Law & Order actor Steven Hill dies at 94

Steven Hill, best known for playing District Attorney Adam Schiff on Law & Order, died Tuesday morning at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York. He was 94.

The cause of death has not been revealed, and his wife, Rachel, said he suffered from several ailments. Born Solomon Krakovsky in Seattle to Russian immigrant parents, he became interested in acting at age 6 after landing a role in a production of The Pied Piper of Hamelin. In the 1940s, he took classes at the Actors Studio in New York with Marlon Brando and Montgomery Clift, and soon landed a part in a Broadway play. Over the course of his career, he appeared in more than two dozens movies, and in 1966, starred in Mission: Impossible as undercover team leader Daniel Briggs. Hill left the show after one season because he was an Orthodox Jew, and the shooting scheduled interfered with his observation of the Sabbath, The Associated Press reports.

Hill spent a decade on Law & Order, leaving the show in 2000. "Steven was not only one of the truly great actors of his generation, he was one of the most intelligent people I have ever met," Law & Order producer Dick Wolf said in a statement. "He is also the only actor I've known who consistently tried to cut his own lines." While portraying Schiff, Hill read up on the law, saying in a 1999 interview, "I believe the audience needs to feel you understand what the heck you're talking about and they can tell if you don't." He is survived by his wife, Rachel, four daughters, and five sons.

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