Arthur Fancy

Arthur Fancy
NYPD Blue character
James McDaniel as Lt. Arthur Fancy
First appearance	"Pilot"
Last appearance	"Flight of Fancy"
Portrayed by	James McDaniel
Information
Occupation	NYPD Detective
Title	Lieutenant
Family	Reggie (brother)
Spouse(s)	Lillian
Children	3 + 1 foster son
Nationality	American

Capt. Arthur Fancy was a fictional character and protagonist in the television series NYPD Blue. He was played by James McDaniel from season one through eight.

Fancy was able to rise through the ranks at a very rapid speed according to coworkers either because of or in spite of being an African American on the NYPD. Fancy was one of the newer African American commanders on a force previously controlled by Irish American police officers (According to bigoted officer Jack Hanlon in a conversation with John Kelly, the force was up until the 1960s a Majority Irish American Department with some Italian American and Jewish American but only a few African American Police Officers).

Fancy was married to a woman named Lillian (played by Tamara Tunie) with two daughters and a son. He loved his wife dearly but was overprotective of her when learning of her last pregnancy (his son, Art Jr.) because of her diabetes, and it took some time for him to apologize to her. He had a younger brother, a hotheaded uniformed officer named Reggie (played by Michael Jai White) who was distrustful of whites. Reggie's combatitive behavior drew the ire of his sergeant, a bigoted officer named McNamara who came through the academy with Arthur. McNamara would claim that Reggie was in the wrong line of work with his attitudes towards white bosses, and would later help a black gypsy cab driver file a harassment claim against Reggie in the hopes of having Reggie's badge. McNamara blamed the harassment claim on the NYPD's programs that were developed to assist minority citizens, claiming that it was department procedure to take any harassment complaint from a minority citizen seriously, even if it was a minority officer such as Reggie who was being accused of the harassment. Arthur however saw both McNamara's racism and his helping of the cabbie to write the complaint (Arthur noted the "textbook language" on the complaint) and had the 15th's detectives investigate the cabbie to squash the harassment claim. After resolving the cabbie situation, Arthur recognizing that Reggie's troubles with McNamara wouldn't go away and told Reggie to immediately get a transfer away from McNamara—but not before pointing out that none of the detectives who reached out for him (Medavoy, Martinez, and Simone) to squash the complaint were African-American, thus finally teaching Reggie a serious lesson in trust. It was revealed in season 6 that Fancy's father was an alcoholic who stole his mother's hard-earned money and died a broken man in the streets. Fancy took in a foster child named Maceo in season 1, and was devastated when Maceo's mom, a reformed drug abuser, returned to claim custody of her son. The story took a sad turn in season 4 when Maceo was arrested for running drugs for his off-the-wagon mom, and Fancy had to convince him to cooperate with the NYPD in a sting against her dealer cohorts. Later, the mom blamed Maceo and said prison might do him some good—as Maceo watched from an observation window. Fancy put together a plea deal with the D.A.'s office, where Maceo would spend a few years in a work farm instead of many years in jail and consoled his former foster son about how he could still make something of his life.