Former co-star Jeff Wincott posted on social media that Scott Hylands has passed away.
Fans of the CTV series Night Heat, which aired from 1985 to 1989, will remember Hylands as the more seasoned half of the team of detectives O’Brien and Giambone. Their characters were loosely based on real life NYPD veterans Sonny Grosso and Eddie Eagan. The latter two were the real life “French Connection” cops who broke a record heroin bust in the early ’60s.
Grosso was an executive producer on Night Heat and spun some unforgettable stories the night I visited the set. Hyands had warned me that high energy Grosso was “bouyant to the point it can numb you.”
That visit was thanks to my late, great publicity pal Bill Vigars. I was pretty new to the TV beat and Night Heat, which was exported as a CBS summer series – a rare Canada-to-US crossover – often shot well into the wee hours. Besides Hylands and Wincott, I spoke with actor-director Clark Johnson as well as cast members Allan Royal, Laura Robinson and Eugene Clarke.
The guest star that episode was David Carradine. Night Heat’s Canadian budget got a boost with the CBS connection, and a few big names were flown north to appear on the series. Dressed in a bath robe, Carradine emerged from his trailer parked under a expressway ramp in downtown Toronto. The former Kung Fu star looked askance when I turned down a beer, demanding to know if I was really a Canadian.
This was the second cover story I wrote for TV Guide. Wincott was young and energetic and eager to talk, pointing out he had engaged in a little impromptu police work since landing the series. “My brother and I saw this guy getting beaten up,” said Wincott, who yelled, “Stop you mothers, I’m a cop and I’ll shoot!”
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Refreshingly chippy, Hylands stood out on that occasion, pushing back on local criticisms that the series was pandering to CBS by looking too American — a knock that persists to this day whenever a Canadian-made cop series frames an outdoor scene without the CN Tower in the background.
“It’s a bit of a snarly show, and it’s grown some muscle,” Hylands told me. “So to hell with the culture and pride aspects. What we’re dealing with here is heavy marketplace reality.”
A Vancouver native, Hylands studied acting at UBC and then headed straight to New York, landing the lead role in an off-Broadway production of “Billy Liar.” He found more theatre work in San Francisco and then got noticed in Hollywood for his dark role in Mark Robson’s psychological thriller “Daddy’s Gone A-Hunting” (1969).
Plenty of bad guy guest roles followed in almost every American primetime action hour in the ‘70s, including The Streets of San Francisco, Kung Fu, Police Woman, Canon, Baretta, Harry O and Ironside. On Lorne Greene’s Griff he played an assassin.
He was also in the 1978-79 miniseries Centennial and in the ‘80s on The Waltons, Hart to Hart and Airwolf.
Tired of being cast as the heavy of the week, Hylands returned to Canada in the mid-’80s to headline Night Heat. Subsequent Canadian roles in series such as Counterstrike and Neon Ryder followed.
A move with his wife to Canada’s West Coast led to roles on several cross border productions including The X Files, Due South and Stargate SG-1. In recent years, in between much stage work, he’s appeared in episodes of Fargo, Heartland and Wynonna Earp.
Six weeks prior to his diagnosis, he was on stage in Salt Spring Island, BC, in a one man Shakespeare-themed play he had written.
Stevie Vallance, who also played a detective on Night Heat, posted that Hylands was there for everybody on the cast. She speaks for many who remember him as a “kind, private person and a consummate actor with a great sense of humour.” Condolences to his friends and family.
