Sharon Gless
| Sharon Gless | |
|---|---|
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Sharon Gless at the Governor's Ball after the 43rd Annual Emmy Awards, August 25, 1991 | |
| Born |
Sharon Marguerite Gless May 31, 1943 Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
| Occupation | Actress |
| Years active | 1970–present |
| Spouse(s) | Barney Rosenzweig (m. 1991) |
| Website |
sharongless |
Sharon Marguerite Gless (born May 31, 1943) is an American character actress of stage, film and television, who is best known for her roles as Maggie Philbin on Switch (1975–1978), as Sgt. Christine Cagney in the police procedural drama series Cagney & Lacey (1982–1988), as Debbie Novotny in the Showtime cable television series Queer as Folk (2000–2005), and as Madeline Westen on Burn Notice (2007–2013). Gless has won two Emmy Awards and has received 10 Emmy nominations. She has won two Golden Globe Awards (in 1986 and 1991) and has received seven Golden Globe nominations. Gless received her own Star on the Walk of Fame in 1995.[1]
Early life and career
A fifth-generation Californian, Sharon Gless was born in Los Angeles, the daughter of Marjorie (McCarthy) and sportswear manufacturing executive Dennis J. Gless. Her maternal grandfather was Neil McCarthy, a prominent Los Angeles attorney for Howard Hughes, who also had a large clientele of major film studio executives and actors. Wanting to become an actress, she sought her grandfather's advice and he told her, "It's a filthy business. You stay out of it." A few years later, though, when she spoke to him again about acting, he encouraged her, and gave her money for acting classes.[2][3] She worked as a secretary for the advertising agencies Grey Advertising and Young & Rubicam, and then for the independent movie production companies Sassafras Films and General Film Corporation. After deciding to switch to acting, Gless took classes and in 1974 signed a 10-year contract with Universal Studios. Near the end of her contract, she was identified in the media as the last of the studio contract players[4] — a salaried, old Hollywood apprentice system which Universal was the last to employ. Actress Elizabeth Baur is Gless's first cousin.[5]
Career
Film and television
At the beginning of her career, Gless appeared in numerous television series and TV movies, such as Revenge of the Stepford Wives, Faraday & Company with Dan Dailey and James Naughton in 1973 and 1974, Emergency!, and The Rockford Files. She played small parts in Marcus Welby, M.D. (1969–1976), until being offered the role of Kathleen Faverty, which she played from 1974 to 1976. This was in addition to a variety of guest-starring roles on television, including the part of the classy young secretary, Maggie Philbin, alongside Eddie Albert and Robert Wagner on the CBS private detective/con artist series Switch (1975–1978). Despite being a newcomer on the show, she got along very well with both Albert and Wagner, both on and off-screen. When the show was canceled after the third season, she thanked both Albert and Wagner for giving a jump start to her career.
While under contract with Universal, she co-starred in a number of properties, including the 1979 Steven Bochco television sitcom, Turnabout (based on the Thorne Smith 1931 novel about a husband and wife who temporarily switch bodies), which failed to be a ratings blockbuster, and, briefly in the sitcom House Calls (in which she replaced Lynn Redgrave, who'd left due to a contract dispute).
Beginning with the series' seventh episode/first full season, Gless replaced actress Meg Foster in the role of NYPD police detective Christine Cagney on Cagney & Lacey. (The role had been originated, in the pilot installment, by Loretta Swit. Swit, like Foster, was chosen as Cagney because, though the character of Cagney had been created with Gless herself in mind, she was unavailable for the pilot or the first seven installments of the first season.) In 1991, she married the series' executive producer, Barney Rosenzweig, who speaks in his book Cagney & Lacey...and Me about wanting Sharon Gless from the beginning and Gless being unavailable due to her contract with Universal. Rosenzweig created the 1990–1992 CBS drama series The Trials of Rosie O'Neill for Gless and, uncredited, played the only partially seen psychiatrist to whom the attorney Fiona "Rosie" O'Neill confided at the beginning of each episode. Gless, who had garnered six Emmy nominations – including two wins and a Golden Globe win for her role as Cagney – earned two additional Emmy nominations and a second Golden Globe win for this subsequent series.
In 1993 and 1995, Gless and her television partner, Tyne Daly, joined together to re-create their title roles in a quartet of critically acclaimed and popular Cagney & Lacey television movies. Gless and Tyne Daly jokingly called these "The Menopause Years."
In 1998, Gless narrated the documentary Ayn Rand: A Sense of Life, which received an Academy Award nomination for Best Documentary Feature.
Between 2000 and 2005, Gless appeared as Hal Sparks's mother, Debbie Novotny, in her biggest and most critically acclaimed role since Cagney & Lacey in the acclaimed Showtime cable television series Queer as Folk.
In 2000, she was on an episode of Touched by an Angel entitled "The Perfect Game."
On May 26, 2005, Gless was one of the mourners at Eddie Albert's funeral, along with ex-Switch co-stars Robert Wagner and Charlie Callas.
In 2006, Gless starred in the BBC television series The State Within. The following year she co-starred in the USA Network cable television series Burn Notice, playing Michael Westen's (Jeffrey Donovan) mother, Madeline Westen. In addition, Gless was a guest star on several episodes of the FX Network cable television series Nip/Tuck as an unstable agent named Colleen Rose, a role that netted her an Emmy Award nomination.
In 2009, Gless starred in her first leading role as a lesbian character in the independent film Hannah Free (Ripe Fruit Films), described as a film about a lifelong love affair between an independent spirit and the woman she calls home. The film is based on a screenplay by the Jeff Award-winning playwright Claudia Allen and directed by Wendy Jo Carlton.
In 2014, Gless is to co-star in a new comedy pilot for ABC, Saint Francis.[6]
Theater
Gless's most recent stage appearance was as Jane Juska in A Round-Heeled Woman, Jane Prowse's stage adaptation of Jane Juska's book A Round-Heeled Woman: my Late-life Adventures in Sex and Romance. The first production ran in San Francisco in early 2010. Sharon starred in a new production in Miami, December 2010 - February 2011, directed by Jane Prowse. A production took place in London, transferring in November 2011 from Riverside Studios to the Aldwych Theatre, where the run closed on 14 January 2012.
Gless made her stage debut in Lillian Hellman's Watch on the Rhine at Stage West in Springfield, Massachusetts. Gless has extensive stage experience including two appearances in London's West End, first in 1993 with Bill Paterson, when she created the role of Annie Wilkes in the stage version of Stephen King's Misery at the Criterion Theatre, and then in 1996, where she appeared opposite Tom Conti in Neil Simon's Chapter Two, at the Gielgud Theatre. She starred at Chicago playhouse The Victory Gardens Theater in Claudia Allen's Cahoots, as well as several stints, including an evening at Madison Square Garden with the National Company of Eve Ensler's The Vagina Monologues. Gless appeared on The Alan Titchmarsh Show on October 17, 2011.[7]
Awards and nominations
| Year | Award | Category | Title | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1983 | Emmy Award | Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series | Cagney & Lacey | Nominated |
| 1984 | Emmy Award | Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series | Nominated | |
| 1985 | Emmy Award | Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series | Nominated | |
| Golden Globe Award | Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Television Series Drama | Nominated | ||
| Viewers for Quality Television Awards | Best Actress in a Quality Drama Series | Won | ||
| 1986 | Emmy Award | Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series | Won | |
| Golden Globe Award | Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Television Series Drama | Won | ||
| Viewers for Quality Television Awards | Best Actress in a Quality Drama Series | Won | ||
| 1987 | Emmy Award | Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series | Won | |
| Viewers for Quality Television Awards | Best Actress in a Quality Drama Series | Won | ||
| Golden Globe Award | Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Television Series Drama | Nominated | ||
| 1988 | Emmy Award | Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series | Nominated | |
| Viewers for Quality Television Awards | Best Actress in a Quality Drama Series | Won | ||
| Golden Globe Award | Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Television Series Drama | Nominated | ||
| 1989 | Golden Globe Award | Golden Globe Award for Best Actress - Television Series Drama | Nominated | |
| 1991 | Emmy Award | Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series | The Trials of Rosie O'Neill | Nominated |
| Golden Globe Award | Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Television Series Drama | Won | ||
| 1992 | Emmy Award | Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series | Nominated | |
| Golden Globe Award | Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Television Series Drama | Nominated | ||
| 1995 | Hollywood Walk of Fame | Star on the Walk of Fame at 7065 Hollywood Blvd | Won | |
| 2004 | TV Land Awards | Favorite Crimestopper Duo | Cagney & Lacey | Nominated |
| 2006 | TV Land Awards | Coolest Crime Fighting Team | Nominated | |
| 2007 | TV Land Awards | Favorite Lady Gumshoe | Nominated | |
| 2008 | Emmy Award | Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series | Nip/Tuck | Nominated |
| 2009 | Madrid International Film Festival | Best Actress | Hannah Free | Won |
| Film Out San Diego Audience Award | Best Actress in a Feature Film | Won | ||
| 2010 | Gracie Award | Outstanding Female Actor in a Supporting Role in a Drama Series | Burn Notice | Won |
| Satellite Award | Satellite Award for Best Supporting Actress – Series, Miniseries or Television Film | Nominated | ||
| Emmy Award | Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series | Nominated |
Filmography
Film
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1972 | The Longest Night | Switchboard Operator | |
| 1972 | All My Darling Daughters | Jennifer | Television movie |
| 1973 | Bonnie's Kids | Sharon | |
| 1973 | My Darling Daughters' Anniversary | Jennifer | Television movie |
| 1974 | Airport 1975 | Sharon | |
| 1976 | Richie Brockelman: The Missing 24 Hours | Darcy Davenport | Television movie |
| 1978 | The Islander | Shauna Cooke | |
| 1978 | Crash | Lesley Fuller | |
| 1978 | The Immigrants | Jean Seldon Lavetta | |
| 1979 | The Last Convertible | Kay Haddon | Television movie |
| 1980 | Hardhat and Legs | Patricia Botsford | Television movie |
| 1980 | The Kids Who Knew Too Much | Karen Goldner | Television movie |
| 1980 | The Scarlett O'Hara War | Carole Lombard | Television movie |
| 1980 | Revenge of the Stepford Wives | Kaye Foster | Television movie |
| 1981 | The Miracle of Kathy Miller | Barbara Miller | Television movie |
| 1983 | The Star Chamber | Emily Hardin | |
| 1983 | Hobson's Choice | Maggie Hobson | |
| 1984 | The Sky's No Limit | Joanna Douglas | Television movie |
| 1985 | Letting Go | Kate | Television movie |
| 1989 | The Outside Woman | Joyce Mattox | Television movie |
| 1992 | Honor Thy Mother | Bonnie Von Stein | Television movie |
| 1994 | Separated by Murder | Various | Television movie |
| 1994 | Cagney & Lacey: The Return | Christine Cagney-Burton | Television movie |
| 1995 | Cagney & Lacey: Together Again | Christine Cagney-Burton | Television movie |
| 1995 | Cagney & Lacey: The View Through the Glass Ceiling | Christine Cagney | Television movie |
| 1996 | Cagney & Lacey: True Convictions | Christine Cagney | Television movie |
| 1997 | Ayn Rand: A Sense of Life | Narrator | |
| 1998 | The Girl Next Door | Dr. Gayle Bennett | Television movie |
| 2000 | Bring Him Home | Mary Daley | |
| 2009 | Hannah Free | Hannah | |
| 2010 | Once Fallen | Sue |
Television
References
- ↑ Awards for Sharon Gless
- ↑ Newsday, July 7, 2004
- ↑ Sharon Gless Biography (1943-)
- ↑ Buck, Jerry (1982-01-31). "Sharon Gless of 'House Calls'". Sunday Times-Sentinel (Gallipolis, Ohio). AP. pp. 16, § Take–One. Retrieved 5 November 2011.
- ↑ Scott, Vernon (January 28, 1976). "Days Long for Actress". News-Journal. p. 16. Retrieved September 7, 2015 – via Newspapers.com.
- ↑ Sharon Gless official biography
- ↑ http://www.tvguide.co.uk/detail.asp?id=106009823
External links
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to: |
- Official website
- Profile at Archive of American Television
- A Round-Heeled Woman
- Sharon Gless at the Internet Movie Database
- Profile at Museum of Broadcast Communications
- "Interview". OutSmart magazine. Archived from the original on November 7, 2006.
- "Sharon Gless Talks Burn Notice". The TV Addict. July 3, 2008.
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