IT’S late at night after another very long day. But some people are worth the wait.
Former Cagney and Lacey star Sharon Gless walks into the room with a smile, her eyes shining through big black glasses.
If you’re too young to remember the pioneering 1980s American cop show, check out the link at the bottom of the page.
Female New York City cops Christine Cagney, played by Sharon, and Mary Beth Lacey (Tyne Daly) paved the way for later dramas like Prime Suspect.
“We were bigger here than we were in the United States. Good taste, I guess,” laughs Sharon, in town for the first preview screening of BBC1’s new thriller series The State Within.
It’s begins on Thursday November 2 – and is not to be missed.
Emmy-award winning Sharon plays US Secretary of Defense Lynne Warner, a patriotic American with a Force 10 personality.

Roles like this don’t come along every day. But she didn’t enjoy watching the screening at Bafta in London’s Piccadilly. “It’s so painful. It’s just hard to look at myself. I’ve always had that problem. I never watched Cagney and Lacey.
“Usually at screenings or premieres, they’d introduce the cast and then the lights would go out and I’d split.”
Since the end of Cagney and Lacey, Sharon has played a number of other characters, including a part in the American version of Manchester’s Queer As Folk.
Having also fought a battle with alcoholism, she’s now married to C&L producer Barney Rosenzweig and enjoying her time back in London.
“Last night I was walking down the street after dinner and a cabbie was parked. He said, ‘Hey, Miss Gless! I saw you on the telly this morning. Welcome back!’ Isn’t that lovely?”
Barney also eased her fears at the end of the Bafta screening. “He leaned over and said, ‘This is fabulous – and you weren’t bad either, honey.’”
You can read more about Sharon and The State Within in next week’s MEN. I’ll also post a link here to the online version once it appears.
Tue Oct 31st update: That link to the MEN feature on Sharon is here.
A Wizard Ambassador
The State Within
Cagney and Lacey