Winning an Emmy for acting is not an easy thing to do. Winning four in a row for acting is a feat that only four people have ever managed to accomplish — most recently Jean Smart, who won five in a row for her role on “Hacks.” But there’s only been one person who managed to earn that prestigious honor and then ask to never be nominated again. That distinction belongs to John Larroquette, who won four Emmys for his portrayal of Dan Fielding on the hit sitcom “Night Court.”
For years, Larroquette played the role of the sex-crazed, smarmy attorney to perfection; today, he’s one of the many reasons why it’s remembered as one of the best NBC shows of all time. In fact, despite being surrounded by talented actors like Markie Post and Harry Anderson, Larroquette was the only actor to win an Emmy for his role on the show. And while he was proud of his success, he ended up becoming concerned about the future of his character. “They were talking at the time of spinning Dan off into his own series,” he once told the Toronto Star. “But I thought it would never work and so I said no.” These fears, in part, were what prompted Larroquette to ask the Emmy committee to remove his name from future consideration.
John Larroquette felt his work was no longer award worthy
Speaking to The A.V. Club in 2008, John Larroquette put his decision down to two factors. The first, he said, was that he believed his portrayal of Dan on “Night Court” wasn’t “as good as it was” by the show’s later seasons. The second was typecasting. “I knew that the character had made a really deep impression on the American public, and on studios and producers and directors and writers, but it was going to end someday,” he said. “I wanted to fade into the background with this guy a little bit, so that there would be a possibility of eventually doing something else.”
Unfortunately, some of the fears he’d had about life after “Night Court” turned out to be true. “It was 10 years after ‘Night Court’ ended before I got a role as a dad,” he said in the same interview. “Because he was such a bizarre character, he had made such an impression, that typecasting does happen. Every role was some sleazy lawyer or some sleazy this or some sleazy that.”
While Larroquette did return to sitcoms with shows like “The John Larroquette Show” and “Happy Family,” he was finally able to branch out and do more dramatic work later in his career, including his work on “The Practice” — which earned him his fifth Emmy award, this time for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series. And despite his concerns about playing Dan Fielding back in the ’80s, he did return to the role when “Night Court” was rebooted in 2023.