James B. Sikking, the Steven Bochco favourite who portrayed the no-nonsense Lt. Howard Hunter on Hill Road Blues and the good-hearted physician dad on Doogie Howser, M.D., has died. He was 90.
Sikking died Saturday at his Los Angeles residence of problems from dementia, publicist Cynthia Snyder introduced.
Though greatest recognized for his TV work, Sikking did have notable activates the large display as a mocking hitman in John Boorman’s Level Clean (1967), because the stuffy Captain Types in Leonard Nimoy‘s Star Trek III: The Seek for Spock (1984) and because the director of the FBI in Alan J. Pakula’s The Pelican Temporary (1993).
After spending the higher a part of 20 years exhibiting up on such reveals as The Outer Limits, Honey West, The Fugitive, Hogan’s Heroes and Mannix, Sikking was forged because the pipe-smoking Hunter, chief of the SWAT-like Emergency Motion Group, on NBC’s Hill Road Blues.
Bochco, who created the sequence with Michael Kozoll, afforded Sikking the chance to form his character, and the actor based mostly Hunter on a drill teacher he had encountered throughout primary coaching at Fort Bragg in North Carolina.
“The drill teacher regarded like he had metal for hair and his uniform had a lot starch in it, you knew it could [stand] within the nook when he took it off within the barracks,” he stated in a 2014 interview with The Fresno Bee. “So once I began to play Howard, I picked out the best way he ought to be dressed. It needed to be a really army look.”
Sikking appeared on 144 episodes throughout all seven seasons (1981-87) of the acclaimed drama and obtained an Emmy nomination in 1984.
Bochco turned to Sikking once more for Doogie Howser, and he performed Vietnam veteran turned household practitioner David Howser, husband of Belinda Montgomery’s Katherine and pa of Doogie (Neil Patrick Harris), on all 4 seasons (1989-93) of that ABC present.
He then portrayed a cop once more for Bochco on Brooklyn South, which lasted one season (1997-98) on CBS.
One in every of 5 youngsters, James Barrie (named for the Peter Pan creator) Sikking was born in Los Angeles on March 5, 1934. His mom, Sue, based the Unity by the Sea Church in Santa Monica in gratitude after she recovered from a virtually deadly vehicle accident. His father, Artwork, adopted his spouse into the ministry.
Sikking attended El Segundo Excessive Faculty and, after army service, graduated from UCLA in 1959 with a theater diploma. He then appeared on episodes of Perry Mason and Project: Underwater in 1961 and later in movies together with The Carpetbaggers (1964), Von Ryan’s Categorical (1965) and In Like Flint (1967).
James B. Sikking and Belinda Montgomery performed the proud dad and mom of Neil Patrick Harris’ character on ‘Doogie Howser, M.D.’
Courtesy Everett Assortment
Sikking labored on a 1971 episode of NBC’s Identify of the Sport on which Bochco served as a narrative editor after which guest-starred on the CBS reveals Delvecchio and Paris and as an everyday on NBC’s Turnabout — these three have been written by Bochco, too — earlier than embarking on Hill Road Blues.
“I’d completed acres of crap,” he stated of becoming a member of Hill Road in 2006. “This was particular.”
(Later, he confirmed up as Hunter on Bochco’s ill-fated ABC sequence Cop Rock in 1990.)
From 1971-76, Sikking performed Jim Hobart, a surgeon with a ingesting drawback, on the ABC cleaning soap Common Hospital, and he was the distant father of Jim Carrey within the acclaimed 1992 Fox telefilm Doing Time on Maple Drive.
He acquired employed for his one-day gig on The Seek for Spock by means of a suggestion from producer Harve Bennett, his onetime UCLA classmate.
Sikking’s movie résumé additionally included The New Centurions (1972), The Magnificent Seven Experience! (1972), Scorpio (1973), Capricorn One (1977), The Electrical Horseman (1979), The Competitors (1980), Peculiar Individuals (1980), Outland (1981), The Star Chamber (1983), Slim Margin (1990), Last Method (1991), Fever Pitch (2005) and Manufactured from Honor (2008).
And he appeared twice on HBO’s Curb Your Enthusiasm in 2004.
Sikking was dedicated to elevating funds for cystic fibrosis and the Susan G. Koman Basis, and thru the SAG Guide Buddies program, he learn to public college third-grade lessons for 19 years and was affectionately often called “Jim the Reader.”
Survivors embody his second spouse, Florine, an creator whom he met at UCLA and married in September 1962; youngsters Emily and Andrew; and grandchildren Lola, Gemma, Hugh and Madeline.