‘BRIEF ILLNESS’

Taurean Blacque, Emmy-Nominated ‘Hill Street Blues’ Star, Dead at 82

The Emmy-nominated actor played Detective Neal Washington on all seven seasons of the beloved NBC cop show.

Taurean Blacque, the beloved Emmy-nominated actor known for playing Detective Neal Washington on all seven seasons of NBC’s Hill Street Blues, died on Thursday, according to his family. He was 82. Born Herbert Middleton Jr. in 1940, the New Jersey native began acting in the mid-1970s with New York’s Negro Ensemble Company, making the jump to television guest spots by 1976. Appearing in Charlie’s Angels, The Bob Newhart Show, and Taxi, it wasn’t until 1981 that Blacque would grace the screen as the leather-loving Washington. He’d garnered an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series by the next year (as had four of his co-stars, filling the category slate). Blacque was also known for his efforts to promote adoption, having adopted 11 children alongside his two biological sons. In 1989, he was asked by then-President George H. W. Bush to serve as a national spokesperson for adoption. He died in Atlanta following a brief illness and is survived by 12 children, 18 grandchildren, and two great-great grandchildren, according to Deadline.