By then, Mr. Hickman said, he was running out of gas as a screen actor and was looking for new opportunities. He began to write scripts for TV series, including “Hawaiian Eye” and “The Loretta Young Show.” He performed onstage in summer stock, which led to his starring in “How to Succeed” for about a year as J. Pierrepont Finch, a window washer who climbs the corporate ladder.
In the early 1970s, he became an associate producer of the CBS soap opera “Love of Life.” He was later promoted to increasingly important jobs at the network, including oversight of its daytime programming.
He left in late 1976 to be a producer on “A Year at the Top,” a sitcom about two rock musicians (Paul Shaffer and Greg Evigan) who sell their soul to the devil’s son. Although its executive producer was the accomplished television comedy hitmaker Norman Lear, it had only a short run in the summer of 1977.
Mr. Hickman continued to act, sporadically, in movies and on TV into the 1990s.
But in the 1970s he also began to coach actors, and he went on to teach acting workshops for about 30 years. He also wrote the book “The Unconscious Actor: Out of Control, in Full Command” (2007).
In addition to his wife, he is survived by his son, Damien. Another son, Justin, died in 1985. His brother died in 2022. His marriage to the actress Pamela Lincoln ended in divorce.
Mr. Hickman didn’t idealize his experience as a child actor. He said he had a great time, but he admitted that it had stunted his education and led him into years of therapy as an adult.
“When I was in my 30s,” he said on the TCM panel in 2006, “I said, to my mother, ‘How come I was out at the studio making movies when I was 3½ years old?’ She said, ‘It was something you always wanted to do.’ I laughed. She meant it.”