David Caruso quit a hit show, flopped in films, then came back
In 1994 David Caruso walked away from NYPD Blue just four episodes into its second season, after winning a Golden Globe, because he did not get the raise he wanted. TV Guide later ranked it among television's ten biggest blunders. Eight years on, sunglasses in hand, he was headlining one of the medium's biggest franchises.
Caruso grew up in Forest Hills, Queens, the son of a librarian and a newspaper and magazine editor who left when David was two. His real film school was a job as a cinema usher, where he claimed to watch as many as 80 movies a week and acted out scenes with coworkers at the back of the theatre. Humphrey Bogart, James Cagney and Edward G. Robinson became his models for playing tough, compromised men.
The early career was a long run of supporting parts. He was noticed as a cadet in An Officer and a Gentleman in 1982, the same year he played the one decent deputy in First Blood, and he led a street gang across seven episodes of Hill Street Blues. For the 1991 film Hudson Hawk he took method acting to an extreme, refusing to speak to anyone on set because his character was mute.
Leaving NYPD Blue was supposed to launch him as a movie star. Instead his 1995 thrillers Kiss of Death and Jade drew poor reviews and weak ticket sales and earned him a Razzie nomination for Worst New Star. A 1997 legal drama lasted a single season. Critics warmed to him again with the 2001 horror film Session 9, one writer welcoming back a Caruso with more technique and less ego.
In 2002 he became Lieutenant Horatio Caine on CSI: Miami, famous for delivering a one-liner while slipping on sunglasses before the theme music kicked in; Jim Carrey even parodied it on David Letterman's show. Caruso appeared in every one of its 232 episodes before it ended in 2012. He then quietly retired from acting and moved into the art business and a Miami clothing store.
Source: David Caruso
