Bernie Hamilton played the longsuffering police chief Captain Harold Dobey in Starsky and Hutch, the hugely popular 1970s television show. Dobey was a stalwart cast member of the show, which ran for 92 episodes between 1975 and 1979 on ABC in the US and which became a primetime Saturday night favourite on BBC One, playing the perfect foil for the flamboyant crime fighting hipsters.

Starsky, played by Paul Michael Glaser, and Hutchinson, played by David Soul, blazed a trail through the crime-ridden streets of a fictitious southern Californian city in their memorable white-striped tomato red Ford Torino. To bust the criminal gangs of “Bay City” the plain-clothed duo often used their underworld contact, Huggy Bear, played by Antonio Fargas, who would often lead them into dangerous and harrowing situations. But back at the police department Captain Dobey was the reliable, no-nonsense chief who would always be there to sweep up the trail of chaos caused by the unorthodox methods of his young protégés.

Many episodes finished with the duo summoned to Captain Dobey’s office for a dressing down, a withering lecture on how they bent the rules and were not to do it again. It became a familiar signature scene.

The show, often violent and gritty, did not shy away from graphic depictions of subjects such as narcotic drug use. This led the BBC to edit some episodes and ban some altogether. However, its depiction of Captain Dobey as tough and fair was praised for portraying a positive role model at a time when parts on offer for black actors could be stereotypical. Hamilton took the part seriously, researching the role thoroughly. He often went to the police headquarters in Los Angeles, where the series was shot, to discover how a police department was run. The Dobey role was originally earmarked for a white actor but producer Leonard Goldberg decided to cast Hamilton after remembering him play a police chief on an earlier Spelling-Goldberg TV production.

Before Starsky and Hutch Hamilton appeared in 20 films which included some acclaimed performances as a character actor. In The Young One (1960), a searing tale of racism and rape directed by Luis Buñuel that won an award at the Cannes Film Festival, Hamilton played a jazz musician on the run after a white woman accuses him of rape. He ends up as a fugitive on an island off the Carolina coast and strikes up a friendship with a young girl. In One Potato Two Potato (1964) he played an African-American who marries a white divorcée played by Barbara Barrie. When her exhusband sues for custody of a child, arguing that a mixed household is an improper place to raise the girl, the Hamilton character fought a hard courtroom battle against a judge who represents the prejudices of the era. This study caused a great stir at a time when inte racial marriages were still illegal in 14 US states. The low budget film was critically acclaimed.

Bernard Hamilton was born in east Los Angeles in 1928 into a family of five brothers and a sister. At Oakland Technical High School he became interested in acting. His first film appearance came as a baseball player in the 1950 biopic of Jackie Robinson. Other film appearances attested to his versatility. These included a part in the film version of the musical Carmen Jones (1954) and an early disaster movie The Devil of 4 O’Clock (1961) starring Frank Sinatra and Spencer Tracey. Other film appearances included Synanon (1965) about a group of recovering drug addicts and The Swimmer (1968): a surreal film starring Burt Lancaster in which Hamilton played a chauffeur. He foreshadowed his later success in Starsky and Hutch with an appearance as a detective called Lieutenant Jessop in The Organisation (1971), a film in which Sidney Poitier revived the Virgil Tibbs role first seen in In the Heat the Night (1967). In all, Hamilton appeared in more than 50 TV series, including two episodes of Tarzan in the 1967 and 1968. Before finding a regular niche on Starsky and Hutch, his appearances were usually as guest roles. Hamilton’s acting career continued for another six years with guest appearances in a number of TV shows including Love Boat (1985) but later his creative talents turned to the music business. As an impresario he had run a nightclub-art gallery called Citadel d’Haiti on Sunset Boulevard since the late 1960s and his brother was the jazz drummer Chico Hamilton. From the mid-1980s Hamilton produced R&B and gospel records under his own record label, Chocolate Snowman. He also produced an album featuring himself, entitled Captain Dobey Sings the Blues.

He is survived by his son, his daughter and two grandchildren.

Bernard Hamilton, actor was born on June 12, 1928. He died on December 30, 2008, aged 80