Jon Cypher death: Cinderella and Hill Street Blues star dies at 94
Jon Cypher death: Cinderella and Hill Street Blues star dies at 94
Shahana YasminTue, August 11, 2026 at 7:37 AM UTC
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Jon Cypher, best known for playing the calculating police chief Fletcher Daniels in the acclaimed American drama Hill Street Blues, has died aged 94.
Cypher died at his home in Twin Creeks, Central Point, Oregon, with his wife of 40 years, author Carol Rosin, by his side, according to his obituary in Ashland News.
No cause of death was provided.
He will be laid to rest in Ashland on Tuesday in a burial that “reflects his wish to return to nature”.
He starred as Prince Christopher opposite Julie Andrews in Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella, a 1957 CBS live production that became a landmark in US television history.
The broadcast, which aired in colour on 31 March that year, attracted almost 107 million viewers, accounting for over 60 per cent of American households at the time, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Cypher’s best-known role came over two decades later, when he joined Hill Street Blues as Chief Fletcher Daniels.
He appeared in 71 episodes of the NBC series between 1981 and 1987, frequently finding himself at odds with Daniel J Travanti’s Captain Frank Furillo.
The series, which followed officers at a fictional police station, became one of the defining American television dramas of the 1980s.
It won 26 Emmy awards, including four consecutive wins for outstanding drama series from 1981 to 1984, according to the Los Angeles Times.
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He made his Broadway debut in The Disenchanted in 1958 and went on to appear in productions including The Night of the Iguana, Man of La Mancha, The Great White Hope, and 1776. His final Broadway appearance was in the 1996 production of Big.
Jon Cypher, best known for playing the calculating police chief Fletcher Daniels in the acclaimed American drama Hill Street Blues, is no more (Public domain)
Cypher became a familiar face on soap operas and primetime television, with credits in As the World Turns, General Hospital, Santa Barbara, Knots Landing, and Dynasty, as well as guest appearances in The Rockford Files, Murder, She Wrote, JAG, Walker, Texas Ranger, and Law & Order.
He had another major television role towards the end of his career in the CBS sitcom Major Dad, where he played Brigadier General Marcus Craig for the final three seasons, appearing in 69 episodes between 1990 and 1993.
In the 1987 fantasy film Masters of the Universe starring Dolph Lundgren in the titular role, Cypher played He-Man’s heroic ally Man-at-Arms.
He later said he had been reluctant to take the role because Man-at-Arms had only a small part in the original script. However, director Gary Goddard said he planned to expand the character, and Cypher subsequently rewrote one of the scenes himself.
“Gary was true to his word and, in fact, I actually rewrote one of the scenes and Gary liked it and added it on the very day I brought it in,” Cypher said in a 2013 interview with Motu Movie.
He also appeared in Valdez Is Coming alongside Burt Lancaster in 1971 as well as in Spontaneous Combustion and Strictly Business.
His family said that Cypher sang opera in four languages and “was known to burst out in song, bringing joy to every event”.
In 2019, he published If You’re Not Depressed You Oughta Be in Therapy, a collection of 99 limericks and commentary.
In a 2014 interview with the Ashland Theatre, he described acting as a career where performers were “always being judged, by critics, by the audience”, and said anyone considering it should be prepared to “pick yourself up many, many, many times”.
“When you’re an actor, it’s what you do,” he said, “as long as you can do it.”
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
