James B. Sikking, the American actor who played two great characters in Steven Bochco created series in the no-nonsense Lt. Howard Hunter on Hill Street Blues and the good-hearted doctor dad on Doogie Howser, M.D., has died. He was 90. Sikking died Saturday at his Los Angeles home of complications from dementia, publicist Cynthia Snyder announced. 

Although best known for his TV work, Sikking did have notable turns on the big screen as a mocking hitman in John Boorman’s Point Blank (1967), as the stuffy Captain Styles in Leonard Nimoy‘s Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984) and as the director of the FBI in Alan J. Pakula’s The Pelican Brief (1993). After spending the better part of two decades showing up on such shows as The Outer Limits, Honey West, The Fugitive, Hogan’s Heroes and Mannix, Sikking was cast as the pipe-smoking Hunter, leader of the SWAT-like Emergency Action Team, on NBC’s Hill Street Blues.

One of five kids, James Barrie (named for the Peter Pan author) Sikking was born in Los Angeles on March 5, 1934. His mother, Sue, founded the Unity by the Sea Church in Santa Monica in gratitude after she recovered from a nearly fatal automobile accident. His father, Art, followed his wife into the ministry. After military service, graduated from UCLA in 1959 with a theater degree. He then appeared on episodes of Perry Mason and Assignment: Underwater in 1961 and later in films including The Carpetbaggers  (1964), Von Ryan’s Express (1965) and In Like Flint (1967). From 1971-76, Sikking played Jim Hobart, a surgeon with a drinking problem, on the ABC soap General Hospital, and he was the distant father of Jim Carrey in the acclaimed 1992 Fox telefilm Doing Time on Maple Drive.

Sikking appeared on 144 episodes across all seven seasons (1981-87) of the acclaimed drama and received an Emmy nomination in 1984. Bochco turned to Sikking again for Doogie Howser, and he played Vietnam veteran turned family practitioner David Howser, husband of Belinda Montgomery’s Katherine and dad of Doogie (Neil Patrick Harris), on all four seasons (1989-93) of that ABC show. He then portrayed a cop again for Bochco on Brooklyn South, which lasted one season (1997-98) on CBS.  He got hired for his one-day gig on The Search for Spock through an offer from producer Harve Bennett, his onetime UCLA classmate. He was a good friend of the film’s director and co-star, Leonard Nimoy, with whom he worked a number of times.

Survivors include his second wife, Florine, an author whom he met at UCLA and married in September 1962; children Emily and Andrew; and grandchildren Lola, Gemma, Hugh and Madeline.

Canadian actor Donald Sutherland , whose career spanned over 6 decades, dies on 20th June at the age of 88. His son Kiefer Sutherland, the actor, announced the death on social media. CAA, the talent agency that represented Mr. Sutherland, said he had died in a hospital after an unspecified “long illness.” He had a home in Miami. Starting in the early 1960s, he appeared in nearly 200 films and television shows — some years he was in as many as half a dozen movies. Sutherland’s chameleon like ability to be endearing in one role, menacing in another and just plain odd in yet a third appealed to directors, among them Federico Fellini, Robert Altman, Bernardo Bertolucci and Oliver Stone. Sutherland received numerous accolades, including a Primetime Emmy Award and two Golden Globe Awards as well as a BAFTA Award nomination. He is considered one of the best actors never nominated for an Academy Award. He was given the Academy Honorary Award in 2017.

Donald McNichol Sutherland was born on 17 July 1935 at the Saint John General Hospital in Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada. He was of Scottish, German, and English ancestry. He graduated in 1958 from Victoria University with a dual degree in engineering and drama. He changed his mind about becoming an engineer, and left Canada for Britain in 1957, studying at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. While at London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA), Sutherland began appearing in West End productions. In the early-to-mid-1960s, Sutherland began to gain small roles in British films and TV (such as a hotel receptionist in The Sentimental Agent episode “A Very Desirable Plot” (1963). He was featured alongside Christopher Lee in horror films such as Castle of the Living Dead (1964) and the anthology film Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors (1965). He also had a supporting role in the Hammer Films production Die! Die! My Darling! (1965), with Tallulah Bankhead and Stefanie Powers

Sutherland rose to fame after starring in films such as The Dirty Dozen (1967), M*A*S*H (1970), and Kelly’s Heroes (1970). He subsequently starred in many films both in leading and supporting roles, including  Klute (1971), Don’t Look Now (1973), The Day of the Locust (1975), Fellini’s Casanova  (1976), 1900 (1976),  Animal House (1978), Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978), Ordinary People (1980), Eye of the Needle (1981), A Dry White Season (1989), Backdraft (1991), JFK (1991), Six Degrees of Separation (1993),  Without Limits (1998), Space Cowboys (2000), The Italian Job (2003), and Pride & Prejudice (2005). He played the role of physician-hero Norman Bethune in Bethune (1977) and Bethune: The Making of a Hero (1990). Sutherland also portrayed President Snow in The Hunger Games franchise (2012–2015). On television, Sutherland’s performance in the HBO film Citizen X (1995) earned him the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Limited Series or Movie. He also portrayed Clark Clifford in the HBO film Path to War (2002), earning the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – Series, Miniseries or Television Film.

Sutherland was made an Officer of the Order of Canada on 22 December 1978, and was promoted to Companion of the Order of Canada in 2019. He was inducted into Canada’s Walk of Fame in March 2000. He had maintained a residence in Georgeville, a village in Quebec, since 1977. Hehad additional houses in other places, including Paris, France and Miami, Florida. Sutherland married three times. His first marriage, to Lois May Hardwick, a head school teacher, lasted from 1959 to 1966. His second marriage, which lasted from 1966 to 1970, was to Shirley Douglas, daughter of former premier of Saskatchewan Tommy Douglas. Sutherland and Douglas had two children, twins Kiefer and Rachel. From 1970 to 1972, he had an affair with Klute co-star Jane Fonda, with whom he had participated in anti-Vietnam war activism. Sutherland married French Canadian actress Francine Racette in 1972, after meeting her on the set of the Canadian pioneer drama Alien Thunder. They had three sons – Rossif Sutherland, Angus Redford Sutherland, and Roeg Sutherland.