Welcome to our web site and the Silver Anniversary celebration of our television series, CAGNEY & LACEY. Where, you might ask, have we been all this time and why are we coming back ‘atcha now?
It all started a couple of years ago when Torrie Rosenzweig, my youngest daughter and a film maker in her own right, became pregnant with the newest Rosenzweig on the planet, Zoey B. Torrie mentioned she was beginning to look for a job (something not too difficult in order to put aside a few bucks to tide her over during the then about to be baby’s first year). My kid’s specialty is the documentary form, for which she has won many awards, but when she needs a payday she goes to work on those film biography shows one sees so much of on various cable channels.
“Why not do one of the film bio shows you do so well on two fictional individuals?”
I am ever the helpful father and none too adverse to self-promotion as some of you might remember. I went on, “You could treat Cagney and Lacey as if they were real people…I could help line up all the clips you would need and I am sure Sharon and Tyne would cooperate.”
Torrie is an imaginative film maker, but she is also a daughter and so I was not too surprised to see her eyes roll when she answered, “Dad, that is your thing.… It’s not for me.” My shrug was not fully executed when she added, “How many years has it been, anyway?”
I used up all my fingers and toes and then realized…not as fast as she…that we were then approaching our 25th year. We both agreed I should do something about the anniversary.
So here we are, all those years later. Sharon Gless and I are in the 16th year of our marriage, Tyne Daly is still one of our closest friends, the memories are clear, if somewhat selective, and we have stuff to share; this website being only the beginning.
This Spring MGM and Fox Home Entertainment will release the first 22 episodes starring Sharon Gless and Tyne Daly on DVD. If that is a successful venture more will be coming from them. They are timing their release for Mother’s Day so now you can go somewhere other than a See’s Candy store for dear old Mom.
My book, Cagney & Lacey…and Me will be out and available from IUniverse, Amazon.com and other venues, with collector’s editions through this website. Oh yes, the subtitle of the tome is “An inside Hollywood Story OR how I learned to stop worrying and love the blonde.” Depending on how you all react to all of this pent up nostalgia there will be more on the way, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
Tyne Daly and Sharon Gless will be regular visitor/contributors to all of this as…we hope…will be some of the writers, other cast members and creative contributors to the show. We have lost many in the last couple of decades. Al Waxman (Lt. Samuels) and Sidney Clute (La Guardia) are no longer with us, nor are recurring directors Ray Danton and John Patterson. They have passed away as has Barbara Corday’s erstwhile partner, and co-creator of the show, Barbara Avedon. Shelly List succumbed to cancer a few years back and Jack Guss, my close friend and first season story editor (when many of the pages were truly blank) has been gone longer than I care to remember. We will, on this site, often take time to remember these folks fondly.
As to our creative troika of Sharon Gless, Tyne Daly and yours truly…I have been, for the most part, happily inactive. Since C&L there was the TV series “Christy” which I produced, along with C&L alumni Tyne Daly (she won an EMMY on this show too), Pat Green, Kathy Ford, Chris Abbott and Ken Wales. I helmed the Sharon Gless series, “The Trials of Rosie O’Neil” (for which La Gless got her second Golden Globe) and umpteenth EMMY nomination and where C&L alums Reza Badiyi, Ray Danton, Joel Rosenzweig and Tyne Daly all came to play. I also did the quartet of “Cagney & Lacey” reunion films, which we lovingly call “The Menopause Years,” and there was a series for Jeff Sagansky at the then PAX Network, “Twice in a Lifetime,” on which C&L grads, Liz Coe and Al Waxman, did some great work.
Tyne stayed busy, winning a TONY for starring on Broadway in “Gypsy” and garnering another Broadway nomination for her sterling work in the dramatic award winning play, “Rabbit Hole.” Besides the stuff in the preceding paragraph she was (of course) brilliant for six seasons in the CBS drama “Judging Amy” which got her another EMMY to add to her “Christy” and “Cagney & Lacey” collection. On “Amy” she worked for Executive Producer Joe Stern, another C&L alumnus.
After “The Trials of Rosie O’Neill," Sharon did several TV movies, starred in two different plays in London’s famed West End (creating on stage the role of Annie Wilkes in Stephen King’s “Misery” and then opposite Tom Conti in Neil Simon’s “Chapter II”) and won over those very tough English drama critics in the process; was featured for five seasons on the ground-breaking SHOWTIME series “Queer As Folk,” and the soon-to-be released BBC mini-series, “The State Within.” She is now doing a pilot for the USA Network.
More to come…but only if you want.
Be sure to let us know your level of interest by filling out our survey and, as we used to say in the pre-cyber space era, “Stay Tuned.”
All the Best,
Barney Rosenzweig
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
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