James Sikking, who played a tough police lieutenant Hill Street Blues and as the title character’s kindly father Doogie Howser, M.D.died at the age of 90.
Sicking died of complications from dementia, his publicist, Cynthia Snyder, said in a statement Sunday evening.
Born on March 5, 1934, in Los Angeles as the youngest of five children, his early acting work included an uncredited role in Roger Corman’s The Last of Us. Five Guns West and a small role in an episode Perry MasonHe also secured guest roles on several popular television series of the 1970s, including the action-packed Impossible Goal, Mash, The FBI, The Rockford Files, Hawaii Five-OAnd Charlie’s Angels To Eight is enough And little House on the Prairie,
Hill Street Blues The film, which debuted in 1981, was a new take on the traditional police procedural. Sikking played Lt. Howard Hunter, a Vietnam War veteran who led the Metropolitan Police Department’s Emergency Action Team in a city that is never named.
The acclaimed show was a drama, but Sikking’s character’s tough nature and quirks were often used for comedic effect. Sikking based his performance on a drill instructor who was with him in basic training during his time at the University of California, Los Angeles, from which he graduated in 1959.
He reported, “The drill instructor looked like his hair was made of steel and his uniform was so starched you knew when he took it off in the barracks he would be lying in the corner.” The Fresno Bee In 2014, when he did a series of interviews with various publications on the occasion of the release of the box set.
When it debuted shortly after the Hollywood hit, the NBC show received low ratings and little publicity. But the struggling network aired it: “The word ‘demographics’ came up,” Sikking explained Star Tribune in 2014. “We were reaching people with a certain kind of education and (who) made a certain kind of money. They called it the ‘Esquire audience.'”
The show ultimately ran until 1987, though for a brief moment, it was unclear whether Sikking would last that far. A December 1983 episode ended with his character contemplating dying by suicide. The cliffhanger has been compared to the mystery “Who shot J.R.?” Dallas not long ago – although this problem was quickly resolved when TV supplements mistakenly played a teaser summary making it clear that Hunter had been rescued.
“I remember when Howard tried to commit suicide. My brother called and asked, ‘Do you still have a job?’ I said, ‘Yeah,’ and he said, ‘Good,’ and then hung up,” Sicking said The Fresno Bee,
Sikking received an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama in 1984. Hill Street Blues It was all new for Sikking and many in the audience, from the dirty look of the sets to the many storylines that often required actors to keep working in the background even if they didn’t have dialogue in a scene.
“It was a lot of hard work, but everyone loved it and it shows. When you have people who are involved in the creation, the manufacturing — whatever you want to call it — who are really into it and enjoy doing it, you’re going to get a great product,” he told Parade.com in 2014. “We always had three different stories going on in (each episode), which meant you had to listen and you had to pay attention because everything was important.”
separately Hill Street BluesSikking played Captain Styles in 1984 Star Trek III: The Search for SpockHe was not excited about the role, but was tempted by the idea that it would only require one day on set.
“It just wasn’t my thing. I wasn’t in that kind of outer space business. My attitude in those days was egotistical. I wanted to do real theater. I wanted to do serious shows, not somebody’s fantasy of what outer space was going to be like,” Sikking told startrek.com in 2014. “So I had a stupid prejudice against it, which is odd because I would have probably and happily signed on to this, that or the other thing Star Trek That’s more than any other job I’ve ever had.”
After the end of the Hill Street BluesHe acted in almost 100 episodes Doogie Howser, M.D.reuniting with Steven Bochco, who co-produced both Hill Street Blues and the sitcom starring Neil Patrick Harris.
He married Florine Caplan, with whom he had two children and four grandchildren.
By the time the box set was released, Sikking was nearly retired. Hill Street Blues After the millennium his roles were few but memorable, including guest appearances in curb Your Enthusiasm and starred in romantic comedy films fever pitch And Matter of respectHis last role was as a guest star in a 2012 episode of near And in a movie that same year, just an american,
Sicking has been doing charity events. He has long participated in celebrity golf tournaments and once attended the opening of a health center in an Iowa town of 7,200 people. “Actually, I’ve come to take something from you – the air I can’t see,” Sicking told the crowd of about 100. “Where we come from, if the air isn’t brown, we don’t know how to breathe it,” he said. The Associated Press Reported in 1982.
“If I had the chance to do something, I would probably do something. Acting is a license to self-examine. Being an actor is a huge ego trip,” he told startrek.com in 2014. “I have to say, in the last few years when I haven’t worked, the anonymity has been quite appealing.”
“The spice of my life is good luck,” he concluded.
