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Sharon Gless Calls Out to Gay Following With ‘Hannah Free’



Legendary TV actress Sharon Gless, perhaps best known for playing Christine Cagney in pioneering female-cop drama “Cagney & Lacey,” has long appreciated her gay following. Other than playing tough lesbian icon Cagney (who wasn’t gay, nor is Gless), she played Debbie Novotny, the overbearing mother to Hal Sparks’ Michael Novotny, in Showtime’s “Queer as Folk.”

“[“Cagney & Lacey” was] really when I first because acquainted and close to the lesbian community because they were so supportive and really kept us on the air,” Gless said. “I have tremendous appreciation for the gay community for really keeping my career going.”

Her latest role is the title character in Hannah Free, a lesbian drama now out on DVD from Wolfe Video ($24.95). In the film, based on a play by Claudia Allen, Gless plays an elderly woman whose lifetime love is near the end of her life, and whose family won’t let her see her.

“What was so timely for me, and I do make gay and lesbian causes my thing, I’m very passionate about it … what I thought was so timely and why it meant so much to me is the fact that gay couples still can’t get into a hospital room, still are not considered family,” Gless said. “I was on Rosie O’Donnell’s cruise (for gays and lesbians and their families), and there were two lesbian couples just boarding the ship, I think they’d been together 30 years. As they were boarding, one of the women had a heart attack … and her partner was not allowed in the room. And the woman died, with her partner sitting out in the hallway.”

Gless’ Hannah is a free spirit who constantly left her lover to raise her kids alone, while never failing to return to her. Gless said the final scene of the film, when Hannah is confronted with the end of her lover’s life, was particularly challenging in that she sought to underplay Hannah’s emotional state.

“When confronted with a highly emotional situation like that, you don’t usually fall apart,” Gless said. “You don’t go for the obvious.”

Gless was approached by Allen to play Hannah in the film after Gless starred in one of Allen’s plays in Chicago (her “Cagney & Lacey” co-star, Tyne Daly, also has starred in a radio play by Allen).

“She called me one day and said, ‘they’re putting one of my plays on film, do you want to be in it?’ I said, ‘absolutely,’” Gless said. “She writes women beautifully, so I knew it’d be fabulous.”

Gless now stars in TV’s “Burn Notice.” While that show and many others she has been in are available on DVD, there’s one notable exception: Other than one season and some reunion TV movies, almost all of “Cagney & Lacey” is still unavailable.

“My greatest regret is that ‘Cagney & Lacey’ never made it to DVD,” Gless said.

She hopes that if a “Cagney & Lacey” movie remake were to happen, renewed interest in the series would lead to its release on DVD.

Gless hopes that a feature film of the show would get even grittier than the series allowed when it aired during the 1980s. She said a technical advisor on the show was a female police officer who kept the show rooted in the reality of police work.

“I asked once our technical advisor, if you see something really horrible, is it really bad for a female cop to cry … in front of one of your male colleagues?” Gless said. “And she said, ‘Sharon, I’ve seen men cry, the things we see.’”

Gless on DVD

Cagney & Lacey: Season One is available on DVD — the set collects early episodes beginning with Gless’ first episodes as Cagney, who was played by Loretta Swit and Meg Foster in the show’s earliest incarnation — as are reunion sets Cagney & Lacey: The Menopause Years and Cagney & Lacey: The Return. Season sets and a complete-series set of “Queer as Folk” is available from Showtime, and the first three seasons of “Burn Notice” are out on DVD from Fox (season two is also available on Blu-ray).

By: Billy Gil
Web Editor Home Media Magazine