Death of James B. Sikking: Star of Hill Street Blues and Doogie Howser, MD, dies at age 90

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James Sikking, who played a tough police lieutenant in “Hill Street Blues” and the title character’s kind-hearted father in “Doogie Howser, MD,” has died at the age of 90.

Sikking died from dementia, his publicist Cynthia Snyder said in a statement on Sunday evening.

He was born on March 5, 1934, in Los Angeles, the youngest of five children. His early acting credits included an uncredited role in Roger Corman’s Five Guns West and a minor role in an episode of Perry Mason. He also made guest appearances on many popular television series of the 1970s, from the action-packed Mission: Impossible, MASH, The FBI, Call the Rockford Files, Hawaii Five-O, and Charlie’s Angels to Eight is Enough and Little House on the Prairie.

“Hill Street Blues” premiered in 1981 and was a reinterpretation of the traditional police crime drama. Sikking played Lt. Howard Hunter, a smartly dressed 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 uptight nature and idiosyncrasies of Sikking’s character were often used for comic purposes. Sikking based his portrayal on a drill instructor he had during basic training when military service interrupted his time at the University of California, Los Angeles, from which he graduated in 1959.

“The drill sergeant looked like he had hair made of steel, and his uniform was so starched that when he took it off in the barracks, you knew it would be lying in the corner,” he told the Fresno Bee in 2014 when he gave a series of interviews to various publications to mark the release of the box set.

When the NBC show debuted shortly after a double strike in Hollywood, it garnered low ratings and little buzz. But the struggling network kept it on the air: “The word ‘demographic’ suddenly popped up,” Sikking told the Star Tribune in 2014. “We were reaching people with a certain level of education and (who) made a certain type of money. They called it the ‘Esquire audience.'”

The series ultimately ran until 1987, although for a brief moment it was unclear whether Sikking would make it that far. A December 1983 episode ended with his character contemplating suicide. The cliffhanger drew comparisons to the “Who shot JR?” mystery from “Dallas” just before — though it was quickly resolved when TV inserts inadvertently ran a teaser synopsis clarifying that Hunter had been rescued.

“I remember when Howard tried to kill himself. My brother called and asked, ‘Do you still have a job?’ I said, ‘Yeah,’ and he said, ‘Oh good,’ and then hung up,” Sikking told the Fresno Bee.

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Sikking was nominated for an Emmy for best supporting actor in a drama in 1984. The look and format of “Hill Street Blues” were new to Sikking – and many viewers – from the dingy set design to the many storylines that often had the actors working in the background even when they had no lines in the scene.

“It was a lot of hard work, but everyone was excited and it shows. When you have people involved in the creation, production – whatever you want to call it – who are really into it and enjoy it, you get a good product,” he told Parade.com in 2014. “We always had three different stories (in 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 Star Trek III: The Search for Spock in 1984. He wasn’t thrilled about the role, but the idea that it would only take one day on set had attracted him.

“It wasn’t my thing. I wasn’t into that kind of space business. I had an arrogant attitude at the time. I wanted to do real theater. I wanted to do serious shows, not something about somebody’s idea of ​​what space would look like,” Sikking explained to startrek.com in 2014. “So I had a stupid prejudice against it, which is bizarre because I probably and happily signed more this or that from ‘Star Trek’ than any of my other work.”

After the end of “Hill Street Blues,” he appeared in nearly 100 episodes of “Dougie Howser, MD,” working again with Steven Bochco, who had co-created both “Hill Street Blues” and the sitcom starring Neil Patrick Harris.

He married Florine Caplan, with whom he had two children and four grandchildren.

Sikking had effectively retired by the time the “Hill Street Blues” box set came out. After the turn of the millennium, he had fewer but memorable roles, including guest appearances on “Cut It, Larry!” and the romantic comedies “Fever Pitch” and “Made of Honor.” His last roles were as a guest star on a 2012 episode of “The Closer” and in a film that same year, “Just an American.”

Sikking continued to participate in charity events. He was a longtime participant in celebrity golf tournaments and even once attended the opening of 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. “Where we come from, we don’t know how to breathe it if it’s not brown,” The Associated Press reported in 1982.

“I would probably do something if it inspired me. Acting is a license for self-exploration. Being an actor is a great ego trip,” he told startrek.com in 2014. “I have to say that the obscurity has been quite attractive in the last few years when I haven’t been working.”

“The spice of my life is happiness,” he concluded.