AGENT BEFORE SHIELD

Michael Chiklis was once the ultimate good cop in The Commish

Before Michael Chiklis was Vic Mackey, he was Tony Scali in The Commish. The polar opposite of Mackey, Scali was honest, enthusiastic, strong and imaginative. Perhaps the character was too good to be true but, over five seasons from 1991-95, Chiklis’ wide-eyed, genial performance made for an engaging corrective to the bullish police chiefs who had populated American TV for years. It was the role of a lifetime – until Mackey came along.

The brainchild of TV legend Stephen J. Cannell (The Rockford Files, The A Team) and Steve Kronish (Macgyver, 24), The Commish’s Scali was a police commissioner in the fictional small town of Eastbridge New York. This PD could face rapists, child molesters and white supremacists but also compete with each other to appear in a beefcake calendar — it was that kind of show. It offered wish fulfilment in its depiction of ‘nice’ public servants (Scali once charmed a perp by telling him, “Hey, I’ll bet this is the closest you’ve come to a police station since Hill Street went off the air.”), but received middling reviews, often criticised for its inability to balance heart and humour with drama.

While his character was in his late thirties, Chiklis himself was 28. When the actor started to lose weight, ABC panicked that he might not be able to carry off Scali’s older demeanour so stuffed his costumes with paper. They also discouraged Chiklis from shaving his head to make him look older. That iconic look would have to wait for Vic Mackey.