Cagney & Lacey: Breaking the "Gless" Ceiling
At the start of Women’s history month, we celebrated the shattering of the glass ceiling with TheArchive ’s Decoy - the first television series to feature a policewoman as its syndicated star. Beverly Garland solidified her place in history as a cinematic trailblazer - offering women of the '50s an empowered and respected female hero of the silver screen; a role model whose story was worth telling week after week! Garland made way for many other female “TV cops” but it took over 16 years! While Angie Dickinson did arrest our hearts in the late 70’s in Police Woman , that did not necessarily open the flood gates overnight. It took years until we had the likes of Helen Mirren in Prime Suspect , S. Epatha Merkerson and Mariska Hargitay in Law and Order , and most recently Regina King in Watchmen . While there have been other greats, we thought it would be interesting to focus on a truly untapped space, the female buddy cop TV drama. It wasn’t until 1982 that we finally saw the famil...