James Sikking, star of 'Hill Street Blues' and 'Doogie Howser, MD,' dies at 90
Entertainment
He married Florine Caplan, with whom he had two children and four grandchildren
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.
