From Deadline: "Taurean Blacque Dies: Emmy-Nominated ‘Hill Street Blues’ Actor Was 82"
Taurean Blacque is best remembered as cool Detective Neal Washington on Hill Street Blues, who was unfailingly loyal to his partner, sad sack drunk J.D. LaRue, whether he deserved it or not. (Most times he didn't.) Neal Washington also had the bad luck to get shot not once, not twice, but three times during the series' run.
I also remember him from a short-lived soap opera daytime drama on NBC, Generations. It was heavily promoted by the network as being the first such show that gave equal weight to a Black family from its beginnings. Blacque played Henry Marshall, who, like George Jefferson, parlayed a small business (in Jefferson's case, a dry cleaner; in Marshall's case, an ice cream parlor), into a successful chain. The Marsall business became so successful that his ice creams got national distribution, making him and wife Vivian wealthy enough to buy the mansion she toiled in as a maid and nanny to the Whitmores -- the other core family in the show.
I liked Generations (I worked at night at the time, so I was home during the day to watch it), but it stumbled and bumbled and barely made it through two years on the air. It had future stars Vivica A. Fox, Kelly Rutherford and Kristoff St. John (who went on to be a mainstay on The Young and the Restless), but it also went through a lot of behind-the-scenes upheaval and on-screen cast changes. Taurean Blacque himself got fired and replaced before Generations got canceled in 1991.
Taurean Blacque also was a father to 13 children, 11 of whom were adopted. He explained his love of children in a 1989 profile in People: "With Two Houses and a Big Heart, Generations Star Taurean Blacque Becomes a Single Father to Nine"
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Ah, what a shame. Always loved his work on Hill Street.
Until I read this article and your post, the only thing I knew about him was that he had great performances in Hill Street.
(Washington always tried to protect J.D. -- usually from himself -- because he was his "brother from another mother."
What an amazing guy, adopting all of those children.
Richard Willis said:
The Playboy Interview in the October 1983 issue of Playboy magazine featured producer Stephen Bochco and several members of the cast: Bruce Weitz (Detective Mick Belker), Veronica Hamel (public defender Joyce Davenport, Daniel J. Travanti (Capt. Frank Furillo), Charles Haid (Officer Andy Renko), Michael Warren (Officer Bobby Hill), James B. Sikking (Lt. Howard Hunter), Betty Thomas (Officer Lucy Bates), Ed Marinaro (Officer Joe Coffey), Kiel Martin (Detective J.D. LaRue), Rene Enriquez (Lt. Ray Calletano) Joe Spano (Detective Henry Goldblume), Barbara Bosson (Furillo's ex-wife, Fay Furillo), Michael Conrad (Sgt. Phil Esterhaus) and Taurean Blacque (Detective Neal Washingon).*
A fan page, HillSteetBlues.net, has helpfully provided the text of said interview (without photos or basic copy editing, but still), "The Hill Street Blue's Playboys Interview unedited"
To the question of whether J.D. LaRue is a bad cop, Kiel Martin said, "Uh-uh. Top-notch cop. Excellent police officer. Good detective. When he's thinking straight, he's a really good, dead-on cop. He may not be as good a man as he could be. But he's as good a cop as any of them, or better. So there. [Sticks his tongue out] Nah, nah, nah, nah. I spit my milk at them!"
The interviewer throws the question to Taurean Blacque, and his answer was, "Nothing bad about him. I wouldn't be with a bad cop. Could I say, 'This schmuck has my life in his hands'? No, no, no. He has his vices – alcohol, womanizing; doesn't know how to handle money. But that's true of a lot of people."
Betty Thomas weighed in thusly, "To me, LaRue's not good. He's not a trustworthy human being. He doesn't have confidence in himself or in life. He doesn't trust other human beings. The only great part of him is his relationship with Washington. More than anything, partnering is what the show is about. And that's what police work is about – partnering."
* So, yes, I actually did read this issue for the articles.
Richard Willis said:
He really had a big heart, especially going out of his way to bring in the kinds of children others would regard as unadoptable (that is, no longer babies) and making sure siblings stayed together.
I have to disagree with Betty Thomas here: "More than anything, partnering is what the show is about. And that's what police work is about – partnering."
Maybe partnering is what Hill Street Blues is about, but police work in general? Most cops shows go on and on about the sacred bond between partners, that one's partner is closer to you than your own spouse. But then there's Barney Miller, often touted as the most realistic police show of them all. Nobody on that show had a regular partner; the calls came in randomly and Barney would randomly tell any two guys to go answer them.
This was the model also followed in my beloved 87th Precinct series, where writer Ed McBain would occasionally and meticulously explain the vagaries of the duty roster and the detectives' schedules, which meant that there often was a different mix of officers on any given day or any given shift.
Plus, just like Barney Miller, the detectives are all co-workers, but they weren't all friends. (As noted elsewhere, Fish was often openly hostile to Dietrich, Harris was jealous of Dietrich replacing him as the smartest guy in the room, Levitt was an annoying pain in the ass, Wojo drove Barney up the wall with his impulsiveness, and Inspector Luger made everybody cringe.) In the Eight-Seven, they definitely weren't all friends; most were good solid cops, but one was a jerk nobody wanted to be matched with, one was a dimbulb, one was thoroughly nasty, and there was a trio of hairbags (like Scully and Hitchcok on Brooklyn Nine-Nine).
I'll be reading this over the weekend.
ClarkKent_DC said:
A fan page, HillSteetBlues.net, has helpfully provided the text of said interview (without photos or basic copy editing, but still), "The Hill Street Blue's Playboys Interview unedited"