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James Sikking, WHOS THE BOSS? – “Mona” – Airdate: May 12, 1987. (Photo by ABC Photo Archives/Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty Images)
James Sikking, the actor who rose to fame in the ‘80s as a hardened police lieutenant on “Hill Street Blues,” has died at 90.
Sikking died of complications from dementia, his publicist Cynthia Snyder said in a statement Sunday evening.
Sikking was also known for his role as the titular character’s kindhearted dad on “Doogie Howser, M.D.” He also starred in “Star Trek III: The Search for Spock” and several other television shows and movies before largely retiring.
James Sikking early career
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”
“Hill Street Blues” debuted 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 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 earned an Emmy nomination for outstanding supporting actor in a drama in 1984.
“Star Trek III”
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.”
“Doogie Howser, M.D.”
After the end of “Hill Street Blues,” he acted in nearly 100 episodes of “Doogie Howser, M.D.,” reuniting with Steven Bochco, who co-created both “Hill Street Blues” and the Neil Patrick Harris-starring sitcom.
James Sikking later career
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.
James Sikking wife
He married Florine Caplan, with whom he had two children and four grandchildren.