The doe-eyed cool beauty with olive complexion, Veronica was Joyce Davenport, the tough public defender who battled for her clients during the day and then canoodled with her boyfriend, Police Captain Frank Furillo (Daniel J. Travanti), after hours.
Nominated for five Emmys in this police drama, Veronica had struggled in Hollywood for more than a decade, surviving by earning small roles in TV and film, when she was hired for “Hill Street Blues.”
“She was the last one” to audition,” said “Hill Street Blues” creator Steven Bochco in an interview with the Archive of American Television. “We'd already started shooting and we were desperate... We didn't have that actress.”
Bochco recalled that the cast and crew were playing Wiffe Ball when “Down the hall comes this exquisite woman. Somebody said she was reading for the role... I looked at her and said, 'Please be good.' And she was.”
“Hill Street Blues” won critical and, eventually, popular acclaim. Centered around a police precinct, the show focused on the work and private lives of the characters. Joyce and boyfriend Furillo were often the centerpiece of the show's storylines.
In 2002, TV Guide named the series No. 14 on its 50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time. It received 21 Emmy nominations the first season and a total of 98 nominations during the seven seasons (1981-87) it aired.
During the “Hill Street Blues” heyday, Veronica noted that she was content with her career.
"I don't think I would jump into another series. I'm having the best of both with 'Hill Street,' doing something dynamic that has turned a lot of peoples' heads around, the first three years in particular,” she said in an interview with The Morning Call, the Lehigh Valley, Penn. newspaper in 1985.
No. 26
Classic TV Beauties 1980s Countdown
VERONICA HAMEL as Joyce Davenport in "Hill Street Blues"
“Something that looked like a documentary shot like a feature film, messy, complicated, with all those characters and the overlapping dialogue and strings of plots with no neatly tied up endings.
“All that, and being one out of 14 in the cast so that I can have days off and go places, like I am today. It's really been the best of both worlds. I find that if you are THE star of the show, it owns you,” she said, "It either becomes your life or you have very little life and I don't think that would appeal to me."
For most fans, Veronica will always be Joyce Davenport.
“I don't want to come off like a Girl Scout and 'Isn't she sweet?' but the honest-to-God truth is I had seven years of a great show,” she said in a New York Post article in 1994. “It put me on the map. Yes, I'm associated with Joyce, but this is not chopped liver.”
Born in Philadelphia and a graduate of Temple University, Veronica was a secretary before becoming a model for the Eileen Ford Agency. She modeled for numerous cigarette ads. As a Virginia Slims model, she appeared in the last cigarette commercial televised in the United States on New Year's Day in 1971.
Of her stunning beauty, Veronica once commented, “If you tell me I'm beautiful I'll say 'Thank you,' but come on. I can't take a bow for it. Beauty is a gift. Now, what are you going to do with it?”
After modeling for a decade, Veronica turned to acting, working in off-Broadway plays and appearing with a road company production of “Catcus Flower” before moving to Hollywood.
Before landing the role of Joyce Davenport, she guest-starred in several TV series in the 1970s: “Kojak,” “The Bob Newhart Show,” “The Rockford Files,” “Starsky and Hutch.”
She reportedly declined the role of Kelly Garrett in “Charlie's Angels” and the part was handed to Jaclyn Smith.
After “Hill Street,” Veronica starred in many TV movies, but she's had a disappointing movie career. Many of the films she did choose were box office and critical bombs: “Cannonball Run” (1976), “Beyond the Poseidon Adventure” (1979), and “A New Life” (1988), to name a few.
Veronica was offered a key role in “The Natural,” the Robert Redford film that starred Glenn Close and Kim Basinger, but she was forced to decline the part because of her “Hill Street” shooting schedule.
“I thought I'd have time to become a movie star,” Veronica said in a 1994 interview. “And it didn't happen, did it? We're still waiting. And they're saying, 'Don't hold your breath, kid.' Even movie stars can't get movies, you know what I mean?”
