Former Detroit homicide inspector and Council President Gil Hill, who played a tough-talking cop in the Beverly Hills Cops movies, died Monday about 4:40 p.m. at DMC Sinai-Grace Hospital in northwest Detroit, a friend tells Deadline Detroit.
Hill was admitted to the hospital on Feb. 17 for pneumonia and was listed in critical condition. Before that, he had been in a rehab center where he was being treated for a lung condition called COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease).
Hill, who headed the Detroit Police Department homicide division, was elected to the city council in 1989 and rose to president. In 2001, he ran for mayor against Kwame Kilpatrick.
Gilbert Roland Hill was born in Birmingham, Alal., and came north as part of what's called the Great Migration. He and his wife, Delores Hooks, raised three children in Detroit.
"The only difference between Inspector Todd and my real life is that I don't curse as much in real life," he's quoted as saying.
In recent years, the retired lawman-turned-politician kept a low profile.
Hill is one of two Detroit police retirees with an
Internet Movie Database page. His references there for 1984-2004 films as the boss of Axel Foley (played by Eddie Murphy) are more extensive than those for
Ira Todd, a technical adviser for the one-season 2013 series "Low Winter Sun" on .AMC.
[/QUOhttp://
www.deadlinedetroit.com/articles/14410/ex-detroit_city_council_president_gil_hill_dead_at_84#.VtTM6-azmAVTE]
I hope Danny Glover not next.
