Viewers Voice, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization.  Contributions received from individuals, foundations and corporations are tax-deductible.  If you wish to support the work of Viewers Voice send donations to:

Viewers Voice, Inc.,

P.O. Box 27758

West Allis, WI  53227-0758

Please make checks payable to Viewers Voice, Inc.

Or

You can use PayPal, just click on the logo below.

Last October at our Viewers Voice Conference I interviewed an old friend of Viewers Voice; Sharon Gless. Sharon came over to The Sportsmen’s Lodge Hotel in Studio City, California to talk about a new series she was doing for NBC called Thick and Thin.  

I first met Sharon when she was in a series for CBS called Cagney and Lacey, a drama that is still considered by many as one of the best shows ever to hit the tube. Before that woman were just considered tokens in a man’s world. Of course there were a few exceptions where women were permitted to be friends but it was usually in the field of comedy. Christine Cagney (Gless) and Mary Beth Lacey (Tyne Daly) were more than friends they were New City police officers which at that time was reserved for male characters.

Cagney and Lacey was on its way to being canceled when the viewers stepped in with a letter writing campaign that persuaded CBS to bring it back. At that time I worked with another viewer organization and met Sharon at a couple of their banquets. A few years later I met Sharon again when we started Viewers Voice and helped to support her new series Trials of Rosie O’Neil, while the other organization became quite critical of the new series. Sharon and her husband Barney Rosenzweig, who was executive producer of both shows, helped Viewers Voice get their feet off the ground. They have been very supportive of Viewers Voice ever since, which we will always be grateful.

It was a warm and sunny late Wednesday afternoon when Sharon joined us poolside at the hotel. She had just finished working on her new series Thick and Thin which was going to be taped in front of a live audience that following Friday. Viewers Voice was on the VIP list to see the show and we were really looking forward to it. It had been awhile since I seen Sharon last but as always she was a delight to be with and looked fantastic. The interview was very casual and we discussed among other things her new series. The show was supposed to premier in March on NBC, right after the Winter Olympics. Unfortunately that never happened, for some reason they decided to put the show on hold. Hopefully it will air this summer but if it doesn’t I’m afraid you will never get to see how creative and funny Thick and Thin is and will be put in a vault to never be heard from again. I have been in contact with the NBC publicist for the show and she still seems to feel it will still air at some point. I hope she’s right NBC needs all the help they can get and they’d be missing an opportunity to have a possible hit.

I was going to print this interview when Thick and Thin made it appearance but since we don’t have a clue when that will be I thought you might still be interested in hearing what Sharon had to say.

Rhode: Sharon I seen the pilot to Thick and Thin and I loved it. Can you tell us what it’s all about?

Gless: Well, the main story is about a young woman, Jessica Capshaw, who plays my daughter Mary, and Mary has just recently lost forty pounds. No sixty, sorry sixty pounds; it’s been a long time since I did the pilot. And Mary’s lost sixty pounds and it becomes sort of a study in careful of what you asked for, because her life is different but not necessarily any more fun. She’s not necessarily any happier than when she was heavy. That is the main thrust of the story and then the people too who she works with and her crazy family. It’s very, very funny. It’s written by Paula Pell who’s the head writer of Saturday Night Live and our executive producer is Lorne Michaels who heads up Saturday Night Lives, so it has a great pedigree. And yet it handles an issue that is delicate; weight, but in a funny way and sort of in a tender loving way. We don’t laugh at any body we really laugh at ourselves. So Jessica Capshaw plays my oldest daughter who’s now very thin and Amy Halloran plays my baby, who’s chubby. What I love about that character, about my baby is that she loves the way she looks. She thinks she’s sexy, she thinks she’s hot, she loves her size and it’s terrific. It’s a terrific thing to say. The sisters are very different in personality. Another thing I love about it is you know Martin Mull plays my husband; he’s one of the greatest comedic genesis’s I’ve ever worked with.

Rhode: You two are really great together.

Gless: We have a good time. I’m learning from him. I’m learning a lot from him. He thinks I’m hot and he comments about my love handles and he thinks that’s just as sexy as hell. I love that message is being put out there.

Rhode: That’s for sure because too much emphasis now a day is being put out there on how shinny you can be.

Gless: Oh yaw, listen I’ve been a victim of it. I’ve been a victim of it. It amazing what the industry can do when you put on weight and now somebody’s made this fabulous show about a girl whose’ now lost sixty pounds and one of the messages I think you take with you is your size doesn’t necessarily  dictate your happiness, but it’s done in a funny way.

Rhode: We were taking before how you have to actually cook on the show?

Gless: I who never cook never I mean I never cook. Barney and I eat every meal out, I’m serious. I don’t cook like ever. In the pilot I make a, what are those things, the chips and the cheese and the tomatoes and the olives… nachos. So I do that whole nacho thing. Last week or maybe it was the week before I made pancakes from scratch on camera while I’m talking and there’s a whole scene going on. I’m pouring the batter, I’m cooking on the grill, and I’m flipping them. If you got really close to the pancakes they looked really awful.

Rhode: Sharon can you tell us what your husband Barney Rosenzweig is up to these days. I understand he’s working on a DVD for Cagney and Lacey?

Gless: Yes, next year is our twenty-fifth anniversary of Cagney and Lacey so Barney has gotten Sony involved who owns the library and the DVD’s are being made. Then we‘ve done different packets, I guess you can’t do all one hundred and twenty-five at once, there’ no machine that makes a packaging that big. They’re going to be done in different groups; there will be a group of Sharon Gless’ favorite, a group of Tyne Daly’s favorites all different forms of packaging it. Barney has also written a book of Cagney and Lacey and Me all the behind the scene stuff. So I’m sure there are moments in that book where Tyne and I will probably take a contract out on his life.

Rhode: You haven’t read it yet then I take it?

Gless: No he’s read me parts. He’d ask me, “How do you feel about me saying this?”  I’d say, “Well alright.” It’s very touching; some of it is painful to read, it was very hard. Barney went through a lot of pain trying to get that thing on the air. We were canceled three times. By the time we were off the air we were canceled three times. How’s that for resilience, I mean we just kept bouncing back.  

Rhode: I don’t suppose there’s any future plans for any Cagney and Lacey reunions?

Gless: I don’t know where I heard it but somebody suggested doing a Cagney and Lacey in each country with actors from that country playing those roles in their language. Often times I’ve heard of a movie version where we obviously would not play ourselves; because we’re a little long on the tooth, now.

Rhode:  I don’t know, don’t you think it would be kind of neat to come back and do a two hour movie?

Gless: Yea, but we’d do it like the four movies we did; you remember the four reunion movies? We did them in real time. It was seven years later. This is what they looked like seven years later guys and Tyne’s already left, I mean Mary Beth left the force; she wasn’t on the force any more. I was now a lieutenant but it wasn’t my dream because it was a desk job. They had to rig it so Tyne could come back; Lacey could come back and work with Cagney, but she had to go through all that testing and physical testing again. She could never be a cop again, she was like Special Forces. Barney’s always done it so realistically that what at my age and Tyne’s, I don’t know what they’d do with us. We can’t be out on the streets. I suppose you could do undercover stuff. Play a grandma in my rocking chair. Frisk guys as they walk by; it’s alright I’m a cop. (laughter) So I don’t know, it will be interesting to see what the repercussions of, that can be used in a good way too the word repercussions, right, what the repercussions are of all the DVD’s coming out and the book coming out. Barney’s going to tour with the book and Tyne and I will be doing questions and answers like this that will be put in the DVD’s. In fact we’re going to be showing some film saying what was going on really behind the scenes when you were shooting that. You do remember stuff, you know. It should be interesting.

Rhode: You two had a good time making Cagney and Lacey, didn’t you?

Gless: We sure did. We’re very, very good friends. Tyne’s mother had a great expression;

“Sweat is great cement” and we sweat together for six years. It was really sometimes and you know this it was like Ty and me against the world. They wanted us gone. We were a little teeny group trying to stay a live in a show that was considered controversial. Two strong women starring equal roles in a series in what was considered men’s jobs. They never duplicated that format again ever starring two women, two piers, do you know. There would be no N.Y.P.D. Blue had there not been Cagney and Lacey. We were the first buddy; we were the first cops that talked about their feelings. And then came N.Y.P.D. Blue where two male cops talked about their feelings. I think it was ground breaking in many, many aspects.

Rhode: Yes it was. Well Sharon I appreciate you coming over here and talking to us.

Gless: Is that it? I’m having a good time. What more can I tell you about Thick and Thin?   

It’s always fun talking to Sharon Gless and she had much more to tell us about her new series that has yet to air but unfortunately we will have to continue our interview in my next column.

7^th Heaven fans I received an e-mail from Stephen Collins this week I thought you might be interested in. He is in South Africa doing a small part for his friend Ed Zwick in a movie, Blood Diamond with Leonardo Di Caprio and Jennifer Connolly. He also said he gives Viewers Voice a definite assist with keeping 7^th Heaven on the air. So until my next column let your voice be heard.