James Sikking, Star Of ‘Hill Street Blues’ And ‘Doogie Howser, MD,’ Dies At 90

James Sikking, who played a harsh police officer on “Hill Street Blues” and the main character’s kindhearted father on “Doogie Howser, M.D.,” died at 90.

Sikking died of dementia complications, according to his spokeswoman, Cynthia Snyder, who released a statement Sunday evening.

Born the youngest of five children in Los Angeles on March 5, 1934, his early acting career included an uncredited performance in Roger Corman’s “Five Guns West” and a cameo appearance in an episode of “Perry Mason.” He also appeared in a slew of iconic 1970s television shows, including the action-packed “Mission: Impossible,” “M.A.S.H.,” “The F.B.I.,” “The Rockford Files,” “Hawaii Five-O,” and “Charlie’s Angels,” as well as “Eight is Enough” and “Little House on the Prairie.”

James Sikking, Star Of ‘Hill Street Blues’ And ‘Doogie Howser, MD,’ Dies At 90

In 1981, “Hill Street Blues” made its premiere as a novel spin on the classic police procedural. Sikking played Lieutenant Howard Hunter, a clean-cut Vietnam War veteran who led the Metropolitan Police Department’s Emergency Action Team in an unnamed city.

The famous show was a drama, but Sikking’s strict personality and eccentricities were frequently employed to hilarious effect. Sikking modeled his performance after a drill instructor he had at basic training when military service interrupted his studies at 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 told The Fresno Bee in 2014, as part of a series of interviews honoring the debut of the box set.

When it debuted on the heels of a Hollywood dual strike, the NBC show had dismal ratings and little attention. However, the struggling network kept it on the air. “Up popped this word ‘demographic,'” Sikking told the Star Tribune in 2014. “We were reaching out to folks with a specific education and income level. “They called it the ‘Esquire audience.'”

The show continued until 1987. However, it was unclear whether Sikking would make it that far. A December 1983 episode concluded with his character considering death. The cliffhanger prompted comparisons to the “Who shot J.R.?” mystery from “Dallas” not long ago — but it was immediately answered when TV supplements unintentionally printed a teaser description revealing Hunter’s survival.

“I remember when Howard attempted suicide. My brother called and inquired, ‘You still got a job?’ “I said, ‘Yeah,’ and he said, ‘Oh good,’ before hanging up,” Sikking told The Fresno Bee.

Sikking received an Emmy nomination for outstanding supporting actor in a drama in 1984. The style and format of “Hill Street Blues” were unfamiliar to Sikking and many in the audience, from the dirty look of the set to the various storylines that frequently kept performers working in the background even when they didn’t have lines in the scene.

“It was a lot of hard work, but everyone enjoyed it, and it shows. When you have people participating in the production, manufacturing, or whatever you want to call it, who are truly into it and enjoy doing it, you’re going to get a wonderful product,” he told Parade.com back 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 portrayed Captain Styles in 1984’s “Star Trek III: The Search for Spock.” He wasn’t excited about the position but was enticed by the prospect of spending only one day on set.

“It was not my cup of tea.” I was not interested in the outer space business. Back then, I had an arrogant attitude. I wanted to perform in a real theater. I wanted to develop real shows, not ones based on people’s imaginations of what outer space might be like,” Sikking told 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.”

Following the conclusion of “Hill Street Blues,” he appeared in approximately 100 episodes of “Dougie Howser, M.D.,” reuniting with Steven Bochco, who co-created both “Hill Street Blues” and the sitcom starring Neil Patrick Harris.

He married Florine Caplan, and they had two children and four grandkids.

James Sikking, Star Of ‘Hill Street Blues’ And ‘Doogie Howser, MD,’ Dies At 90

Sikking had all but retired when the “Hill Street Blues” box set was released. He had fewer but notable parts after the millennium, guest-starring on “Curb Your Enthusiasm” and appearing in the rom-com films “Fever Pitch” and “Made of Honor.” His final appearances were as a guest star on a 2012 episode of “The Closer” and in the film “Just an American.”

Sikking continued to host charitable activities. He frequently participated in celebrity golf tournaments and once attended the ribbon-cutting for a health center in an Iowa hamlet of only 7,200 inhabitants. “Actually, I came to get something from you—air I can’t see,” Sikking told the 100-person crowd. “Where we come from, if it isn’t brown, we don’t know how to breathe it,” The Associated Press reported in 1982.

“I’d probably do anything if it got me motivated. Acting is a license to conduct one’s investigation. “Being an actor is a great ego trip,” he told 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 concluded.

SOURCE – (AP)