting actor in a drama in 1984. The look and format of “Hill Street Blues” have been one thing new to Sikking — and plenty of within the viewers, from the dirty look of the set to the a number of storylines that usually saved actors working within the background, even once they did not have traces within the scene.
“It was a lot of hard work, but everybody loved it and that shows. When you have the people who are involved in the creation, manufacture — whatever you want to call it — who are really into it and enjoy doing it, you’re going to get a good product,” he advised Parade.com in 2014. “We always had three different stories running through (each episode), which means you had to listen and you had to pay attention because everything was important.”
Aside from “Hill Street Blues,” Sikking performed Captain Styles in 1984’s “Star Trek III: The Search for Spock.” He wasn’t enthusiastic in regards to the function, however had been lured by the concept it could take only a day on set.
“It was not my cup of tea. I was not into that kind of outer space business. I had an arrogant point of view in those days. I wanted to do real theater. I wanted to do serious shows, not something about somebody’s imagination of what outer space was going to be like,” Sikking defined to startrek.com in 2014. “So I had a silly prejudice against it, which is bizarre because I’ve probably and happily signed more this, that or the other thing of ‘Star Trek’ than I have anything of all the other work I’ve done.”
After the top of “Hill Street Blues,” he acted in practically 100 episodes of “Dougie Howser, M.D.,” reuniting with Steven Bochco, who co-created each “Hill Street Blues” and the Neil Patrick Harris-starring sitcom.
He married Florine Caplan, with whom he had two youngsters and 4 grandchildren.
Sikking had all however retired by the point the field set of “Hill Street Blues” got here out. He had fewer however memorable roles after the flip of the millennium, guest-starring on “Curb Your Enthusiasm” and performing within the rom-com movies “Fever Pitch” and “Made of Honor.” His final roles have been as a visitor star on a 2012 episode of “The Closer” and in a film that very same 12 months, “Just an American.”
Sikking continued to do charity occasions. He was a longtime participant in superstar golf tournaments and even as soon as made it to the ribbon-cutting for a well being middle in an Iowa city of simply 7,200 individuals. “Actually, I came to get something from you — air I can’t see,” Sikking advised the group of 100 individuals. “Where we’re from, if it isn’t brown, we don’t know how you can breathe it, The Associated Press reported in 1982.
“I probably would do something if it got me going. Acting is a license to do self-investigation. It’s a great ego trip to be an actor,” he advised startrek.com in 2014. “I must say that, in the past few years in which I haven’t worked, the obscurity has been quite attractive.”
“The condiment of my life is good fortune,” he completed.
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