The episode scored one of the best ratings in NYPD Blue history, making it the week’s fifth-highest-rated show and meaning that 16.7 million households, more than a fourth of the viewing audience, had seen Franz’s buns of molten steel au naturel. For an actor, Franz is surprisingly devoid of vanity, and he appreciated the broad comedic target his posterior offered. Like Leno’s studio audience, Franz and Zeck found this to be genuinely amusing. Encore: “Franz intended this as a public service ad: this is your butt. Then: “Did they think we needed to see that before Thanksgiving? I guess a lot of people won’t be eating white meat.” “So, Dennis Franz bared his butt on NYPD Blue,” Leno began. As it happened, it was Thanksgiving eve, and Franz and his longtime inamorata, Joanie Zeck, were up baking, the TV tuned to The Tonight Show, when Jay Leno plunged into his opening monologue. Predictably, the calls started coming the next morning, yet the day was nearly over before the rump roast commenced in earnest. All he could do now was await the outcome at home. With that, Franz emerged from his trailer, which is moored next to the soundstage that houses NYPD Blue’s sets, and stepped across the lot to the space where his Jaguar was parked. I imagine tomorrow I’m going to be the rear end of a lot of jokes.” “Back when we were conceiving the show,” he remarked, “I was asked if I had any qualms, and I said, ‘If they want to see it, they’re welcome.’” By the same token, however, he was aware that he was opening himself to ridicule, confiding: “I know that my friends, my family, my loved ones-people I don’t ordinarily show my rear end to-are going to see it. On the one hand, he was flattered that someone might want to see his less-than-svelte self in the altogether. He was understandably thinking less about Andy Sipowicz’s demons than about the fact that he was joining an exclusive club, the handful of TV actors-most of them courtesy of NYPD Blue-who’ve revealed on camera as much of their anatomy as network strictures allow. Yet for all that, it was Franz’s behind that would tonight be exposed before a nationwide television audience. It’s rare to see a man his age, with his outward gruffness, act in that sort of manner.” That’s part of the charm of his character. Now, he’s having to learn how to play, to be naughty-like an adolescent. Last year, he admitted he hadn’t had sex sober in 20 years. “Sipowicz hadn’t been devoid of sex in the past,” noted Franz, “but those were financial transactions. I usually wash myself down there.” Finally, however, he submits, allowing tentatively: “Boy, that’ll sure be clean.”Īs Sipowicz’ lines suggest, his character’s nudity is almost secondary to something else, a story that has been unfolding on NYPD Blue since it premiered in September 1993, the story of an angry cop recovering elements of his humanity. At first, Sipowicz tries to push Costas away, protesting: “I usually shower alone.” Then, when she not only persists but also begins sudsing what can only be his most private parts, he flat-out balks: “Whoa, whoa. The woman was Sharon Lawrence, who in the role of Sylvia Costas shares this moment with Sipowicz, baring not just her own derriere but an area of her lover’s psyche that has long been off-limits. (His character, Detective Andy Sipowicz, had been shot in the wallet in NYPD Blue’s pilot episode.) But now that the moon, so to speak, would soon be rising, Franz was less sure, and he kept scrutinizing the image of his nether region, searching for that pinprick of red until the absurdity of it all dawned on him and he asked: “What kind of guy am I? I’ve got a beautiful woman in the shower with me, and I’m rewinding the tape to look at my ass?” The actor had filmed the scene without makeup after convincing himself that a tiny scar from a spider bite was dramatically plausible. A couple of hours before the sight of his naked, middle-aged fanny began filling television screens across America, Dennis Franz sat in his trailer on the Twentieth Century Fox lot in Los Angeles replaying a cassette of the soon-to-air footage.
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