Politics / Film & TV
Gil Hill
1931–2016 · police commander, city council president, actor
Detroit homicide chief who played Eddie Murphy's boss, Inspector Todd, in Beverly Hills Cop, then led the Detroit City Council and ran for mayor in 2001.
- Born
Birmingham, Alabama- Died
Detroit, Michigan
aged 84- Birth name
- Gilbert Roland Hill
- Detroit years
- 1953–2016
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
Gil Hill was born in Birmingham, Alabama, and came to the Detroit area as an Air Force airman stationed at Selfridge Air Force Base in the early 1950s. After a few years of odd jobs he joined the Wayne County Sheriff's Department in 1957 and the Detroit Police Department in 1959, rising to inspector in charge of the homicide division by 1982. When director Martin Brest scouted Detroit for Beverly Hills Cop in 1984, Hill was assigned to show him around, and Brest cast him as Axel Foley's gruff boss, Inspector Douglas Todd, a role he repeated in two sequels. He retired from the force as a commander in 1989, won a City Council seat, served as council president from 1997 and lost the 2001 mayoral race to Kwame Kilpatrick. Allegations about his police years later surfaced in the Richard Wershe Jr. story. He died at Sinai-Grace Hospital in 2016.
Highlights
- Head of the Detroit Police homicide division; retired as commander in 1989
- Played Inspector Todd in Beverly Hills Cop (1984) and two sequels
- Detroit City Council president from 1997
- Runner-up to Kwame Kilpatrick in the 2001 mayoral election
02 / Their Detroit places
Their Detroit places 2
Where they lived, worked, performed and liked to hang out. Closed and demolished places stay here too, because they are part of the city's history.
Worked here · 1990s–2001
The Spirit of Detroit
Seat of the City Council, where he served and presided; like all former council presidents, his portrait hangs in the building.
Related place · 2016
DMC Sinai-Grace Hospital
Northwest Detroit hospital where he died of pneumonia on February 29, 2016.