James Sikking, star of ‘Hill Street Blues’ and ‘Doogie
Howser, MD,’ dies at 90
The Associated Press
By Mallika Sen, Lindsey Bahr
July 14, 2024
James Sikking, who starred as a hardened police
lieutenant on “Hill Street Blues” and as the titular character’s kindhearted
dad on “Doogie Howser, M.D.,” has died at 90.
Sikking died of complications from dementia, his
publicist Cynthia Snyder said in a statement Sunday evening.
Born the youngest of five children on March 5, 1934 in
Los Angeles, his early acting ventures included an uncredited part in Roger
Corman’s “Five Guns West” and a bit role in an episode of “Perry Mason.” He
also secured guest spots in a litany of popular 1970s television series, 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 fresh take on
the traditional police procedural. Sikking played Lt. Howard Hunter, a
clean-cut Vietnam War veteran who headed the Emergency Action Team of the
Metropolitan Police Department in a never-named city.
The acclaimed show was a drama, but Sikking’s character’s
uptight nature and quirks were often used to comic effect. Sikking based his
performance on a drill instructor he’d had at basic training when military
service cut through his time 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, when he
did a series of interviews with various publications marking the box set’s
release.
When it debuted on the heels of a Hollywood dual strike,
the NBC show was met with low ratings and little fanfare. But the struggling
network kept it on the air: “Up popped this word ‘demographic,’” Sikking told
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 show ultimately ran until 1987, although for a brief
moment it wasn’t clear Sikking would make it that far. A December 1983 episode
ended with his character contemplating dying by suicide. The cliffhanger drew
comparisons to the “Who shot J.R.?” mystery from “Dallas” not long before —
although it was quickly resolved when TV supplements accidentally ran a teaser
summary 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 told The Fresno Bee.
Sikking would earn an Emmy nomination for outstanding
supporting actor in a drama in 1984. The look and format of “Hill Street Blues”
were something new to Sikking — and many in the audience, from the grimy look
of the set to the multiple storylines that often kept actors working in the
background, even when they didn’t have lines in 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 told 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 played Captain
Styles in 1984′s “Star Trek III: The Search for Spock.” He wasn’t enthusiastic
about the role, but had been lured by the idea that it would take just 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
explained 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 end of “Hill Street Blues,” he acted in nearly
100 episodes of “Dougie Howser, M.D.,” reuniting with Steven Bochco, who
co-created both “Hill Street Blues” and the Neil Patrick Harris-starring
sitcom.
He married Florine Caplan, with whom he had two children
and four grandchildren.
Sikking had all but retired by the time the box set of
“Hill Street Blues” came out. He had fewer but memorable roles after the turn
of the millennium, guest-starring on “Curb Your Enthusiasm” and acting in the
rom-com films “Fever Pitch” and “Made of Honor.” His last roles were as a guest
star on a 2012 episode of “The Closer” and in a movie that same year, “Just an
American.”
Sikking continued to do charity events. He was a longtime
participant in celebrity golf tournaments and even once made it to the
ribbon-cutting for a health center in an Iowa town of just 7,200 people.
“Actually, I came to get something from you — air I can’t see,” Sikking told
the crowd of 100 people. “Where we’re from, if it isn’t brown, we don’t know
how to 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 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 finished.
SIKKING, James (James Barrie Sikking)
Born: 3/5/1934, Los Angeles, California, U.S.A.
Died: 7/13/2024, Los Angeles, California, U.S.A.
James Sikking’s westerns – actor:
Five Guns West – 1955 (Uinion sergeant)
Rawhide (TV) – 1963 (Luke Harger)
The Loner (TV) – 1965 (Confederate captain)
The Virginian (TV) – 1965 (Sanders)
Bonanza (TV) – 1967, 1968 (Kevin Maco, Jack Rimbau)
Charro – 1969 (Gunner)
Here Come the Brides (TV) – 1969, 1970 (Jenkins, Captain
Hale)
Cade’s Counth (TV) – 1971 (Harold Hopkins)
The Magnificent 7 Ride – 1972 (Andy Hayes)
Little House on the Prairie (TV) – 1977 (Mr. Franklin)
The Electric Horseman – 1979 (Dietrich)
Desperado: Badlands Justice (TV) – 1989 (Kirby Clarke)
In Pursuit of Honor – 1995 (General Douglas MacArthur)
