Kevin Arkadie, the author and two-time Emmy-nominated producer who teamed with Dick Wolf to create New York Undercover and labored on such different sequence as NYPD Blue, Chicago Hope and The Protect, has died. He was 68.
Arkadie lived in Los Angeles and died Wednesday, family on social media introduced. In July, he posted a video on Instagram noting that he was coping with kidney failure.
“This man proper right here was one among America’s biggest storytellers,” cousin and producer L True Inexperienced wrote on Fb. “He has without end modified the panorama of creativity … he’s the rationale I’ve remained within the arts as a author at present.”
New York Undercover, which ran for 4 seasons on Fox from 1994-99, was the primary police drama with Black and Latino leads (performed by Malik Yoba and Michael DeLorenzo, respectively).
Arkadie was nominated for an Emmy in 1996 and 1998 for the coveted excellent drama sequence prize for producing Chicago Hope and NYPD Blue, and he gained a WGA America Award for his work on the Noggin sequence Miracle’s Boys in 2006.
Born in Washington on Dec. 10, 1957, Arkadie moved to Maryland after which to Dallas, the place he graduated with a BFA in performing from Southern Methodist College. He settled in Los Angeles to pursue a profession in leisure and landed a employees job as a author on the 1991-93 NBC drama sequence I’ll Fly Away.
His different credit included Knightwatch, Dr. Quinn, Medication Girl, Regulation & Order, Excessive Incident, Rescue 77, The Temptations, Ambitions, The Quad and Sacrifice.
Two-time Tony-winning producer Lamar Richardson, who lately labored with Arkadie on Freeman Ranch — a TV drama in improvement a couple of household that runs the primary Black-owned ranch in Texas — paid tribute to Arkadie in a press release shared with The Hollywood Reporter.
“Kevin was the primary showrunner to signal on to one among our TV initiatives at Ivy Lion, and we spent a variety of time with him creating and pitching collectively this yr,” he mentioned. “He was a consummate skilled, true collaborator and astute researcher. The whole lot was at all times in service of telling one of the best story.
“It’s not misplaced on us that he was prepared to say sure to a younger manufacturing firm and newer author in an trade the place first likelihood is seldom given freely. It was vital to him to put money into the subsequent technology of various voices, and we’re extraordinarily grateful to have partnered with him.”