Obituaries

Broadway Veteran and Law & Order Regular Steven Hill Has Died

Hill was a founding member of Lee Strasberg’s Actor’s Studio.

Steven Hill in the TV series Mission: Impossible.
Steven Hill in the TV series Mission: Impossible.

Actor Steven Hill, a six-time Broadway veteran known for playing Law & Order's Adam Schiff, died Tuesday in Monsey, New York. Hill was 94 years old.

Born Solomon Krakowsky in 1922 in Seattle, Washington, Hill graduated from the University of Washington and served four years in the United States Naval Reserve before moving to New York City to pursue an acting career. He made his Broadway debut in 1946 in Ben Hecht's A Flag Is Born, which also featured Marlon Brando, and in 1947 Hill joined Brando and 50 other performers as a founding member of Lee Strasberg's Actor's Studio.

Hill's Broadway résumé would go on to include Bessie Breuer's Sundown Beach (1948), staged by Elia Kazan, the original production of Clifford Odets's The Country Girl (1950), and his final Broadway credit, A Far Country (1961) by Henry Denker.

In 1966, Hill was cast as principal cast member Daniel Briggs in the TV series Mission: Impossible, though he left the long-running show after its first season. After a decadelong hiatus from the entertainment business following Mission: Impossible, Hill reentered the industry with a part in an episode of the series The Andros Targets and a role in the TV miniseries King, which followed the life of Martin Luther King Jr.

Hill was cast as Adam Schiff in the original cast of Law & Order in 1990 and continued to appear in the series through 2000. In 2000, he also appeared as the same character in an episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.

Twice married, Hill is survived by his wife, Rachel, and nine children.