10 Actors Who Shockingly Quit TV Shows After The First Season
4. David Caruso - NYPD Blue
Even though he appeared in a few episodes after the first season, NYPD Blue’s David Caruso had thrown in the towel and tried to quit immediately following the premiere season’s wrap.
It’s easy enough to say it wasn’t his fault and he was simply written out part-way into the second season, but the reality is that if it was up to him then he would’ve been long gone by then. Producer Steven Bochco revealed in his memoir that Caruso desperately wanted to be removed from the show.
Toward the end of Season One, Caruso asked to be excused from his contract and depart from the show - a request that was refused by the show’s producers. The show was proving such a hit that they didn’t want to do anything to jeopardise it, but they didn’t realise that Caruso could do that all by himself!
Reportedly he became impossible to work with: aggressive, argumentative and uninterested in work. He was basically trying his hardest to get fired because they refused to let him quit. It worked, and soon into Season Two he got the departure he was begging for.