James B. Sikking, an actor, has died at the age of 90 after a long battle with dementia.
Sikking died at his home in Los Angeles. He was best known for his role on the TV show Hill Street Blues.
“Peacefully at his Los Angeles home surrounded by family,” the actor’s publicist, Cynthia Snyder, told People that he died on Saturday.
Forbes also said that Snyder, “In a remarkable career, Sikking’s wonderfully exciting face gave us drama, comedy, tragedy, and hilarious farse.”
“People were amazed and delighted by his skill, honesty, and creativity,” she said.
Sikking was famous for his unique acting style, which included making faces that said a lot.
He worked for sixty years and was even nominated for an Emmy in 1984.
For his role as Dr. David Howser on the sitcom Doogie Howser, M.D., which also starred Neil Patrick Harris, he almost won the award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series.
He slowly built his career as an actor in the 1960s and 1970s, when he was in major TV shows like MAS*H, Mission: Impossible, and Charlie’s Angels.
After that, Sikking made more famous appearances on TV shows like Brooklyn South and Little House on the Prairie.
He joined the cast of the show for which he would become best known in 1981.
He had already talked about how his life before acting had shaped his role on Hill Street Blues.
Sikking was born in Los Angeles in 1934 and later got a degree from UCLA in Theater Arts.
He was in the Army for a short time while he was in college, and he said that his drill instructor in basic training gave him ideas for the character he created in the show.
He told The Seattle Times ten years ago, “The drill instructor looked like he had steel in his hair, and his uniform had so much starch in it that you knew it would sit in the corner when he took it off in the barracks.”
“When I started to play Howard, I chose what he should wear.”
“It had to look very military.” Those boots had to be his.
When Sikking went on HBO’s Curb Your Enthusiasm twice in 2004, he brought his skills into the 2000s.
Besides acting, Sikking had done a lot of work for charities and raised money for them.
He really wanted to help the Susan G. Koman Foundation, a group that had worked to fight breast cancer, and people with cystic fibrosis.
Sikking has also been reading to third-graders in public schools for almost twenty years. He was known as “Jim the Reader.”
Florine, his wife of more than 60 years, his two children, and his four grandchildren are all still alive.
