{"id":11181,"date":"2024-03-05T18:21:32","date_gmt":"2024-03-05T18:21:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/?p=11181"},"modified":"2024-04-03T16:26:28","modified_gmt":"2024-04-03T16:26:28","slug":"james-b-sikking-the-mad-hatter-on-hill-street-blues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/?p=11181","title":{"rendered":"James B. Sikking, the mad hatter on \u2018Hill Street Blues\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>By Ray Bennett<\/p>\n

LONDON \u2013 \u2018Hill Street Blues\u2019, the American cop show that was a hit for most of the Eighties, had one of the best casts in television. Of them, James B. Sikking had probably the toughest job playing jut-jawed, pipe-smokimg Howard Hunter, commander of Hill Street\u2019s Emergency Action Team.<\/p>\n

Sikking, who turns 90 today, understood that Hunter was a cardboard character used mostly on the show to seque from one scene to another. \u2018He\u2019s what I call a coat holder,\u2019 he told me. \u2018He\u2019s holding somebody else\u2019s coat while they\u2019re doing the scene. He\u2019s mad as a hatter but from his point of view he\u2019s absolutely correct.\u2019<\/p>\n

As such, he was a very difficult character to write. \u2018With fourteen regular characters plus guest stars, under the stress and strain of a weekly television series, the last one you really have time to devote to as a writer is the complicated character,\u2019 Sikking said when I interviewed him for Canadian TV Guide in 1983.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>When the actor asked the writers to give his part greater dimension, they tended to say, \u2018Look, let\u2019s just keep him the way he is because he\u2019s a wonderful twit and people love him that way.\u2019 Sikking said, \u2018My response is, OK, I can understand that. I\u2019m still employed in a horrendous economy. I\u2019ve got a job and I\u2019m delighted to have it. But perhaps maybe once or twice a year you could challenge Howard\u2019s humanity, strip him of his defences. Obviously, a man who walks around in a uniform with a flak jacket and a .357 Magnum, handcuffs, combat boots and all of that, is dealing with some kind of basic personal insecurity. I say, let\u2019s now and then take all that crap away and put him in the grinder.\u2019<\/p>\n

That happened a few times during the show\u2019s long run and Sikking was nominated for an Emmy Award. He had already earned scores of acting credits over twenty-five years and went on to appear in many more including movies such as \u2018Star Trek: The Search for Spock\u2019 and \u2018Soul Man\u2019 with a regular role in the TV series \u2018Doogie Hauser M.D.\u2019 playing Doogie\u2019s father.<\/p>\n

There was another reason Sikking wanted Hunter to be more real. \u2018What all actors suffer from is that, first of all, we are children,\u2019 he said. \u2018We all suffer from rejection. We want \u00a0to be loved. I know Carroll O\u2019Connor (who played Archie Bunker in \u2018All in the Family\u2019) very well and when you play roles like ours, after a while there\u2019s something inside that tells you, \u201cBut I want you to love me and understand why I\u2019m crazy or a bigot.\u201d I fall into that trap. People go, oh, you\u2019re such an ass. I\u2019ve got children. I don\u2019t want them walking around hearing, oh, your dad\u2019s an ass. So you are seduced by trying to explain to people why you are that way.\u2019<\/p>\n

Still, Sikking took it all in stride. \u2018Acting is very important to me. I take it very seriously. I just don\u2019t take myself seriously,\u2019 he said. \u2018That\u2019s a bunch of horse manure. I find that inordinate self-interest in an actor is self-defeating. You lose touch with what we are all seeking as performers and that is to get out of ourselves and not be self-indulgent.\u2019<\/p>\n

As disarming as Howard Hunter was armed, Sikking was drolly disdainful of the business. \u2018In relation to what\u2019s important in the world, actors get a disproportionate amount of attention and money \u2013 which I am delighted to have,\u2019 he said. \u2018I don\u2019t have a sense of guilt about it. I mean, I don\u2019t send the money back or anything like that. I just think it\u2019s a dumb way to run the world, that\u2019s all.\u2019<\/p>\n

Before he joined \u2018Hill Street Blues\u2019, he had a feature role in the space thriller \u2018Outland\u2019 starring Sean Connery whom he admired greatly. \u2018Now, there\u2019s a wonderful actor,\u2019 he said. \u2018None of his best films made any money. Sean is a terrific actor but he just made a lot of money doing crap. I hope that happens to me, quite honestly.\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Ray Bennett LONDON \u2013 \u2018Hill Street Blues\u2019, the American cop show that was a hit for most of the Eighties, had one of the best casts in television. Of them, James B. Sikking had probably the toughest job playing … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,6,1263,2257],"tags":[5362,5448],"class_list":["post-11181","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-film","category-interviews","category-memory-lane","category-recalling","tag-hill-street-blues","tag-james-b-sikking"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11181","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11181"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11181\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11221,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11181\/revisions\/11221"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}