History of Cagney and Lacey

The 1980's Emmy award winning TV series Cagney & Lacey ran for seven seasons and became not only a piece of Americana but beloved around the world. 

 
For many of the fans, it went beyond the threshold of entertainment. It meant many things to many people. As the official site states, it was 'a quintessential show for working women, a flagship for the women's movement and an opportunity for real women to relate, and to identify with, what they were seeing on their TV screens'. But it also gave the men who watched some insight into the battles that women face on and off the job. It's one of the first, if not THE first cop shows to ever 'go home' with the main characters, providing a window into their lives outside the squad room. 

The series has often gone by many names: a 'female Butch Cassidy and Sundance Kid', a 'love story', a show "about two women who happened to be cops". It could be said that all these comparisons are true, but that only scratches the surface of what this series was about. At its very heart, it was a show about two friends - regardless of gender - trying to make the world a better place while keeping their own morals in tact. While it's true they had 'issue of the day' episodes,  it's amazing that many of these episodes still resonate today - abortion, homosexuality, shady government dealings and banking corruption, you name it.  What many critics said would make the show seem dated someday has, in fact, made it more timeless. 

The Beginning...

The earliest version was intended to be a feature film, created by writers Barbara Avedon & Barbara Corday in 1974. At the time, no studio wanted to touch it. Besides, who would want to see a move about two female cops anyway, right? It didn't hit the teenage male demographic.  However, it was eventually made into a TV movie in 1981, and shopped around to the networks by Barney Rosenzweig (at the time, Corday's husband). He was met with many slammed doors in his face but finally CBS said, 'Fine. Whatever. Do your little show.' He wanted  Tyne Daly for Mary Beth Lacey, but she original refused. Having played Clint Eastwood's sidekick in 'The Enforcer', she felt she'd 'played a cop' so she was done with that kind of role. Rosenzweig convinced her otherwise and she joined on. As for Christine Cagney, he wanted Sharon Gless, but she had prior arrangement so he cast popular TV star Loretta Swit of M.A.S.H. fame for the role.

The end result shocked CBS (and television in general). It seemed 'women focused' entertainment had a draw. So much so that Cagney and Lacey, the TV Movie was the highest rated TV movie of 1981. CBS said, 'More please!' and ordered the series, which began in 1982. Swit was still working on M.A.S.H. at the time so she was unavailable. Sharon Gless was also still unavailable since she had replaced Lynn Redgrave on 'House Calls', another CBS show, so Meg Foster stepped into the role of Christine Cagney.

After the first season, CBS threatened to cancel Cagney & Lacey unless Foster was replaced. The reasons ranged from the press saying Foster and Daly together created a lesbian subtext to Foster was too 'butch'. It was more to the point that Foster and Daly looked similar. The network bosses wanted someone a bit more like, well, Sharon Gless. As luck would have it, Sharon Gless would soon be out of a job. 'House Calls' was canceled. However, winning over Gless was no easy feat either. Like Daly, she had reservations on taking the role. For her, she had just replaced an actress on an established show and didn't want to relive the experience again. Rosenzweig asked Daly to 'court' Sharon and get her to agree to come on board. At first, Daly was reluctant. Foster was a friend and she didn't want her friend replaced. But she realized that for the good of the show, they needed a new Cagney. As both women have mentioned, Daly showed up one day at Gless's house with a bunch of balloons in one hand and a bottle of wine in the other. After a couple of hours of taking (and drinking probably), they agreed they'd make a good match. Years later, they would talk about how they decided, right at the beginning of their partnership, they would stand in solidarity with each other, particularly when the media, network execs, etc. might try to pit them against each other. This solidarity is probably one of the main reasons the two call themselves friends today.

The Middle...

The reboot with Gless fell flat at first. Low ratings led CBS to cancel the show in spring of 1983 (right around the time I personally had discovered it). Rosenzweig received thousands of letters from unhappy viewers, many of whom were middle-aged women in the exact demographic which the advertisers wanted to target. There was at least one letter from a 12 year old (me!) too. Seeing the opportunity in front of him, he organized a letter-writing campaign, urging the viewers to write to their local newspapers. He knew that studio heads wouldn't read viewer-mail but a grass roots effort to save the show would be noticed when it began to appear in the daily papers.

That's when the effort caught fire. According to the Official Cagney and Lacey site, "The National Organization of Women, Gloria Steinem and MS Magazine were, amongst others, prominent in the campaign which also featured thousands of 'ordinary' men and - especially notably - women. In a historical move, CBS reversed the cancellation, and despite the casts' contracts being cancelled, seven episodes aired from March 1984, and subsequently four seasons.

By the End...

The characters located at the fictionalized 14th Precinct in New York City was actually filmed mostly in Los Angeles, coincidentally on Lacy Street. It's important to note that over the years they did spend a couple of weeks filming in the Big Apple. Look close and sometimes you'll catch a few outdoor scenes where you can see the NYC skyline in the distance.

With viewer ratings at millions an episode during its peak, the show garnered a total of 36 Emmy Nominations and 14 wins. In fact, aside from the first season, there wasn't a year when Gless or Daly didn't command the Emmy category of Best Actress in a Drama series. John Karlen also picked up an award in 1986 for Best Supporting Actor in a Drama the year of Gless's first win. This eventually totaled 6 Emmys between them. Cagney & Lacey also found international success, where it regularly made the top twenty on the BBC while also earning Gless a Golden Globe from the Hollywood Foreign Press Association.

Seven years after Chris and Mary Beth gave each other a last handshake in the series finale in 1988 they returned to CBS. This time it was in the form of a reunion TV Movie. Once again Cagney and Lacey (The Return) was the highest rated made for TV movie of the year (1994). While the show didn't go back into full time production, like the original TV Movie from 1981, it did spawn 3 other films: Cagney & Lacey: Together Again (1995), Cagney & Lacey: The View Through the Glass Ceiling (1995) and Cagney & Lacey: True Convictions (1996).