Taurean Blacque

Taurean is an African-American stage, film, and television actor. He was born Herbert Middleton, Jr., in Newark, New Jersey, and trained at the New Federal Theatre in Manhattan, going on to act on Broadway in The River Niger (1973) and We Interrupt This Program (1975), and in the Off Broadway productions of Orrin (1975), Welcome to Black River (1975) and So Nice They Named It Twice (1976). Blacque made his television debut in 1976 and appeared on such series as What’s Happening!, Sanford and Son, The Tony Randall Show, Good Times, The Bob Newhart Show, Taxi, The White Shadow, The Love Boat, Gabriel’s Fire, In the Heat of the Night, Dream On, and The Client, but he is best remembered as Detective Neal Washington on Hill Street Blues for six years. Among his film credits are House Calls (1978), Rocky II (1979), Beyond Death’s Door (1979), The Hunter (1980), DeepStar Six (1989), and Nowhere Road (2002), as well as a number of TV-movies. Blacque has often returned to the regional stage, most frequently to the Alliance Theatre in Atlanta.