One of the last of the Hollywood studio contract players, actress Sharon Gless’ personal life is steeped in Hollywood tradition and upbringing. Raised in Los Angeles, Ms. Gless is the granddaughter of Neil McCarthy, who repped the moguls of the day: Howard Hughes, Louis B. Mayer and Cecil B. De Mille.
Sharon Gless - Women in Film Celebrates the 2002 Crystal and Lucy Awards - Arrivals - Century Plaza Hotel - Century City, CA, USA © Lee Roth / RothStock / PR Photos
Sharon is best known for her role as a New York Police Detective Christine Cagney on the hit series Cagney & Lacey. Along with actress Tyne Daly, Ms. Gless redefined the public perception of women’s roles and capabilities, and in that process she earned two Emmys, a Golden Globe, and six Emmy nominations for her efforts on the series.
Showtme’s “Queer as Folk” also cast Ms. Gless as Hal Sparks’s mom, Debbie Novotney.
Now Ms. Gless has taken over the mother role for Jeffrey Donovan’s character Michael Westen in USA Network’s runaway hit, “Burn Notice.”
Her portrayal of Madeline is a complicated one, and always a scene stealer. This good fortune of casting and writing has made the show a cross-generational must-see favorite.
Season two has upped the ante and is proving to be a richer, more compelling ride for fans of the show as Jeffrey Donovan (Michael) comes to new terms with his clever mother (Gless) who wants to be closer to her intrepid son.
Ms. Gless was en route to her now home in Miami, where the series is shot, and spoke to Monsters and Critics’ April MacIntyre about the show, her efforts to rebuild her relationship with her “son” and some Hollywood memories and some off-record revelations that even her old partner Tyne Daly may be written in as a visiting sister on the series.
You and Michael (Jeffrey Donovan) are becoming more a tribe of two. It was a very interesting scene with your look-alike therapist, when Michael turned and looked at you and he shared that very personal story about stealing groceries and how you sort of swept it under the rug and acted like everything was fine. I wonder if you can pull that story out a little bit more?
S. Gless Well, did you see it to the end of the episode? So you saw what she admitted to in the kitchen afterwards?
I watched the episode on the USA site.
S. Gless We’ve done a few therapy sessions now. Was this the very first one where she picks someone who looks just like her?
Yes.
S. Gless I think that’s funny.
That’s the one that I saw that I’m referring to. That particular scene where he sort of looks at you and he turns away from the therapist is a brilliant visual gag by the way. I don’t know if you came up with that or not, having the therapist styled liked you.
S. Gless I can’t take credit for that. It was deliberate. I’ve had more people ask me, “Did you think up that?” No, the producers thought that up.
For one site gag at the end when she’s leaving he said, “What made you pick her?” I said, “I don’t know what I was thinking.” She thought she would have an ally in someone that looked like her. But it goes on, the very last scene at the end of the show in the kitchen where she admits about that story.
That particular scene I have not seen yet.
S. Gless It’s a very touching scene.
Will the writers flesh it out so that your relationship is more than just Westen moaning, ‘my mother is on the phone’ - and give it a little bit more meat, because it’s obvious that your deceased husband, Michael’s father was not a prize.
S. Gless Exactly. No. It was a very dysfunctional family. It sort of indicated that there was abuse and that she didn’t always do anything about it. I’m sure she was abused too. It’s a very troubled background between them. That’s why, if you get a chance, see that last scene they wrote.
It’s in that episode of where Michael and Madeline, he comes to pick her up to take her to therapy again and she says, “I’ve decided I’m changing. I’m not going to go there again. I want someone who asks better questions.” You can see she’s bitter. But they wrote a beautiful scene for the two of us standing in the kitchen when she talks about what happened, about when he came home from the market with the groceries.
I like where it’s going, just from the standpoint of making it a more well-rounded series.
S. Gless It was. I mean it is a drama, but it’s a very fun drama.
Does Michael have an epiphany that he gets all of his strength and cunning from his mother really?
S. Gless I think he knows that. I mean that was their intention. When I first started the show they had her much more needy. She’s still needy, but she does it in a very manipulative way.
It seems like you’re very happy that he’s back in Miami.
S. Gless She’s thrilled. Absolutely. You got that one right. It’s been ten years since she’s seen him.
What is your feeling about Madeline’s relationship with Nate?
S. Gless Oh, with Nate. Well, Nate is her baby. Nate is the one who didn’t leave. Michael has, I don’t know if she would consider it an acceptable job because she’s still a little vague as to what he does, what Jeffrey does, but Nate just keeps trying. I think his brother was his idol. It’s been established in the show when his brother left is when Nate started getting into trouble.
I think Nate tries hard. I don’t mean he’s not as smart as Michael. Michael’s just been exposed to a great deal and Nate is sort of the one who’s been stuck at home trying jobs that are always not honest, but Nate is her baby and so she protects him. I think she’s very, very aware of who both her sons are, but I think Nate is the one who was forgotten. Not by her, but by Michael.
It’s dysfunctional and it’s crazy. I think Madeline wants this family together and she keeps trying, but she sort of tries to make Nate’s activities look more honest or plausible than they really are.
It’s like your character is trying to make up for lost time.
S. Gless Exactly. Yes. I think you say this is a spy show and it is. You never see James Bond have a mother.
But that’s what makes this interesting. It makes Jeffrey’s character, Michael Westen, so much more human. He doesn’t want to be in Miami. They dropped him down in Miami because of his mother, because at the beginning of the show he was passed out, beaten and passed out and dropped and wakes up in Miami. The last place he wants to be is Miami because of that mother of his.
But it makes him human. Everybody has a mother or did and so during most of the show, obviously, is Jeffrey trying to help other people and using his very advanced spy techniques to sometimes do jobs that are beneath him. But whatever he has to do he has to do, but he’s still stuck there. He still has his mother. I think it says something nice about the character of Michael Westen, because he doesn’t shine her on.
I mean she doesn’t see the looks on his face that you do when he’s talking to her, but she knows. I think also he does pay attention to her because she’s always in harm’s way. They use the mother a lot to threaten him.
How does Madeline feels about Fiona?
S. Gless Oh, she loves Fiona. She wants them together. I don’t know if that scene’s come up yet.
It seemed that way in the first season .
S. Gless Yes. They wrote a beautiful scene. Let me tell you, it was like Cagney & Lacey quality. They wrote a beautiful scene between Fiona and me where I call her over to the house and tell her. I shouldn’t be giving all of the material away, but anyway, they wrote a beautiful scene where I fight for the two of them.
Of course, Gabrielle Anwar is a wonderful actress and it’s a very, very nice scene that they wrote. So Madeline roots for Fiona. Michael is difficult. This is his mother speaking.
Good Female characters in TV drama are far and few. It’s just you and Fi for the most part and the invisible Veronica?
S. Gless Right.
Do you think we’re ever going to get to see Veronica or is she going to be this off-camera entity that’s always upset that Michael’s destroyed something of Sam’s?
S. Gless I don’t know. I would tell you if I knew we were going to be seeing her. I don’t know. As I said, my scenes are always just very specific. They have nothing to do with what the caper is.
I get the overall sense that even though Michael is damaged goods, he desperately, even though in the first season we get this, “Oh, my God. My mother. The last place I want to be is Miami,” but I get the overall impression that he wants nothing more than to have a tribe of two with you and to be close to you.
S. Gless That’s nice. You have to understand I don’t watch the show because I’m in it. I’ve never, ever been able to ever watch anything I’ve ever done. It’s a phobia of mine.
Really? Well, I’ve been watching it even though I didn’t see that particular last scene that you mentioned was very powerful. I will, because I have TiVo and your series is one that I watch solidly.
S. Gless Thank you.
I’m a mother of two boys, so I can relate.
S. Gless How am I doing?
You’re doing great. I’m absolutely pulled in by the story of you and Nate and Michael and it’s my hope that the writers keep fleshing your character out fuller and much more integral to Michael’s story in what he’s doing and trying to reclaim his life, because you’re a big part of that.
S. Gless Right. I agree with you. I just don’t want it to become; I don’t think they’ll make that mistake; of having her involved in his capers.
I do a radio show called TV Talk with Shaun O’Mac and your show comes up all of the time because the moderator for this radio program is obsessed with Burn Notice.
S. Gless That’s nice.
So we discuss it a lot. A lot of the callers and people who call in, they talk about how come she smokes so much. What I answered was ‘it’s smoking. Get over it.’ It’s not like you’re doing it. It is what it is.
S. Gless It’s a character trait.
I wondered if you had to answer a lot of questions about that.
S. Gless Do you know what’s interesting? It’s a very good question, because I am so surprised not one person has ever complained.
That’s sort of what keeps her sane.
Or going off to Pilates classes or something.
S. Gless (laughing ) I know. I know. It’s fun to use because I do know how to smoke a cigarette and I’ve always sort of not resented, but it’s always bothered me to watch actors, who have to use cigarettes and they don’t really smoke.
They take a puff and then blow it out. It’s such a fun instrument for me to use ...Because you know how some people take off their glasses for accent or whatever? I can use that. I mean I can say a lot of words without speaking.
Right. It’s a nice extension of your arm, almost like a prop that you can really sort of visually punctuate with.
S. Gless She can say millions by which time she smokes and when she doesn’t.
You do with your eyes in the scenes with Jeffrey. That’s another thing too that the listeners in this radio show do bring up is that your chemistry with Jeffrey Donovan is amazing ...
S. Gless How nice.
You look like you belong to each other in some ways.
S. Gless Sometimes we actually, I’ve noticed, have similar smiles when he does that sort of stiff, fake smile of his.
A Mona Lisa smile?
S. Gless Yes. Sometimes she does that too. I was working with him and I said, “Do you know we have the same smile sometimes?” And other people have commented. He could definitely be my son. We’re both Irish.
I wanted to ask you how are you loving Miami, by the way, as a location? Have you ever shot movies or done any television in Miami?
S. Gless No. This is actually my home.
I know the area very well - It’s so gorgeous there.
S. Gless It is. It’s very beautiful. When we did the pilot they didn’t know I lived here and I didn’t want to do the pilot. I live on an island that requires a ferry.
Off of Miami Beach?
S. Gless Yes. Fisher Island. For the pilot, because I only shot two days, they put me up in a hotel in South Beach because I was so afraid if anything ever happened and I couldn’t get off this island. You never know.
So anyway, after the show sold and everything then I said, “Well, this is my home.” So a lot of times I get on that ferry and back. We’ve lived here for 12 years. My husband, after leaving Hollywood, he was an award winning producer himself (Barney Rosenzweig ) When he retired he said, “I want to be as far away from Hollywood as I can possibly get and still stay in the continental United States.
He picked Fisher Island, so that’s where we live.
The transformation of South Beach too has been amazing. I remember the old Wolfies deli days with cold pickles in a bucket on the table.
S. Gless: I did Queer as Folk for five years. I played a waitress.
I went to... it was either Wolfies or Rascals, the old, old diner. I can’t remember now it was so many years ago. I sat there and studied those old waitresses. They were all these old gals with the long nails and the teased hair. I spent a whole Sunday there all day just watching them before I did Queer as Folk.
If it was Wolfies, a bucket of ice-cold pickles was always put right on the table.
S. Gless That’s right. Yes, that was one.
What a great place that was. It’s one of my favorite American cities.
S. Gless Yes. My husband said, “I don’t know if our marriage is going to survive this series,” because I’ve never lived at home and shot a show.
I’m from Los Angeles and I still go back. I shot Nip-Tuck last year.
Right. That was fun.
S. Gless Me too. In fact, I just got nominated for an Emmy for it. I just thought I’d throw that in. So I had to fly back and forth to do that. But here I’m home.
I saw that your grandfather, Neil McCarthy, was a lawyer and he had all of these big macher clients?
S. Gless He did. He did.
Did your grandfather came from the east or his people.
S. Gless Actually, he was from Arizona.
Well that’s east!
S. Gless: His father drove a stagecoach in Phoenix, Arizona. He went to Michigan Law School though and then went straight to Hollywood and became Cecil B. DeMille’s and Louis DeMier and Howard Hughes’ only lawyer.
And here you are, one of the last of the studio contract players.
S. Gless Do you want to know something really weird?
When I showed him my contract at Universal I’d never done anything before and I said, “Grandpa, they’re not paying me very much money.”
He said, “Let me look at it.” He burst out laughing. I said, “What’s so funny?” He said, “This is my contract.” I said, “What?” He said, “I drew up the first contract between a studio and a player. This is my contract.”
Wow.
S. Gless: (laughing ) I know! So having that piece of information then goes many years later and I’m the last contract player in the history of Hollywood.
This fascinates me, will you ever pen a book? You must have great anecdotes and stories from your grandfather and things that you can remember…
S. Gless: Actually, I’ll tell you very honestly, I asked him once, “What was Mr. Hughes like?”
My mother told me what he was like personally, because he was at the house a lot when she was a little girl, but all he would say is he was very eccentric. But the second to the last will of his they found in grandpa’s house in a safe and then they found that one later with some guy in a gas station or something. I can’t remember.
He never elaborated on how eccentric or what that definition of eccentric was with Hughes?
S. Gless He was a very good lawyer and wouldn’t talk, you know? He just said he was very eccentric. My mother tells me that he hated children. They both lived on Meerfield Road, my grandfather and Mr. Hughes and so Mr. Hughes would come down to the house all of the time.
My mom and my aunt apparently, had to sit with him and make conversation while he waited for grandpa.
They said it was just like pulling teeth. He hated kids, so they’d have to sit there and talk to him.
Do you think you’ll ever pen a book that kind of visits this great Hollywood history?
S. Gless Me? I think my grandfather is the one who should have penned the book, but I wasn’t there at the time. I’ve just heard stories from my grandmother and my mom
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