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Sharon Gless

Emmy Award-winner Sharon Gless stars as Madeline in the new USA Network original series BURN NOTICE, which premieres Thursday, June 28 at 10pm/9c. Gless recently received rave reviews, both in the US and UK, for her starring role as US Secretary of Defense Lynne Warner in the BBC/BBC America miniseries, The State Within. Gless is in pre-production on A Round Heeled Woman, a new play which will open in London's West End in 2008, based on the best-selling book by Jane Juska, about a 60+ year-old woman's adventures in later-life sex and romance. Gless will both produce and star in the production.

Beginning with her starring role in Faraday & Company in 1973, Sharon Gless has brought her own brand of humor, intelligence and dramatic flair to each of her roles. She is best known for her portrayal of New York Police Detective, Christine Cagney, on the hit series Cagney & Lacey, a role that garnered her two Emmys and a Golden Globe. Following Cagney & Lacey, Gless re-teamed with the show's executive producer, Barney Rosenzweig, on The Trials of Rosie O'Neill, for which she was awarded her second Golden Globe and two more Emmy nominations. Gless married Rosenzweig in 1991. In 1994 and 1995, Gless and her television partner, Tyne Daly, joined together to recreate their title roles in a quartet of critically acclaimed and popular Cagney & Lacey television movies, which they fondly call The Menopause Years. Other television series in which she starred include Switch, House Calls, and the short-lived but critically lauded Steven Bochco half-hour, Turnabout. Gless has received much acclaim for her dramatic roles in such television movies as Separated By Murder, Hard Hat and Legs, Honor Thy Mother, Hobson's Choice and Letting Go, among others, as well as the mini-series The Immigrants, The Last Convertible, Centennial, and Garson Kanin's Moviola: The Scarlett O'Hara Wars, in which she played screen goddess Carole Lombard.

In 2000, Gless created the role of the outrageous and beloved Debbie Novotny in the groundbreaking Showtime series Queer as Folk, and remained with the series throughout its five-season run.

Wherever she goes, Gless is regularly approached by fans wishing to express their appreciation for her honest portrayal of a loving parent of a gay child.

Gless' theatrical film credits include the suspenseful and provocative film, The Star Chamber, in which she played the wife of Michael Douglas. She has recorded several 'Books on Tape' and has starred in numerous radio plays, one of which, 'Night, Mother, for the BBC, earned Gless the International Sony Award. She continues to do radio plays for L.A. Theater Works and the BBC.

She has starred twice on stage in London's famed West End, the first time in 1993 with Bill Paterson, when she created the role of Annie Wilkes in the stage version of Stephen King's Misery at the Criterion Theater, and four years later, opposite Tom Conti, in Neil Simon's Chapter 2 at the Gielgud Theater. She starred at Chicago's Tony Award-winning playhouse, The Victory Gardens Theater, in Claudia Allen's Cahoots, and at Madison Square Garden with the National Company of Eve Ensler's The Vagina Monologues. Gless made her stage debut in Lillian Hellman's Watch on the Rhine at Stage West in Springfield, Mass.

Gless is an active participant in the ongoing struggle for a woman's right to choose, and recently joined hundreds of thousands of women in Washington DC for the first-ever March For Women's Lives, where she stood in solidarity with her entertainment industry colleagues. In 2005, she was honored by Norman Lear's PEOPLE FOR THE AMERICAN WAY for her unwavering support of human rights.

Gless spends her time at home in three of her favorite cities: Los Angeles, Miami and Toronto.


Note: This profile was written in or before 2007.

Sharon Gless Facts

OccupationActress
BirthdayMay 31, 1943 (80)
SignGemini
BirthplaceLos Angeles, California, USA
Awards1991 Golden Globe Awards: Best Actress in a Television Series - Drama (for The Trials of Rosie O'Neill)
1986 Golden Globe Awards: Best Actress in a Television Series - Drama (for Cagney and Lacey)

Selected Filmography

Burn Notice: The Complete Series
Airport: The Complete Collection
Cagney & Lacey// Complete Series Collection
Airport 1975
Queer as Folk
Burn Notice: Season 4
Chaz Darling
Burn Notice: Season 1
Queer as Folk: Season 1
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