Bruce Weitz

Weitz's big break came when he landed the role of the vaguely maniacal Mick Belker on Steven Bochco's landmark police-drama "Hill Street Blues" (NBC, 1981-87). His scruffy little undercover cop endeared himself to viewers by sometimes biting offenders, barking at dogs or terrorizing surly criminals ("Would you like to sit down, hairball, or would you prefer internal bleeding?"), earning him a 1984 Emmy as Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series as well as five other nominations. Since that series' demise, Weitz has stayed busy primarily on the small screen, acting frequently in movies and episodic TV, although he has occasionally performed on stage as in the Off-Broadway production of "Frankie and Johnny in the Claire de Lune" (1988). He returned as a series regular playing a newspaper columnist for one season (1991-92) on the ABC sitcom "Anything But Love" and reunited with Bochco as a psychiatrist counseling a family transplanted in Hawaii in the short-lived "The Byrds of Paradise" (ABC, 1994). He also appeared in the feature films "Deep Impact" (1998) and "Half Past Dead" (2002).