Gless Glows

The star of Cagney and Lacey and Queer as Folk lets it all hang out

by Blase DiStefano

Photograph Norman Jean Roy

Sharon Gless was especially appealing to gay women during her tenure as Det. Sgt. Christine Cagney in Cagney and Lacey, a TV drama that ran from 1982 to 1988, and she received the fan letters to prove it. The actress was nominated for an Emmy six times—twice she carried home the statuette. She also garnered a win out of five Golden Globe nominations—and won another one for her role in The Trials of Rosie O’Neill.

Now she’s an icon for gay men because of her portrayal as Debbie Novotny, Michael’s (Hal Sparks) crazy-but-lovable mom on Showtime’s Queer as Folk, which began its fourth season last month. Again, she gets the fan letters to prove it.

The 60-year-old performer (she’ll be 61 on May 31) attributes her appeal to lesbians and gay men as part of the reason for her successful career.

When I initially called Gless to interview her, I got her voice mail. Shortly after, her publicist told me that she had had an emergency, that a friend was sick. When I called her a week later, I began the interview by asking about her friend.

Blase DiStefano: Is everything okay?

Sharon Gless: Well, my friend died. She was my very best friend. Our parents were best friends and they had us a month apart, so I’ve known her all my life. She had cancer for 10 years, so we had been saying goodbye for a while now.

BD: I had lots of friends who died of AIDS. I reached a point where it seemed like I had been saying goodbye for such a long time that by the time they died, it was like, Okay, I’m ready.

SG: Yes, I did a lot of mourning before she died. She told a mutual friend of ours, “This is going to hit Sharon really hard. I don’t want her mourning, so I put her in charge of my memorial.” [Both laugh] Her child is my godchild. Judy was one of those amazing mothers where all three children worshipped her. How many parents can say that?

BD: Since we’re talking about mothers, and since this is for our May Mother’s Day issue ... how did you get to be Michael’s mother?

SG: I was in a play in Chicago called Cahoot, an original piece written for me by Claudia Allen, a wonderful lesbian playwright. While I was there, a local agent I know called me and said he had just read the most amazing script, that it was a British series. He said, “There’s a part in here, Sharon, that you’d be so right for.” He sent it to me, I read it, and I called Showtime that same day.

BD: You knew who to call?

SG: The assistant to the president of Showtime was assistant to my husband [producer Barney Rosenzweig] for 15 years. I called her and said, “Carol, I just read this script of yours, Queer as Folk. Has the role of the mother been cast?” She said, “Sharon, you don’t want to do this. There’s no money in it.” [Laughs] I said, “I don’t care. If you have the guts to do this show, I want to be on it. Who do I do to get that part?” She said, “Let me talk to Jerry [Offsay, head of Showtime].” Jerry sends back the message, “Tell Sharon I love it. I think she’d add a little class to the project.” I sent the message back, “Tell Jerry that class was not what I had in mind.” [Both laugh]

So they flew me out to meet with the two producers. It was a really black day for them, because nobody would return their calls. Everybody was afraid to touch this project.

BD: I guess it was really a lot different, even for cable.

SG: We did set the tone. There would be no other gay shows on television if it hadn’t been for us. I mean, there was Will and Grace—you know what I’m saying?

So they told me the part was mine. I said, “Don’t you want me to read for this?” They said, “Of course not.” When I got out of the elevator in L.A., this man standing there said, “Are you looking for Queer as Folk?” It was Peter Paige [Emmett]. He’d just come from his interview.

BD: When did you finally meet Hal Sparks [Michael]?

SG: I was calling the producers back and forth because I had all these ideas for Debbie. “I want to change her wig, every day I want a new wig. It has to be cheap, because she can’t afford anything.” They loved it. So I kept calling them with more ideas, and on one of the days, they said, “Hold on a minute, Sharon.” This voice came on the phone and said, “Hi, Mom.” I said, “Hi, honey. Are you my Michael?” and he said, “Yeah.” [Both laugh] That’s how we met.

BD: Have you met any PFLAG mothers?

SG: Since I’ve started doing this show, I’ve met hundreds of them—some write to me, others approach me in public.

I’m also approached by a lot of gay men. Last night we were shooting on location and an older man came up to me with tears in his eyes, saying, “Thank you so much for what you do for us.” Blase, I get hugs all the time.

BD: I’d hug you the second I’d see you.

SG: Thank you. After the first year, we were being honored in New York City Hall, and a boy came up to me and said, “Could I have a hug?” While I was holding him, the boy just started sobbing. Sobbing and sobbing as I held him, and I never let go. Everyone disappeared for me as I held him. I only tell the story because I get these incredible perks...

BD: It just shows you how much they love you.

SG: Debbie has this kind of impact. But I also think she’s outrageous. People tell me, “You remind me so much of my mom.” I say, “I am so sorry.” [Both laugh] Because she’s not the perfect mom, you know? Michael loves her, but...

BD: She’s very loving, and that’s the good thing about her.

SG: Right. But she’s just in that child’s face!

BD: [Laughs] Tell me about a typical workday on the set.

SG: Excuse me. [Coughs] I have bronchitis. [Coughs] We’re shooting in 20 below weather [in Toronto] and it’s very cold. Last week we shot in a barn way out in the boonies somewhere. And it was not insulated, and snow was coming through the roof while we were shooting. Anyway, you’d asked me...

BD: Yeah, a typical workday . . .

SG: Most of my days on the set are in either the house or the diner. I get up early and a very handsome driver comes and picks me up and takes me to work. I’m an hour and a half in makeup.

BD: That’s a long time.

SG: Well, for Cagney and Lacey, it was almost two hours, because they had to take wet straight hair and put it in pin curls to make it look like I had these sweet little curls.

But this time the man prepares my wig before I get there. First, I sit in his chair, he pincurls my hair. Then he puts a skullcap on me. Then I go to the makeup chair and he does the full makeup. Then I go back to the wig chair and they put the wig on and attach the wig. But before I do any of that, I go to my room and put on my wardrobe, because I have to get it over my head before the wig goes on.

Fifteen minutes is taken out for me in selecting what fabulous jewelry I’m going to wear. Whenever I’m in New York or L.A. where there’s some funky little jewelry store, I go in and I buy all these things to bring back to the studio. I buy all of her dirty T-shirts, and all the dirty buttons that are on her vest.

B.D.: So you know Debbie pretty well.

SG: I made up this whole backstory for her. Her diner look is how I envisioned it. The producers said, “Bring it on.”

B.D.: Are you on the set for the nude scenes?

SG: I’m not allowed on the set. I say, “That’s my son!” And they say, “Sharon, go to your room.” [Both laugh] There is one episode where I have to crawl through Brian’s loft trying to get to Brian. I had to crawl over like 35 naked bodies. I thought, “Wow, this is one of my wildest fantasies.” But it’s interesting—when they were shooting, that’s not where my mind was. I had dialogue, and I had to make sure I didn’t step on any of those boys.

B.D.: What are you working on now?

SG: We’re doing an episode right now where the boys do an AIDS ride from Toronto to Pittsburgh. So this whole episode is all on bicycles in the snow, I mean it’s something. Debbie’s on the food truck.

B.D.: Of course. So let’s move on to when and where you were born.

SG: I was born in Los Angeles. Fifth generation Angeleno, which is very rare. There are very few people in our business who are actually from L.A. My husband Barney Rosenzweig was also born and raised in L.A. He’s a producer, retired now.

B.D.: Didn’t he create Cagney and Lacey?

SG: That’s where I met him ... I married the boss.

I had a wonderful childhood. When my older brother and I reminisce about when we were children, my sister-in-law says, “No one in the world had that fun a childhood.” I was raised in the same house my mother was raised in. My grandparents built it. I was raised Catholic and went to a Catholic school, a parochial school. Then I was shipped off to a girls’ boarding school, called Santa Catalina School for Girls, in Monte-rey, California. Very beautiful. But almost the day I got there, my parents separated. So it was a hard four years for me.

B.D.: That sounds traumatic.

SG: They had it planned. I was the only girl, and they thought I was going to take it badly. As soon as I was on the train, my father moved into the athletic club, and when I came back, he was gone. No one told me while I was up there. So those years were actually not my favorite years.

But I made fabulous friends. I just finished a documentary, Blase—I’ve been producing it for 10 years with eight of the girls from my boarding school. We all met on my 50th birthday. My husband gave me a huge surprise party with 200 people. We [my former classmates and I] started talking and we thought, God, we’re interesting. And we’re all so different. Two of them are gay. One had cancer. Some were mommies ... and fabulous mothers. One girl said, “Well, my life isn’t very interesting, I’m just a wife and a mother.” I said, “How can you say that?” I don’t know why—probably because I didn’t have the nerve to take on the responsibility of raising another human being—I said that it’s probably the most valuable job you can have. Never apologize for being a mother. I mean, my God.

B.D.: Tell me about your mother.

SG: I had the best mom. She died about six years ago. Nobody’s face ever lit up like my mother’s when I walked into a room. I remember when they asked me to play Michael’s mother—this crazy lunatic—I knew exactly how to do this role. My mother wasn’t anything like Debbie, except she had that heart. My mother was very refined and really a very quiet, elegant woman. But I’m just functioning from the fifth chakra when I play this boy’s mom, because I remember what it felt like to be loved like that. Every time I walked into a room and I knew she was there, I would look for it—I’d look to see her light up when she saw me. And that was way into my 50s.

I had sort of a dual childhood. I was sent to a parochial school, but then I was removed once a month to go to cotillion. Eventually I made my debut. I actually was a debutante. There was that background too that was mixed in with a very normal and open childhood. [My mother] encouraged nonconformity in us, but we were disciplined.

B.D.: Nonconformity and discipline sound like a good combination.

SG: Yes, we had great respect for her. We knew when we were in trouble. The awful part was, “Go to your room and think about it, I’ll be up shortly.” She never ever once yelled at us. When she spanked us, it was under a controlled atmosphere and she told us exactly why she was doing it. I think I was the most sensitive of the three children. Afterwards, my feelings would be hurt, more than my bottom. I remember her always squatting down to my height and she’d say, “Who loves you?” And I’d say, “You do.” She would ask me why, and I’d say, “Because I’m a good girl.” I remember it like it was yesterday. She really was a wonderful woman. Children flocked to her. And she always spoke very softly.

B.D.: That was something I noticed about your recorded message. After I hung up, I felt really safe. I don’t know how to explain it ... it was so soothing. I get very nervous when I’m going to do interviews, but after hearing your voice, I thought, I’m not going to have to worry about this interview at all.

SG: I’m so pleased—what a nice thing to say. I’m going to call myself up and listen to it.

B.D.: [Laughs] Do you remember how you came to know what homosexuality was?

SG: I ran away from home.

B.D.: What?!

SG: My mother was divorced and we lived in Carmel then. I always hated it and I wanted to be back in Los Angeles with my family and my friends. But I needed to grow up. So my mother sort of helped me run away. I know that sounds weird, but she saw that I was a little different than most kids and my brothers. They were much more traditional than I was. So one day she gave me $200 and put me on a Greyhound bus and said to pick anywhere I needed to go. She knew I was suffocating. I said, “Where will I go? Where will I stay?” I’d never been on my own. I had just turned 20, going on 15. She said I should go to the Y. So I went and moved into the Y.

There was this one girl at the Y who was so good to me and so sweet to me. One time she asked if I’d like to go out and I said sure. I was having a wonderful time laughing and talking with all the women. I got up to go to the ladies’ room, and somebody approached me. I didn’t know quite what to do. I was a little frightened. And this girl all of a sudden showed up and she said, “Leave her alone. She’s straight.”

She became this wonderful friend. At one point, I was getting homesick and I was talking to my brother Michael by phone from the Y. This wonderful girl—I didn’t know how much she loved me, it took such nerve for her—she opened up the door to the phone booth and she walked in and said, “I love you.” I said, “Michael, can I call you back?” I always remember how kind she was. It was my first experience in a woman loving me that way.

BD: I’m glad it wasn’t something negative.

SG: Oh yeah, there was no harm. You probably know this, but all of my adult life people thought I was gay, all during Cagney and Lacey. I was always sort of flattered, because it made me one of the team. [Both laugh] I asked my husband once, “Why is that? Is there something about me? Is it the energy that I exude?” And he said, “Sharon, it’s a sexuality that you have that you’re not aware of that’s specific to any one. Also, it’s your kindness.” But I never took it as a nega-tive thing. I was sort of fascinated with it.

BD: That just shows how open you are.

SG: I was never uncomfortable with the situation, and I love that I’m welcomed. Now that I’m doing Queer as Folk, people come up to me and hug me and I’m so welcomed in the community. I would be very hurt if I weren’t. I’m serious. I found in my career the two major life-changing shows were Cagney and Lacey and Queer as Folk. My career has really been as full as it has been because of the gay community. Most of my fans on Cagney and Lacey were gay women. And now gay men embrace me into their community.

I remember one gay pride weekend they wanted me to give a speech about something very intellectual. I told them I was there for only one reason—I wanted this opportunity to say thank you, because I wouldn’t have the career I’m having without the gay community.

BD: How did you get into acting?

SG: I worked for advertising agencies and then got a job behind the camera as a production assistant for independent film. One of the film companies I worked for, one of my jobs was to screen the actors and to read [roles opposite them for their tryouts]. So I’d read with them and then they would get the job. I’d also make out our payroll, and I’d see what they were making, and then I saw what I was making, and I thought, Why am I so afraid? I think I was better than she was in that reading.

So it came to the surface that I had always wanted to be an actress. But I think because of my background, one didn’t do that—public displays. [Both laugh] When I was 18, I remember saying it to my grand-father. He was a very big lawyer in show business—he was Howard Hughes’s attorney, Cecil B. DeMille’s, Louis B. Mayer’s. He said, “Stay out of it, it’s a filthy business.” I was very, very young and immature, so when I was told not to do something, I didn’t do it.

Later, the production company I was with folded. I went to Arizona, because my grandfather had asked me to bring his car to him. One night, my new grandmother—my step-grandmother—and I stayed up late after my grandfather went to bed and got loaded on a bottle of champagne. She said, “Sharon, you are 26 years old, and you have nothing to show for your life. What do you want to do? Don’t be afraid, just say it. Even if it’s the most impossible thing, just say it.” I said, “I want to be an actress.” She said, “Sharon, when I was your age, I was under contract at MGM. I know that longing. You must follow that dream.” I said, “Please don’t tell Grandpa.”

So the next morning I was summoned to his bedroom, and he said, “That’s ridiculous.” He was formidable. I said, “I asked Grandma not to say anything to you, because I knew that’s how you’d feel.” He said, “I mean I think it’s ridiculous that you’d think I’d stand in your way. You want to be an actress? So what are you going to do about it?”

I said that I was going to go to an acting class. He asked what it would cost. I think the tuition was $150 for three months. He said, “Okay, you’ve got $150. Now what are you going to do?” I said, “Oh my God, Grandpa, thank you so much. Well, I’ll get a job, and just pay for it.” So he put me on a plane and while I was on that plane—every once in a while, I don’t know how many times this happens in anyone’s lifetime—while I was on that plane, I knew my life had changed forever. And I knew I would not fail. It’s fascinating when you have a dream and you have an epiphany. If you put it out there, you tell one person, things happen. And this is what happened.

I got to L.A. and interviewed with the acting school I wanted to go to, a beginners’ class. They were all 15-year-olds and I was 26 years old. I didn’t care, I was going for it. The class was on Thursdays during the day, so I had to get a night job. Then I get a call from a director who said he was forming a company and that I was the best production secretary he’d ever seen. I said, “Oh, I’d love to, but I can’t. You’ll laugh if I tell you why.” He said, “Go ahead.” I said, “I’m going to be an actress.” He said, “I’m not laughing. What are you going to do about it?” I said that I was going to this class on Thursdays, so I had to get a night job. He said, “Okay, I’m giving you Thursdays off, now what?” Can you believe that! So I went to class on Thursday, I worked all day long for him, and I worked on my scenes at night. Sometimes—you wouldn’t know by the size of me now—but I would forget to eat. I’d go two days without eating, I was so excited.

At year’s end, a group of us from my workshop got together and did this awful little play in a community theater with no money. We didn’t get paid nor did we charge the audience. It only ran two nights. The second night, there was someone from Universal Studios...

BD: This is almost unbelievable.

SG: I know. The next Monday I get a call saying, “Sharon, I’m with publicity with Universal Studios, and I saw you in your little play Saturday night. You’d be perfect for the lead in John Cassavettes’ new film, and I want you to meet Monique James, the head of our talent department.” I said, “Okay, cut the bullshit, who is this?” [Both laugh]

She said, “I understand that you would be skeptical. Why don’t I have Ms. James call you?” Everyone knew who Monique James was, because [Universal] was the only studio that still had contract players. She called me, I went in and met her. She asked me to prepare a scene. I did the scene and, Blase, she signed me that night.

BD: That is absolutely amazing.

SG: It is. Take of it what you want, but that’s my story. I was under contract for 10 years. I was the last contract player in the history of Hollywood.

Let me tell you a little side story. When I got my first contract from Universal, I took it to my grand-father and said, “Grandpa, look at my contract, I’m being paid only $186.” I was making $200 a week as a production secretary. He looked at the con-tract and started laughing. I asked what was so funny. He said, “Sharon, I drew up the first contract between a player and a studio. This is my contract.”

BD: Whoa!

SG: I know. He died before he ever saw me on film. He drew up the first contract between a player and a studio, and I was the last contract player in the history of Hollywood.

BD: While under contract, you did a lot of television—I remember seeing you on The Bob Newhart Show.

SG: Yes, that was my first loan-out. Suzanne Pleshette and I are still friends.

BD: You starred with Pleshette again in 1976 in Richie Brockelman:The Missing 24 Hours. And now you’re both playing mothers on gay shows [Pleshette has a recurring role on Will & Grace as Karen’s mom].

SG: Isn’t that wonderful? She was so good to me. I was so frightened. She has this great heart and this mouth on her. I used to sit there during rehearsals and listen to her talk and just howl.

BD: How did Cagney and Lacey come about?

SG: Actually, I turned it down, because I was under contract, so Loretta Swit did [the 1981 made-for-television movie]. Then Barney came back to my manager—Monique James had become my manager by then—and said, “It’s now going to series, will Sharon play it?” She said, “I’m sorry, Barney dear, Sharon’s in a series, House Calls.” I had replaced Lynn Redgrave. So Tyne [Daly] and Meg Foster played Cagney and Lacey, and then they were canceled after four episodes.

BD: I don’t remember that.

SG: Apparently, they should have just put a blond wig on Meg. They decided they would do it again as a series if they replaced Cagney. So Barney called Monique back and said, “I’m asking for the third time, will she come and play it? Monique said, “Barney, I told you she’s in a series.” Barney had gone to CBS to find out what the lineup was for the next season, and he says, “She just got canceled!” [Both laugh] That’s how I finally got Cagney and Lacey.

BD: I seem to remember some controversy surrounding the show, like one of the stars was too butch or something. Am I off track?

SG: You’re absolutely right. When Tyne and Meg did the show, some hack writer for TV Guide—I can’t remember his name—referred to Tyne and Meg as “dykes.”

BD: You’re kidding!

SG: No, in TV Guide. It was just the way they phrased it—not in a nice way, like it was a bad thing. When I came on the show, the repercussion was awful because the same man—now here I come with my blond curls—calls me “copa cabana.”

BD: What a creep.

SG: Oh yeah, he was. So I made a joke out of it. When I was asked how I played Cagney, I said, “I talk tough and I wear pink.” [Both laugh] So one time we just [happened to be] shooting in his office. He had an office in City Hall apparently, and we were shooting on location on a Saturday. I saw his name on a desk. We had food service there, and I took some ice cubes and I placed, oh, about 20 ice cubes in the middle of his desk—so when he came in Monday, all his paperwork would be destroyed. I hope he reads this. [Both laugh]

BD: He’s not likely to read it, especially this being a local gay magazine. Unless he was gay and being really homophobic.

SG: Oh, I think he was gay.

BD: That’s even worse. On to more misery ... I read that you did the stage version of Misery. Was it similar to the film?

SG: It was rougher.

BD: Rougher!?

SG: I mean Kathy Bates was brilliant, but the film was adapted from the book by William Goldman, and it was softened in some ways. In that horrible scene where Kathy breaks his ankles—well, in the book by Stephen King, she amputates them. That’s what we did.

BD: Oh, my God.

SG: It was just the nurse and the writer, built on a rotating stage, so Bill Patterson could move in his wheelchair. So they’d have me walking in one door as he’s going in another, with high-pitched frightening music. The hobbling scene where I amputate a foot, they had music set to it. It was very, very, very dark and sometimes very funny. You didn’t know how the audience would react from one night to the next. Sometimes they’d be howling. The next night was a quiet night. The director said that the audience was frightened, or that they were laughing out of nerves. One woman fainted, and the fire department had to come take her out.

BD: You’ve reteamed with Tyne Daly many times, the latest in last season’s Judging Amy.

SG: We had the best time. When my friend died, Tyne didn’t know she’d died. She knew she’d been ill. I get this call on my machine, “You are in my heart, you are so resonating with me right now. I just want you to know I love you. I don’t know what’s going on, but whatever it is...”

I can’t believe she picked up on that. But you work with a woman for six years under the pressure we were under—I mean they threw us off the air three times before we were finished. She and I had been canceled. Her mother had a great expression, “Sweat is a great cement.”

BD: So, gay marriage.

SG: I’m all for it. We’re dealing with it in this episode that we’re shooting right now, and I actually get to give the finger to the White House. I’m not too up on what’s going on, because I’m working and I don’t always hear the news, but somebody told me that San Francisco is now reneging?

BD: Yes.

S.G.: So, what is that? Is it like when the Catholic Church said there is no purgatory, and all the little souls are zapped out into space? [Both laugh] So is Rosie O’Donnell not married anymore?

BD: Good question. Okay, bisexuality. Some people believe that it doesn’t even exist.

SG: Who’s saying these things? Oh, please.

BD: Okay, now religion. Are you...?

SG: I don’t believe in religion. I think religion was formed to control the masses. But I do believe in spirituality. I’ve been studying metaphysics for 30 years now.

BD: So tell me what you think about Bush.

SG: I have a favorite T-shirt. They wouldn’t let me wear it on the show, because they don’t want to date the show in one particular era. It has two rectangles—one over one breast, one over the other. One has a woman’s body just from the navel to below the pubic area, and a fingernail is pulling the pants down. The other side is a picture of our president. One says “Good Bush,” the other one says “Bad Bush.” [Both laugh] Isn’t that the best?

Blase DiStefano, creative director of OutSmart, interviewed John Stossel for the March issue.

If you have any comments about this article, please email them to letters@outsmartmagazine.com.