James Sikking, who starred as a hardened police lieutenant in “Hill Street Blues” and how the titular character’s kindly father in “Doogie Howser, MD” died at age 90.
Sikking died from complications of dementia, his publicist Cynthia Snyder said in a statement Sunday night.
Born the youngest of five children on March 5, 1934 in Los Angeles, his early acting ventures included an uncredited role in Roger Corman “Five Guns West” and a small role in an episode of “Perry Mason.” He also secured guest appearances on a number of popular 1970s television series, from the action-packed “Mission: Impossible,” “MASH,” “The FBI,” “The Rockford Files,” “Hawaii Five-O” and “Charlie’s Angels.” for “Eight is Enough” and “Little House on the Prairie.”
“Hill Street Blues” would debut in 1981, a new take on the traditional police procedural. Sikking played Lieutenant Howard Hunter, a Vietnam War veteran who headed the Metropolitan Police Department’s Emergency Action Team in an unnamed city.
The acclaimed show was a drama, but the high-strung nature and quirks of Sikking’s character were often used for comedic effect. Sikking based his performance on an instructor he had in basic training when military service interrupted his time at the University of California, Los Angeles, where he graduated in 1959.
“The instructor looked like he had hair of steel and his uniform was so starchy that you knew he would be in the corner when he took it off in the barracks,” he told The Fresno Bee in 2014, when he did a series of interviews with several publications tagging the launch of the box set.
When it debuted right after a Hollywood double whammy, the NBC show had low ratings and little fanfare. But the struggling network kept it on the air: “This word ‘demographic’ appeared,” Sikking told the Star Tribune in 2014. “We were reaching people with a certain level of education and (who) made a certain amount of money. They called it the ‘Esquire public.’”
The show ran until 1987, although for a brief moment it was unclear that Sikking would make it that far. A December 1983 episode ended with his character contemplating death by suicide. The cliffhanger drew comparisons to the “Who shot JR?” mystery of “Dallas” not long before — though it was quickly resolved when TV supplements accidentally aired a teaser summary that made it clear that Hunter had been saved.
“I remember when Howard tried to kill himself. My brother called and asked, ‘Do you still have a job?’ I said, ‘Yes,’ and he said, ‘Oh, that’s great,’ and then he hung up,” Sikking told The Fresno Bee.
Sikking would receive an Emmy nomination for best supporting actor in a drama in 1984. The look and format of “Hill Street Blues” was something new to Sikking — and to many in the audience, from the grungy look of the set to the multiple storylines that often kept the actors working in the background, even when there were no lines in the scene.
“It was a lot of hard work, but everyone loved it and it shows. When you have people involved in the creation, manufacturing – whatever you want to call it – who really enjoy it and enjoy doing it, you’re going to get a good product,” he said. Parade. com in 2014. “We always had three different stories (each episode), which meant you had to listen and pay attention because everything was important.”
In addition to “Hill Street Blues,” Sikking played Captain Styles in 1984’s “Star Trek III: The Search for Spock.” He wasn’t thrilled with the role, but was attracted to the idea that it would only take one day on set.
“It wasn’t my preference. I didn’t like this kind of business in outer space. I had an arrogant point of view back then. I wanted to do real theater. I wanted to do serious shows, not something about someone’s imagination of what outer space would be like,” Sikking explained. for startrek.com in 2014. “So I had a silly prejudice against it, which is bizarre because I’ve probably and happily signed more of this, that or the other ‘Star Trek’ thing than any other work I’ve done.”
After “Hill Street Blues” ended, he starred in nearly 100 episodes of “Dougie Howser, MD,” reuniting with Steven Bochco, who co-created “Hill Street Blues” and the Neil Patrick Harris, starring comedy.
He married Florine Caplan, with whom he had two children and four grandchildren.
Sikking was practically retired when the “Hill Street Blues” box set was released. He had fewer but more memorable roles after the turn of the millennium, guest-starring in “Curb Your Enthusiasm” and acting in the rom-com films “Fever Pitch” and “Made of Honor”. His last roles were as a guest star in a 2012 episode of “The Closer” and in a film from the same year, “Just an American.”
Sikking continued to do charity events. He was a longtime participant in celebrity golf tournaments and even arrived at the grand opening of a health center in an Iowa town with just 7,200 residents. “Actually, I came to get something from you – an air that I cannot see,” Sikking told the crowd of 100 people. “Where we come from, if it’s not brown, we don’t know how to breathe it, the Associated Press reported in 1982.
“I would probably do something if it would help me. Acting is a license to do self-inquiry. It’s a big ego trip being an actor,” he told startrek.com in 2014. “I have to say, in the last few years that I haven’t worked, the obscurity has been quite attractive.”
“The condiment of my life is luck”, he concluded.
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