Outta Here!

Most of the critical acclaim heaped on Stephen Bochco’s gritty 1990s police drama NYPD Blue was focused on Dennis Franz, the character actor who had starred previously on Bochco’s Hill Street Blues. So did Franz leave NYPD Blue after its first season (1993–94) to become a movie star? Nope. But David Caruso, the previously unknown actor who played Franz’s young partner, did. In 1995, Caruso starred in box-office bombs Jade and Kiss of Death. That left him in a bind—he couldn’t get film work anymore, and he couldn’t get TV work because he’d agreed not to work in TV for three years to get out of his NYPD Blue contract. So he waited it out and didn’t work until 1997, when he starred in the short-lived legal drama Michael Hayes. He didn’t have a real success again until 2002, when he landed a starring role in CSI: Miami.

tags: trivia