LIFE IMITATING ART? –
Dec. 9, 2021 – But, as it turned out, playing an alcoholic wasn’t that much of a stretch for her. She later realized that she herself had a drinking problem and checked into rehab. She stayed sober for 15 years before she began drinking again, and she’s now logged almost eight years sober, she told NPR this week.
“I also had the disease of alcoholism, but I didn’t know it at the time,” Gless tells Yahoo. “When I played those roles and I played Christine, I just thought I was a social drinker … with blackouts. And it was at the end of shooting all of the Cagney & Laceys that I went into rehab.”
In all, the police drama won 14 Emmys, including trophies for Gless as best actress in a drama in 1986 and 1987, and it was nominated for 37. While Cagney & Lacey was lauded for dealing with some of those subjects that others wouldn’t touch, which also included abortion and breast cancer, it was criticized as well.
