Jon Cypher, Prince Charming of Live TV and Hill Street Blues' Fletcher Daniels, Dies at 94
Jon Cypher, the actor who played Prince Charming opposite Julie Andrews in the first live television production of Rodgers & Hammerstein's Cinderella, died on 3 August at his home in Central Point, Oregon. He was 94. His family announced the death, which was also confirmed by an obituary in Ashland News, a community-supported nonprofit outlet. (The Hollywood Reporter; Ashland News)
Born in New York on 13 January 1932, Cypher attended Erasmus Hall High School — graduating in 1949, according to TV Insider — and went on to graduate from Brooklyn College in 1953. His family noted that he sang opera in four languages, a training that would carry him from the stage to the screen and back again.
His break before the cameras came on the evening of 31 March 1957. CBS broadcast Cinderella live and in colour, with Cypher as the Prince opposite Andrews in the title role. More than 107 million viewers tuned in — over 60 per cent of US households at the time. For an actor who had only recently finished his studies, it was a debut on one of the largest stages American television has ever assembled.
Broadway followed. Cypher made his debut there in 1958 in Harvey Breit's The Disenchanted. In 1961 he understudied and then replaced Patrick O'Neal as the Rev. T. Lawrence Shannon in the original Broadway production of Tennessee Williams' The Night of the Iguana. He went on to play Don Quixote in Man of La Mancha, multiple characters in The Great White Hope, and Thomas Jefferson in 1776, all on Broadway. (The Hollywood Reporter)
On film, Cypher played an evil rancher alongside Burt Lancaster and Susan Clark in the 1971 western Valdez Is Coming, and he appeared as Man-at-Arms in the 1987 film Masters of the Universe, starring Dolph Lundgren.
Television, though, was where Cypher's face became most familiar. He played Chief of Police Fletcher Daniels across all seven seasons of the NBC drama Hill Street Blues (1981–87) — a series whose serialised storytelling changed the grammar of hour-long American television. He recurred as record producer Jeff Munson on CBS's Knots Landing in 1982–83, and as the lawyer Dirk Maurier on ABC's Dynasty from 1983 to 1987.
Later, he joined the CBS sitcom Major Dad, playing Brigadier General Marcus Craig across 69 episodes in the show's final three seasons (1990–93). His voice work included the villain Spellbinder in the animated series Batman Beyond, and he had stints on the daytime soaps As the World Turns, General Hospital, and Santa Barbara.
In 2019 Cypher published a book of limericks titled If You're Not Depressed You Oughta Be in Therapy. It was, by his family's account, true to his wit.
Cypher is remembered for a career that stretched from the golden age of live television through the rise of serialised drama and into animation, daytime, and beyond — a working actor across nearly every format the medium produced.
