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80s TV Ladies Theme Song
80s TV Ladies, So sexy and so pretty. 80s TV Ladies, Steppin’ out into the city. 80s TV Ladies, often treated kind of sh#*ty. Working hard for the money in a man’s world. 80s TV Ladies!

Susan Lambert Hatem 00:17
Hello and welcome to 80s TV Ladies, I'm Susan Lambert Hatem.

Sharon Johnson 00:21
And I'm Sharon Johnson.

We hope you are hanging in there and finding joy. We are super thrilled to be looking at Cagney & Lacey.

We have such a very special guest today, who is here in our recording studio right now.

And by our recording studio, we mean my garage office.

That's correct. Cagney & Lacey was a groundbreaking 80s show, starring Sharon Gless and Tyne Daly that won 14 Emmys.

This detective drama ran from 1982 to 1988 on CBS and examines both the cases and personal lives of two female police officers in New York City. It also spawned several TV movies. Let's get started!

So to that end, our very special guest today is Tyne Daly. She is a stage and screen actress and a multi-Emmy winner. She won a Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical playing Mama Rose in Gypsy on Broadway. She has been inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame.

She may be best known for her role as Mary Beth Lacey in television's Cagney & Lacey. She also starred as Amy's mom, Maxine in six seasons of Judging Amy, and has done multiple television appearances, stage productions and movies from the 1976 third Dirty Harry movie, "The Enforcer," where she played a female cop, to "Spider-Man: Homecoming." She's also an activist and co-hosted "A Night with Sharon Gless" and a reading of the play "Roe" by Lisa Loomer that was at the Fountain Theatre here in Los Angeles.

Tyne Daly has won six Emmys: Four for Cagney & Lacey playing Lacey, of course. One for Christy, the one season period drama, and one for Judging Amy.

All right. Well, welcome to the show Tyne Daly!

Thank you so much for joining us. We're very excited to have this discussion with you.

Tyne Daly 02:12
I'm very excited for joining because I have a very difficult time in the 21st century, with-with everything being filmed and everything being sent through the air and everything being electronic. When you get old, which I hope you do, because it's a really interesting time of life- But when you get old, there'll be a whole lot of stuff to adjust to that you will not have seen before. (Laughs) I promise you,

I'm already finding that. Things that are happening where I just find myself going "I don't understand the need for this" or why we should be pushed to that or "what the heck is that?"

Tyne Daly 02:45
Yeah.

You know, and why is anybody interested kind of thing.

Tyne Daly 02:48
Well, I think I began to tell you, though, I'm asking people for- to give me one word on the 21st century so far. We're not- We're not a quarter of a century. Old century, moving in on it, though. But a little assessment about if you had to find a descriptive, if you're a poet for instance, a thing to say this century. You get one word. It's very tricky.

Oh yeah, it is. Oh my goodness.

Tyne Daly 03:12
But you don't have to answer immediately.

Thank goodness.

Tyne Daly 03:15
Perhaps at the end of our time?

At the end of our time, okay.

Tyne Daly 03:18
Because I- and if you'd like to know my now I'll tell it to you.

Yes.

Tyne Daly 03:22
Or, I could wait. We would, let's wait-

Should we do 'em at the end? Okay, because I-

Tyne Daly 03:25
Let's wait. Okay. Okay. So where are we now?

Okay. Well, I I do want to talk about the beginning of your career, first if we can.

Tyne Daly 03:35
Sure.

You come from an acting family-

Tyne Daly 03:38
Why the family business? On base, it was the only way to get their attention. There was a, there was a young- there was a theater, a local theater, The Antrim Players from the place we moved after. Well, there was a lot of schools before that we moved around a lot. When we settled down in Suffern, New York, there was The Antrim Players which just closed their doors forever, which makes me very sad.

Oh my goodness.

Tyne Daly 03:58
They're going to turn into a church, oh dear. And, um, but they had a program for kids and, and for grownups and I got to escape there and do my apprenticeship. And then played there a little bit. Then the parents, you know, they were parents, the wanted me to college. They wanted me to finish high school.

Whatever.

Tyne Daly 04:24
They said- there was so, they pinched me so hard because by the time I got to The Antrim Players, I wanted to do it all. So I did, I finished high school - barely - on the good graces of of a history teacher who said basically "Oh, get out of here, you know, with your- with your D-." (Laughs)

(Laughs)

Tyne Daly 04:43
I went to Brandeis University for a quick year, because there was a man from American history of the theater named Jasper Dieter.

Jasper Dieter.

What a great name.

Tyne Daly 04:53
Ether a ballplayer or a theater, right? One or the other. A Jasper Dieter. And, uh, then he was gone after my freshman year as a teacher, although I learned a great deal from him, he was one of my lucky teachers. And then I found out they weren't going to let me on the stage until I was a junior.

Really?

Tyne Daly 05:09
I said "the hell you say?" So I went home to the parents and said, "I quit college, send me to trade school." Went to trade school, I met my husband, got married, got pregnant, came out here. I'd had done a couple of plays in New York quickly, and a couple of seasons of summer stock. And I got out here and called in all of the connections that I had, and none of them paid off.

What was the impetus for..

Because you wanted to work in movies and television. Is that what was-or did you-?

Tyne Daly 05:40
I wanted to follow my young husband and for us to raise up our baby together, and I didn't want to leave New York at all.

(Laughs)

Tyne Daly 05:47
This was foreign territory, and in many ways still is, because this is a movie town. This the movies: New York is the theater, this is the movies on those terrible, you know, dichotomies that we are forced to do. But I tried to find theater out here, I did do some theater out here. But I felt that I was leaving the theater town forever and I was- I was in mourning for that because that was what I had fantasized about. Broadway, Broadway, not the silver screen.

Oh, yeah.

Tyne Daly 06:13
That was for ideals in that day and age. It's only for ideal people. And they, they cried ideally, and they suffered ideally, and they made love with a certain amount of cool, this cool, not hot, coolness was the big thing. I wasn't any of those things. And I wasn't going to be. But the luck of timing, which they don't talk to you about in acting school, was that we hit the Dustin Hoffman, we hit the real people time. We hit you could look like a person, that you didn't have to wear your bra. (Laughs) A wave.

Yes.

Mhm.

Tyne Daly 06:50
As did my young husband, who hit the wave of the inclusion of black people for the first time. A very long time. So the luck was- was those cultural timings both for the women's movement and for the social revolution of race. And in that sense, we were very lucky. And then we did the work and then I was middle aged! I was 34 years old. I was done! Um, who was that wonderful, wonderful- who directed, um, Some Like It Hot?

Oh-

80sTVLadies 07:23
Billy Wilder. Yeah.

Tyne Daly 07:24
Billy Wilder famously said, "there's only one thing for a woman to do in Hollywood after 30. And that's leave town." And he was one of the nice ones! They were exploiting little girls from 12 like, you know, the Gish sisters, all the way up. But nobody wanted to take a look at anything that wasn't smooth, and white, and feminine. Let me put some quotation marks around that. No threat to the patriarchal feminine idea. And the ugly people were allowed, the-the non-perfect people were kind of in fashion, so I was just definitely not perfect. I feel like in the movies, I couldn't pass the physical. Movies like The Marines.

(Laughs)

(Laughs)

Yeah.

Tyne Daly 08:05
In terms of your assignment. You know, there's-there's, there's a requirement for a certain kind of strict adhering to the rules. And I was really much more interested in being a M*A*S*H unit. You know what I mean? (Laughs)

(Laughs)

Get in-

Tyne Daly 08:23
Help people, patch them up because they've been hurt!

When you first came to LA, though, did you find much to your liking of the theatre community here or was it fairly non-existent at that time?

Tyne Daly 08:37
We made a couple of theaters. We made a wonderful little theater in the valley that was this little space. We did some very esoteric plays, we did ball. And, and it was fun, because we turned it into a sweet little theater. This is when there was under 100. And then under fit, you know, and you could still get a dispensation from your union. To women or workers. Somewhere, you know, milkman. At any rate, when we lost that theater after two seasons, we had to turn it back into a storefront. It was heartbreaking. (Laughs) That little box office and all this stuff. Moorpark.

Tyne Daly 09:11
No! It was on Moorpark. Who was in it, interestingly, was David- What's his name? Starsky!

Do you remember the name of it?

Oh!

Tyne Daly 09:16
He used to call us Cagney & Lacey. And I'd say Starsky! Uh, and David... Jeepers, it'll come to me. This is why-

David Soul.

Tyne Daly 09:31
David Soul..

I'm gonna help you out with the internet and technology.

Tyne Daly 09:34
Thank you very much. Okay. That's cheating, though. That's the death of conversation, that machine. Because people- you know, what's his name? Who's in that movie with um-? You know, she was married to um, oh, that fellow who did the thing, that he was doing? (Laughs) He worked for, um, you know, at that studio, uh, well we have no idea.

At the place behind the car, with the, behind, you know-

Tyne Daly 09:53
We're done! We're finished.

We never get to have this conversation.

Tyne Daly 09:55
You've got another ten years. You've got another nine...

Nine?

Tyne Daly 10:04
Years before your brain leaves.

(Laughs) Oh, no, no, no, it's already- it's already leaving the station. It's on its way, trust me.

Tyne Daly 10:14
So we were speaking of culture.

Mhm.

Yes.

Tyne Daly 10:17
Uh, being lucky.. What happened before that? So I did- I did 10 years here of freelancing on television and getting jobs, through my connections and through having, you know, delivered on those collections. Well, you know, but the getting the job is-is hard. My dad had a show, my husband had a show.

Your husband was in The Rookies, right?

Tyne Daly 10:35
He was in The Rookies. We were talking about Aaron Spelling too. In those paternal, you know, producers who could announce at the end of their season, there would be another season, everybody has a job, go on vacation and go on hiatus and have a good time. So them days are over! I had done a couple of pilots for various proposed series, and gone home and fallen on my knees and prayed to my maker, not to have it sell. Please don't make me have to do that for another 15 minutes, much less, you know, five years. I got lucky in the movies a couple of times, but that didn't pan out to be anything. In terms of work. I was approached by my agent with a script called Cagney & Lacey and I said, I did my- I did my cop, I did my cop- with, with Eastwood.

The Enforcer, yeah.

Tyne Daly 11:22
That's, oh that's over. And he said, read it. And I read it and I thought, "oh, there's room in here for something else besides run and gun." And yeah, and every- and the other thing was that I'm, by that time was a little bit smart about the business. I thought every single actress in this town is gonna throw a blonde wig on her head and want to play Cagney.

(Laughs)

Tyne Daly 11:44
Because Cagney is glamorous and Cagney is funny. And Cagney is sharp in a very specifically, second-wave feminist way. (Laughs)

Yes.

Tyne Daly 11:54
Which shelflife, I'm not so sure. But anyways, so I thought- I thought, I actually thought Mary Beth was more interesting, had more possibilities in terms of a long-run thing. And then we did it and then it wasn't appreciated. Well, it got good numbers with Loretta. It got very good numbers.

Yeah, the TV movie with Loretta Switt.

Tyne Daly 12:11
Because Loretta was hot as a pistol and playing hot lips would land. And so it was her. They owed her a movie of the week like they did to sweeten contracts then. And, uh, yeah, that got sensational numbers 60 something, it doesn't happen anymore.

No.

Yeah. But there wasn't any inkling in doing the TV movie that there might be a series in this?

Tyne Daly 12:30
Not to me, I thought it was a one-off.

Mmm, okay.

Tyne Daly 12:33
And um, so we had no contract for it. So then there's this network who lives and dies on mass, which is the difference actually between the theater and the movies. The theater is words, and the movies is numbers. So- (Laughs) Just by the way. Um, so they got impressed and they went to Barney. And they said "where's our series?" Maybe he told you this story.

Yeah.

Tyne Daly 12:58
And he said, "I don't have Daly, I don't have Switt. What do I do now?" They said, "Well, Switt's tied up in her series doing the 11th year, I believe of M*A*S*H."

Mhm, yes.

Tyne Daly 13:07
And they say "Get Daly," you know? So we came to a deal and started looking for our new, our new Cagney. And then they told me the long history of who they'd wanted in the first place and blahdy blahdy. That's a long, that's eleven times tall tale. (Laughs)

But, you- but then you did the first season with Meg Foster-

Tyne Daly 13:27
Yes.

As Cagney.

Tyne Daly 13:29
Yeah.

And like, this was your second run as Lacey, what changed for you for that character between the movie and the show? And then with the different Cagneys.

Tyne Daly 13:40
I'd been playing with the big boys. And I'd had to make compromises, personal ones.

Personal ones?

Tyne Daly 13:46
About loyalties and about advancing my own career. And about... Yeah, I, it was- it was a- it was a very tough time, because Meg and I had worked well together.

Yeah.

Tyne Daly 14:00
And we had done what you- television series don't spring full blown from the mind of Zeus.

Right.

Tyne Daly 14:07
There's an idea, you do it, and then- as Amy Brenneman once said to me famously, she called me up after- after we were picked up for Judging Amy. She said, I know what it is now, Tyno. We have to keep doing these. Yeah, baby. We do at least twelve! Yeah, it's a whole, it's a whole different animal. So I thought we were done, and we weren't done. And I was, I was for about a minute and a half, well, or a week and a half, in on the casting process of the new Cagney. And I was still aching from Meghan and I, Meg and I because I thought we'd sort of started to figure it out.

Yeah.

Yeah, that was brutal.

Tyne Daly 14:48
But there wasn't any start to figure it out. There was deliver, deliver, deliver. You know? So, oh, after that, sitting with these, listening to these people audition these these actresses, all of whom I admired. I mean, any of the smart one said, Well, that's a good part. I'd like to have that part. We don't see those parts very much on TV. You know? And they all came in and and they read. And after the first day and a half of my reading with them, I said, fellas, I can't stay in this room with you. When these actresses leave, I cannot listen to you speak about these women and these workers. I will go down and get them from the waiting tank, and I'll bring them down to you. And we'll read together and then I'm leaving. Because, because I did not have the soul of a boss.

Tyne Daly 14:49
I don't do that. It was, I my...

How can you even?...

Tyne Daly 15:23
... my shoulder hurt from trying to protect them, physically, from these assaults on their personhood, that to me had very little to do with acting. At any rate. So I'd had an encounter with the powers that be, and I'd been threatened with ah, court if I broke my contract. And (laughs) what was his name? Harvey. Harvey, not Harvey Burr. That's a playwright. Harvey Lacey, that was my husband. Harvey Weinstein, that was that bad guy. (laughs)

Laughs

Tyne Daly 15:25
One of those Harveys. One of those...

A Harvey.

Tyne Daly 16:10
He said to me over lunch at some very fancy place... I was knitting like a mad thing. I had brought my knitting. He said, Well, would you like to be working for me next year? Or would you like to be in court?

Is this because you were like...

Tyne Daly 16:21
I was saying, I was trying to say Meg, over Meg. I said, when we laid the groundwork. We've done our thing.

Tyne Daly 16:27
You know, we're just beginning to roll with it. This is gona work. It's gona be great. She's, she's...

Yeah.

Tyne Daly 16:32
She's a team player. She's in.

Tyne Daly 16:34
She's my Cagney! (laughs) Little did we know. Anyway. (Sighs) Oh god, it's a long time ago. And the struggles were real. And the struggles were mostly about trying to make a better product.

Tyne Daly 16:45
From everybody I think, now I'm a little kinder. (chuckles)

Right

But at the time it, you know, since you were so personally involved, this is your, you're going to be you're, literally your partner.

Tyne Daly 16:55
Yeah.

On the show. And it's it's yeah, it's it's not just a, it's hard to be, to be objective about it in that way. Because it's different for you than for the Producers and everybody else involved.

Tyne Daly 17:09
Well, people say often don't take it personal, whatever it is. This is very personal work.

Yeah.

Tyne Daly 17:14
This is my instrument. Here it is sitting in front of you, size, shape, age, whatever. This is what I have to work with, and my brain and my memories and my guts and all those things. And it is personal work. And it's about and it doesn't work, if someone doesn't pick up on how personal it is to you, and feels that same way too. It becomes personal for the person you're telling the story to. And that stuff is, that's that's tricky stuff, you know. No wonder half of us go mad and turn in, to drugs. Uh, (laughs)

(Laughs) I mean, I'll admit, until we started doing this podcast and started looking at Cagney & Lacey, either I didn't know or I just didn't remember that, Sharon Gless was Cagney number three...

Tyne Daly 17:56
Yeah.

Tyne Daly 17:57
Well, it was, you didn't need to, and that's good. That's very good. She became, she became the one. She said they were the one, they wanted in the first place. And she was tied up in a series of her own. We had met a couple times. Um, I went to full courtship. Because I wanted the job for myself. Come on, I wanted it to work. I didn't want it to fall apart.

...in the show.

Tyne Daly 18:15
Do you know? Anyway, and then we were fired. And then we were hired. And then there were prizes, and we were fired again. (chuckles) You know, it was, it was a really nice, chunky roller coaster. (laughs)

Right.

I was gonna say, for such a successful series from the outside, it had a very tumultuous history. We learned from Barney and from reading about the show and stuff. And so I imagine being in the middle of it, just trying to do your job. And being surrounded by whether we're going or not going. Who we're going with. Who is being handed to us.

Tyne Daly 18:49
Well, and more, the more difficult assignment was to be some kind of a example, or a role model. Or, you know, what do we stand for? How do you account for the success of this show? When we go to actors, and we put, stick the microphone in their face, and we want them to know stuff that isn't often in their can, and sometimes they're deeply stupid about. And I want to say, Go talk to the people you elected. Don't, what are you talking to me for? What do you want my opinion about this? You know? Do I have one? Sure. No, I don't think it's appropriate for you to be asking me about this. Ask me about what I do. Anyway. That was very annoying to me. I didn't, you know, and the, the part where you're supposed to represent something.

It's at this point that Miss Daly notices the Jimmy Stewart retrospective poster on the wall of my office.

Tyne Daly 19:35
There's Jimmy Stewart right up on the wall look. Hi, James.

Yes. So I, I, I'm...

Tyne Daly 19:40
Sorry. (chuckles)

... I went to USC film school and organized a retrospective of Jimmy Stewart movies because I wanted to see them.

Tyne Daly 19:46
Yes.

And I got to meet him too. It was, it was really again, an incredible memory and he was so kind and gracious that he was...

Tyne Daly 19:55
... a lovely man.

Yeah. It was...

Tyne Daly 19:57
Did you, did you go around when he did his show? And talked about his past and all that stuff?

No. I wasn't out here then. But yeah,

Tyne Daly 20:04
It's a strange deal for actors. Actors and all performing artists, although we have Film and although we have all of that recording devices, you only serve in your own time. I could not have served in the 30s, and Bet... Bette, uh, Bette...

Bette Davis?

Tyne Daly 20:21
... Davis could not serve now. Couldn't get a job. (guffaw) I mean, you know, they're, the styles change. I had a very smart friend who said to me once, Styles change, but the truth does not. So you can see the truth tellers, you know, in the movies and the theater.

And I think it's one of the re,... Cagney & Lacey holds up. And I think it's...

It does. Yeah...

... because you guys are truthful, in your moments. There's truthful moments in Cagney & Lacey...

Tyne Daly 20:45
That's what we were working for.

Tyne Daly 20:47
And there's a whole lot of bullshit too. I mean there's, there's...

...And it comes through .

Yeah. But it, but it, yeah.

Tyne Daly 20:51
(Chuckles) No but, the end of the Season we used to get to a point, me and Barney Rosenzweig, who you who you interviewed, and we'd say, Okay. So this year, we did 22 or 24, whatever. And, and which ones would you keep? If you would keep eight, we're doing great. If you'd keep 11, that was a very good Season.

Laughs

Tyne Daly 21:06
And you know, in , if, and it was gone down around the well, I'm, I'm not proud of, then we were, then we jumped the shark. Then it'd gotten silly. Then we were grasping at straws. And I wish we were more then like the English are, you know, to say this, this story has a finite amount of time to tell.

Yeah, I'm of two minds of that, though. Because as a television consumer, a lover of television, I'm happy to spend as much time as I possibly can with these characters that I like, these shows that I enjoy. But at the same time, it is nice when it, you know the the expression about going away before you're missed.

Tyne Daly 21:46
Yes. Right. Yes

Or let them miss you as opposed to, want you to go away.

Tyne Daly 21:50
Leave them wanting more.

Yes! Exactly! I understand that as well. So I'm always have two minds when it comes to that. Because yes, I would love to spend as much time with characters that I enjoy and shows that I enjoy as I possibly can. But when you're doing 20 to 24 episodes a season, they're not all going to be you know, keepers, because of the runaway train that is television production, you know. So, there's just not a lot of time for that. But it's, but it's still lovely.

Tyne Daly 22:18
(Chuckles) Well when my daddy started doing Series Television, they did 39 episodes a year. That was one of the, the Hiatus was 52 weeks, cut in quarters. 39 episodes. Hours.

And he yeah, and he was, he was on an Hour Show.

Tyne Daly 22:30
And so, then I saw it slip for him, when he was going out to the coast. And it became 36. And then 34. And then 28. That was a big dip, you know. (guffaw)

Tyne Daly 22:41
And that, it has changed again.

Chuckles

Now it's six.

Tyne Daly 22:46
And, and and maybe it was, 11 was what I was thinking about, about the Sopranos. 11. How do, you know. All that same money all that same amount of time, time and money makes things excellent. But um yes, we had... When Sharon and I did three shows together, they showed two of them on television. And then Barney begged to have the third one also shown, you know. And my friends thought I was lucky because they were only making two, of which... It's the business. I know far more about this business than I want to. I never wanted to know anything about showbusiness. I wanted to pretend to be somebody else. And so like, I think that's not uncommon impulse. Um, I wanted to disappear into somebody else and show off at the same time. You see that's... (laughs)

Tyne Daly 23:34
...That's one of the nice dichotomies. I used to say, you know, the impulse to show off and the willingness to disappear. But in terms of reality television, if I was remotely interested in in reality, you think I would have been an actor? No (chuckles). No! Let's pretend and have dress up! (laughs)

Susan-Sharon 23:34
Laugh

Tyne Daly 23:34
Let's have fantasyland. Old school.

Oh yeah. Look at me. Don't look at me.

So, that reminds me of an interview that I watched with you, where you talked about one of the first things you do is find the Voice of the character. And your Voice is so amazing. Right? But I love that thought, that that's how you approach...

Tyne Daly 24:15
Well, it's not so much it's finding the voice, is it is hearing her. And the hearing of her doesn't come just out of my brain alone or auditory hallucinations as we say. A hum. It's um, it comes from the page. It comes from the, from the written. What's on the page. And I, um I, as I say, I'm not a visual. I'm a aural learner who's used to, don't talk about that. I used to start talking about that with my little girls. What kind of learner is she? Slow? (chuckles) Or um, so yeah, I often um. Music, the the auditory thing is a, a stimulus for me more than the visual. Whereas my young husband George, I used to catch him, you know, standing in doorways staring into space, and I knew he was Directing. I knew he was, you know, seeing it, trying to envision it.

Yeah.

Tyne Daly 25:06
Does that answer your question? (Laughs)

Yeah. You know, I'm just, I'm sorta fascinated by different Actor's, different approaches to creating these characters. And, and Mary Beth is such a subtle character in a lot of ways, much more than Cagney. Cagney is sort of through the door first, I guess.

Tyne Daly 25:23
Yes. Right. Well, maybe in cliche ish, Cagney is a little more available, you know, because she's more showy. Lacey, I just liked her. And I also thought she was doing a struggle that I was involved in myself, but on the being an actress level not being a housewife, and with a second job at, you know, the local hotel cleaning rooms. I mean, she was trying to do that particular juggling act, or I'm gonna get to it, you know, of the of the 80s. Woman? Are you going to have it all? And that wasn't true. Well, you certainly can't have it all at once. You can have it all very quickly, one after another, if you are, have an endless supply of energy and good temper. Yeah, she was throwing herself up against a bunch of walls with her husband, and her kids and her work than I thought was worth telling stories about. And then, what do you know? A whole lot of people wanted to hear stories about themselves on TV. What a surprise. And they wanted to see themselves reflected.

They wanted to see women being real in their lives.

Tyne Daly 26:40
And everybody else. I mean, it was it's it's it's again, it's a crack in the I'll read the statistics of our union still this how many stories are told about the white male in the society? And it's and we reflect? Some people think televisions leads? I'm not so sure. I think we reflect I think a lot of what we were talking about on Cagney. & Lacey had been talked about in the world, do you know, but here we are, again, with people you know, assaulting clinics that take care of women's health, with people marching in the street saying we matter can you see us with people confused about the well police to have played a policeman? Both my husband I played policemen in those days. If you think we didn't go home and discuss and decide to accept that in them days, then you underestimate us because it was not easy to say. I'm lining up with the pigs not only been marching with Vietnam and meaning it you know, compromises

Yeah, the end of the Vietnam War was really not that far away from when no no gag and all the things that went on you know, around it was not that far away. So it's it's totally understandable

Tyne Daly 27:58
entertainment industry for peace and justice. The worst? What are those things that NATO's the one that those things into a word, the eip J. Jane find her and Don Sutherland and us with characters in the street down the street theater, all that stuff. And we'll be back I just did street theater again. A relative Sharon and I introduced a play by Alisa bloomer called a Roe v. Wade, that's, you know, here. Yes, you know, to a bunch of people 200 people in a thing saying, don't give up the ship. It's, it's disheartening. And yet I know there's progress. But only progress if you if you if you insist on it.

Yeah, the fight never stops for a lot of things you have to keep, you have to keep fighting. So I

Tyne Daly 28:54
just don't I'm not an idea. My version of fighting, because I'm not very. I don't have a very aggressive spirit. So my version is storytelling. Yeah. And I think human beings need stories. I don't think sometimes I think oh, I've spent too much time with words. I've wasted my time with too many words. Still looking for the right words. I still call up my friends if you want to hear a poem. You know, I just and I know that that can be not as useful as deeds, words and deeds.

I think everybody has to contribute what they can. At the end of the day, everybody can't do everything.

Very powerful, which we're seeing the policing of words and we're seeing you don't get to call yourself what you want to call yourself. And we're seeing some words are very, very, very powerful. And, you know, it's the First Amendment.

Tyne Daly 29:47
Well, freedom from fear.

Freedom from fear. All right, so we're gonna take a little break. We'll be back. All right, welcome back. Oh my gosh.

Tyne Daly 30:00
So did we get up to Cagney & Lacey, what do you want to talk about?

About Cagney? & Lacey more about Cagney. & Lacey,

and you know what your favorite moments were? Like what you still hold dear.

Tyne Daly 30:14
I don't want at the end of the show. They gave us an opportunity to have all of the episodes, the entire series. And it was a choice between Betamax and VHS. Yes, VHS? Yes. I didn't understand it. But I did do a little research. I found out Betamax was smaller and better resolution, both visually and audio ly. So I said, I'll have Betamax. So I haven't seen Cagney & Lacey in four years. And not really interested in it. I'm looking at oneself is a mixed bag. And in an end, Sharon will tell you maybe or a you know, she used to sit down with with Monique James who was her mentor at Universal and they'd watch dailies, and Monique would say to her and that's that's good. I like that when you do that. Don't Don't, don't ever do that. Watch out when you do that thing with your dog. And and talk to her through how to look. And it was just foreign to my nature. I thought for a while I'd look at their shows and Marnie said it was an interesting opportunity to see if you know, if you'd made a table that had four good legs or one leg was short, you could assess them the work. But the opportunity to really see yourself when you're making it was very rare. There wasn't any TiVo or look at it afterwards. I remember looking at dailies every once in a while for Mussina was interested in for a while because we had the whole operation at Lacey Street, which was a old brick factory, that they turned into a studio with everything. The first year or so Season or so we didn't have the sound department. But we had the writers upstairs and we had the cutters downstairs and we had the costume department it was all kind of a self contained a little factory of our own. We didn't have to report to universal. And if the powers to be called up and said, Oh, we hate that scene, you can't do it and watch that. Sorry, we filmed that. Oh, too bad shot. And then they were to cheaped it. So it was a lovely cocoon in a way out there. But I'm collecting favorite moments that I don't I don't do it. I don't do it. Really. I know that I had very good times working with a particular director or on a storyline what we were being the heroes and then as the thing went on, there were there was the victim requirement. People had to be date raped, and people had to have breast cancer and people had to have you know, that things that were the the victimhood of the female cop was not required from some of our colleagues with penises if I can see. But um, and that was that was another interesting thing to negotiate. I remember Yeah, you know trapped in the in the thing we did cold heat when you're the bad guy trapped you in the in the in the hot being a victim i Yeah. They were good acting opportunities. I liked the quieter ones. Um, but it's it's painful to me to try and name you episodes. I'm I mean, we picked out did they work? Or did they don't work, a very smart man named Arthur Lawrence, whom I encountered later as a director and old fox of the theater. And he said to me, there's no right and wrong in the theater. It doesn't work or not work, or it doesn't work, you know. So I think we worked it mostly, I don't feel that there were times when we really betrayed the side or something. There were a couple of stupid episodes, you know, but they were mostly just relief from you know, now I don't 20 of these let's do something silly. We did a lot of laughing together as workers. We had a good, good, tight crew, you know, who knew each other for for? I mean, we lost people but but that they held together mostly, um, you had some

really, you had a for the time, a number of female directors.

Tyne Daly 34:12
We tried consciously to hire female directors and Aedes and stuff and to and to help on that, you know, front in terms of technology, which I don't know

if you remember Karen Arthur, of course, we're gonna be talking to her.

Tyne Daly 34:25
She's in New York. Now, as far as I know, last time I saw was in

New York. Yeah. Well, I think she'll be zooming in. So I don't know exactly good. Yeah.

Tyne Daly 34:32
Yeah. She was one of our regulars.

So you mentioned you were talking about how you really never really watched the show from remembering correctly. Yeah. So it was that consistent across the work that you've done on film and television that you haven't gone back and after you finished it gone back and watched it? Pretty much

Tyne Daly 34:48
so I mean, in the in the lab, we had a couple of movies, a handful of movies that I've done. Some directors have dailies in the olden days, which was kind of another communal activity, you know, come and have drinks out of the thing and watch the day's work. God, it's such weird work, because because there's no because I prefer the theater where you don't have to look at yourself when they look at you. And in fact, they're not even allowed to take your picture, unless they're doing it on the sneak Do you know it has to live in the memory of you and the person you were telling the story to. So the non communal pneus of this last couple of years, which is changing our business of law of gathering anyplace and gathering with comfort and ease and rather than suspicion and nervousness, and I'm wondering if if going to the movies is going to make you sick. That's something I'm kind of looking at from the margins, because I'm not but I have done enough work to see how different it is. This guy wants to know, but about burn. Notice, I have to tell the reason I did it was to keep my pension open. My pension had faded, I called Sharon, I said, Sharon, I gotta make this much money to do my pension, get me a job. And I'm in this system. If you want to know about how it really works, folks, you get to be on they kick you to the curb. Okay, so I'm gonna tell you about something though.

Theater and

Tyne Daly 36:11
theater and hear the recording of an experience. So that you can look at it again, and again, is very different than having it have to last in your memory, right, and you could retrieve what you can. And I understand that, you know, there are kids who are recording their teachers in college class, instead of taking notes and taking notes as one kind of recording but recording the whole thing and then go at what fall asleep over it again. I think it's an excuse for paying attention in many ways. And that makes me sound like an otter caca, which I am. So I'm

pretty far down that road, too. I mean, as you know, as cell phones have proliferated, I, when I first was able to take pictures all the time, and as many as I wanted, I did that I'm gotten to the point now where I almost never take pictures. Because I want to see an experience. And I want to look at what I want to look at and pay attention to what I want to look at because I there is something about being in that moment. And that's one of the beauties of theater over over film, as much as I love film and television and filmed entertainment.

Tyne Daly 37:15
And it's lovely to see things again, it is absolutely lovely to see great performances and all that stuff. I don't mean to be to be religious about it. But there are

I mean, I think there have been a number of actors who've talked about how they don't watch themselves, they don't. So you're definitely not alone. And so I was just I was just curious if that was a, you know, seeing consistently over your, your, your career that you've mostly done when it came to the finished product, you know, as opposed to dailies, which to me is a little different, because you're seeing the work of the day and helping you know, that may be useful in terms of going forward. I don't know. But

Tyne Daly 37:50
I have I think I've only like 8% Sunset Boulevard in me.

Just enough, that's just

Tyne Daly 37:59
yeah, that's not my favorite form of fun. Let's say that.

Understandable.

Sure. So let's move on to theater because I want to talk about gypsy and I want to talk about what theater has meant to you over the years. And because you've done a ton of theater,

Tyne Daly 38:14
I've done some but I also had there was this distraction of of my husband's career was out here. My career turned out to be about television, and in a little bit of a way, you know, the movies were I couldn't pass the physical and to be a Marine, which I remember reading something about Demi Moore saying that she was a hands on mom. And she also spent eight hours a day in the gym. I thought Baby How do you do that? Which eight all in a row? How many hands? I don't know I just didn't I it was it was maybe a mutiny. And we I couldn't figure out that kind of juggling without a lifestyle that I didn't wasn't designed for do you know very bad at delegating responsibilities and asking other people to do my shopping so the theater and the movies I've been very lucky I've gotten to do some of each Do you know and and but my yearnings for my dream time as I say was the theater not the movies not to be on the silver screen but to beat but to be in you know, on the Broadway stage. And the music part was fun and getting up for it was fun and and retraining again you know to make the cabarets was fun and so I didn't I wasn't required to choose to say to do this at this I was happier being a jack of all trades,

and I think that was that has changed. It used to be you were doing television, you did television. If you did movies, you did movies,

Tyne Daly 39:49
Oh yeah, there was a lot more snootiness about it until Laurence Olivier sold cameras. Oh, until Larry does that ad for Polaroid. Yeah, inroads were made on what was the fancy stuff. And, you know, for you earn the monies and where they want you. Um, so at the theater takes a different a different kinds of energy, I don't, I don't know that I could do the first act of GFC without falling over, you know, these days, it's just you aged out of that and part of it. And the memory fades and the you know, and the agenda is the attrition of old age but, but hopefully, I always want to I was interested in, in telling stories about women, from the beginning to the end, I didn't like cutting out and leaving only the 15 years, between 15 and 30. That those were the only ones we looked at. Yeah, no coming very few coming of age things for girls. Very few getting through the Middle Passage for girls, very few after I can't make you babies, for the girls, and very few old wise hags to add a little bit of the female spirit to the overbalance of, of male stories about how they figured out the world and how they run the world and what is necessary to run the world. I had a thought the other day about the Bible, and, and the, the Constitution and all of the things that are rolling around since in our society right now and the words the great words. And I thought to myself, I wanted to say to the Founding Fathers who told you that story. And they'd say, Oh, my dad. And I say, Well, who told him that story? They say, Oh, my dad, your dad told you that story. We've all been listening to the dads stories. For a long, long time on the verge version of what's creative, what's nurturing? How do we get to be better people? You know, and so I thought there was room for the mom's stories. Particularly the mom, not the girlfriend. And not the rival for the for the job.

It was such a big part of, of, of Lacey. And there are there's a, again, rewatching these there's a line that struck me from one of the episodes where, where she and she constantly questioned whether she was being a good mom. But there was like a, I thought I was stronger than this. I thought I was a good mother, as a mother and stepmother and a working person and thing. Like I was like, Yes, we're constantly asking that question of ourselves.

Tyne Daly 42:43
Yeah. Serving all these masters and and and wondering if you're failing them all. It was a condition and still is a condition of of a lot of people. And I know that stuff that men don't question themselves that they don't, blah blah blah. But that but the running of everything. And the recent being instructed that I'm a second class citizen, officially now from the highest court in the land is painful to me. And my daughters and their daughters and their sons. You see if you can announce that somebody's a second class citizen, officially again, you could pick, take your next group, there's that, you know, who do they come for next? There's that thing to say your personhood is in question. Your citizenship is in question. Your value to the community's in question. So I'm Lacey had a hard time with that in the 80s. And Daly is having a hard time with that in the 20s.

As are we all. Oh, yeah. You know, yeah. And it's, you know, one of the reasons why, you know, we sort of have this little saying, like, look back in order to leap forward, and yet, we're tripping sideways, like and backwards and, and forwards. Like, it's, it seems like a bit of a hot mess right now.

Tyne Daly 43:57
Yeah, well, maybe it's always a hot mess. I just, it's the idea that you, and this applies to the acting game, right? It's the idea that need that you've arrived someplace, and now you're there. And that's it. That's the end of the story. You've got to this platform, and then you don't have and no, it's an ongoing thing. There's on back the whole ebb and flow and blah, blah, all that stuff is is is happening in our country, and happens in the career. So when you get to somebody say, Okay, this is it. This is what I do. You know, I live in New York City, and I do bad plays. Oh, no, this is what I do. I go and sell out in Hollywood and make money and win prizes and get famous. And that's and that's and that's it for up No, there's no arriving and how to be of service. I always wanted this to be a service job. That's how I was brought up. Human beings tell stories to each other about themselves because they need it.

Yeah.

Tyne Daly 44:52
And more importantly than that, for me was you know, human beings come to the theater to watch actors, because they've all been actors. All of them, even the starving ones have pretended to be somebody else and to get themselves out of this condition and have played dress up and have, you know, shown off. And they've all forgotten. We're the ones who remember how to how to how to play dress up and show off and be silly. And, and they come to get that from us, you know, but there's no there's no arrival at some law. We were so innocent that we thought we would change the laws and we forgot that could be changed back. As a, as a generation, I think, our hippie dippie, you know, against the war. And also we thought we were the only people that marched on Washington! Ever! We forgot all about them Civil War soldiers who never got their pension. No sense, you know, and history shows us that you have to go to go out again, again, again, again.

You have to keep fighting for your rights, you have to keep fighting. And fighting is an interesting word, right? We, you know.

Tyne Daly 46:04
Striving, struggling, questioning, challenging. I like all those. My mama said to me one time, I hate all this stuff on TV, everything's a fight, you're fighting ring around the collar, and you're fighting in the yellow on your floor, and you're fighting the, you know, you're cold with this medicine, and everything is pitched as a battle. And I thought, That's really interesting. That's a hell of a long time ago. But yeah, the idea that, um, combat, yeah, and aggression and struggle. I think we sort of run out of that being useful.

Yeah.

Tyne Daly 46:41
I think that anybody that thinks that war is a solution to anything is wrong. Yeah. Period. Period. Got to figure something else out. I

Gotta do. We gotta live in different ways. And I think that's, that's one of the reasons I wanted to do this podcast is I wanted to celebrate women in all ways. And, and also examine what our choice of language is, like, we sort of question each show that we look at, and we're like, okay, is this a feminist show? What is a feminist show? Did they know they were making a feminist show? You know, what does it mean to do that?

Tyne Daly 47:19
Well, mostly, I've played women and girls in my career, I did play an eight year old black boy in Moby Dick rehearsed in the open in Denver, but that was a unique, and mostly I've been asked to play to play women. So if I'm doing it, it's a feminist show. I mean, it's, it's about if it's about women, it might be about the woman standing in the background. But that will give you the you know, the the story on the woman of that story, um, the, the everything having to sit in its own category. This is for girls, this is for boys. This is for black male, this is for Asian, folks. This is the bitsying up and categorizing everything I hear.

Okay, here we go.

Tyne Daly 47:59
I'll tell you my last idea.

Okay.

Tyne Daly 48:02
Independence Day, Fourth of July, bombs bursting in air. And I thought I want a new vacation. I want a new holiday. I want a holiday called Interdependence Day. On Interdependence Day, we celebrate everything that's alike about each other. Everything, everything we have in common. No show of military might. No uniforms, no banners, no anthems, no borders, and anything. Nothing that smacks of anything that's like a badge or or a symbol, just Interdependence Day. I'd like to see us move towards that. Instead of towards the disaster of the 21st century, which is tribalism, factions, my opinion, period. That's it. I gotta read you a poem. Can I read you a poem? Let me shuffle.

Tyne Daly is going to read us a poem.

Tyne Daly 48:55
Because I like to say Wisława Szymborska. This is a terrific poem. If I can make it call-- Because this is what I'm doing now. What I'm doing now is, is is working with words and I have been for a while to try and--

Tyne Daly 49:10
Your entire career you've been working with words.

Tyne Daly 49:13
Well, I can't memorize them anymore, so I have to read them, you know, and I-- But I can still throw the poetry in the room as we used to say. I'm going to-- This will betray me as a theatre actor. I'm going to go to the home of Alfred Lunt and Lynnne Fontanne. Anybody raise your hand. Nevermind. The greatest acting couple of the early part of the 20th century. And yeah, they live in a place called Genesee Depot. I'm going to do a seminar for actors. They all have to have been in the business for more than 20 years. And I'm going to try and refresh their spirits in terms of and find out what they're up to and how it's been for them for these two years of masks. And the name of my seminar is Renewable Energy.

Oh, my god. Tyne Daly, you have refreshed my spirit today. I just want you to know that.

Tyne Daly 50:04
Life While You Wait by Wisława Szymborska. Life while you wait. Performance without rehearsal. Body without alterations. Head without premeditation. I know nothing of the role I play. I only know it's mine. I can't exchange it. I have to guess on the spot just what this play is all about. Ill prepared for the privilege of living, I can barely keep up with the pace that the action demands. I improvise, although I loathe improvisation. I trip at every step over my own ignorance. I can't conceal my hayseed manners. My instincts are for hammy histrionics. Stage fright makes excuses for me which humiliates me more. Extenuating circumstances strike me as cruel. Words and impulses you can't take back, stars you'll never get counted. Your character like a raincoat you button on the rum. The pitiful results of all this unexpectedness. If I could just rehearse one Wednesday in advance, or repeat a single Thursday that has passed. But here comes Friday with the script I haven't seen. Is it fair? I ask, my voice a little hoarse, since I couldn't even clear my throat offstage. You'd be wrong to think that it's just a slapdash quiz taken in makeshift accommodations. Oh, no. I'm standing on the set. And I see how strong it is. The props are surprisingly precise. The machine rotating the stage has been around even longer. The farthest galaxies have been turned on. Oh, no. There's no question. This must be the premiere. And whatever I do will become forever what I've done.

That's awesome. That's awesome.

Tyne Daly 52:08
Cheers.

All right. Will you say the name again?

Tyne Daly 52:18
Her name is Wisława. W-i-s-ł-a-w-a. Wisława Szymborska. S-z-y-m-b-o-r-s-k-a.

Please tell me you've done audiobooks.

Tyne Daly 52:35
I have not. I failed completely. Oh, this a funny story. They approached me wants to do an audio book of for new mothers. And it was a little book of contemplations, you know, so that you could read about-- I said if this new mother has 10 minutes a day for herself, she's doing better-- She don't need this book. God bless her. My experience. Them 10 minutes don't come until the kid is 35. Let's be, let's be serious

Okay, oh my goodness. Oh, wow.

Tyne Daly 53:08
No. And I tried, I tried to-- I just didn't-- I got so-- We were doing a long distance trip and I got books for the girls to listen to, driving my daughter back from school in Wisconsin. And I got Ruby Dee doing Their Eyes Were Watching God and I love RBD and her-- And we had-- I worked for her and for Ozzy and stuff and I got-- The thing made me fall asleep. Driving and it was like it was like a-- I can't-- So I say I listen but I kept-- Very few books on tape move me.

I find it hard to listen to nonfiction audiobooks. Yeah, fiction audiobooks are, I find easier to listen to maybe because it engages my imagination in a different way as opposed to trying to--

Tyne Daly 53:49
Your Eyes Are Watching God. Oh, come on. What else? Jim Dale, do you have Jim Dale in your mind? He did all of the voices for the Harry Potter-- Something like 309 voices. I thought what kind of a thing is that?

Those audiobooks are amazing. Yeah, listen to them.

Tyne Daly 54:13
But he said he recorded them and managed to remind himself of who everybody was, you know, Sometimes he loses-- That kind of-- See, that kind of gift is just amazing to me.

Can I ask you really quick? I know we gotta wrap up. The Bread Factory two-part movie, like such a charm. Like what? How did, how did that happen with that? I did.

Tyne Daly 54:36
Patrick Wang is a lovely genius filmmaker. You should see his film called In The Family. Oh, yummy. And then there's one called The Grief of Others. But uh, yeah, Bread Factory was shot in under 30 days with 210 speaking parts. It was a miracle. And putting dancing and seeing carrying on and I got to it through my friend. Like, happens a lot in my business. My friend Brian Murray, gone from us now but a great actor. And he had done a piece for Patrick in-- I'm trying to remember which show. I think it's the first one In The Family.

Just lovely. And the two that was such a brilliant like two movie they-- You shot both movies at the same time.

Tyne Daly 55:18
Shot them back to back in a breathtakingly amount of no time and a tiny-- And uh-- Janeane Garofolo, funny people, you know, who just came because they were charmed by the material, basically.

Anyway, but it was it was a favorite/

Tyne Daly 55:31
Where did you see it, for god's sakes?

I found it streaming.

Tyne Daly 55:34
Okay.

Because that's the great thing about streaming, you can find things.

Tyne Daly 55:39
Let us know where.

When we do our audiography I will, I will, cuz I have to look it up again.

Tyne Daly 55:45
Bread Factory, part one and two. Yeah. It's about a, you know, a local arts center that these two ladies run together and have forever and where kids can draw and paint and sculpt and act and sing and carry on. And it's, it's being threatened by a consortium of modern entertainers who are pretty electronic. At any rate--

Okay. So it's three questions. You can't name your own shows. But is there an 80s TV Ladies driven TV show that resonated with you. And I can remind you of some to get you going like Golden Girls and Murphy Brown, China Beach, Designing Women, Remington Steele. Are you too busy being a mom and making TV?

Tyne Daly 56:35
I have never been a regular television watcher. I used to watch my dad, which was kind of interesting, because you know, he'd be on these-- And there he'd be and he'd be being, you know, Robert E. Lee, or he'd be being Walt Whitman, or he'd be being-- In those days when they don't-- He-- He was always somebody who played to Give us Barabbas. He played Barabbas in the in, you know, he played a lot of different stuff and a lot of different interesting-- And it was very strange to see your dad-- I remember my brother Tim, the first time he saw when-- He was 10 years younger than I. The first time he saw my dad on TV and my dad was being threatened by bad guy, he freaked out. He couldn't, truth and illusion. He couldn't make the thing. Even Daddy was sitting next to him, and he couldn't make-- So I mean, I watched The Rookies regularly because I was home in the 70s. I haven't owned a television set for about 20 years now. I-- It's, it's-- And I don't mean to be graceless about it. And Sharon tells me all the time, he has such great things on TV and you have to see these shows. I think I saw three Sopranos. You know I--

Is there an actress?

Tyne Daly 57:48
I liked those actresses on Designing Women. I thought they were terrific and Sharon's in love with oh, what's her face? Who's doing the her new show? Jean Smart is a wonderful actress. And occasionally-- It sounds like I sometimes feel I'm an ingrate about this because I do love to go to the theater. And I love it when it's good. And I love to see the actors afterwards and stuff. But sorry.

That's okay.

There's nothing to be sorry about.

Who's-- Alex Trebek. I watch Alex Trebek basically, and go to sleep afterwards. He's gone now. What was that-- I thought that would be a great job. I would love that job. But they wouldn't let it an old lady do it. But I think I would like it. Trivia. You know, trivia.

Yeah.

Is there an actress out there that you wish you could work with or wish you had worked with?

Tyne Daly 58:37
I've enjoyed the ones I have worked with. The real famous-- I, when I was a kid and came out here, I was leaving New York with my three day old baby. She'd had been born while her father came-- He came back, couldn't-- He was out here earning the money to pay for-- I-- And I was in the airport, and there was this-- It wasn't Playboy. It was another kind of men's magazine like that. Less than sex and more a gentleman's GQ, possibly GQ. And there was a picture of a woman on the cover, obviously naked, the part we couldn't see. But she was she had her stuck in a big trash can. And so her legs and her arms and her, you know, were hidden by this corrugated-- Is that what they're called? Galvanized, galvanized. A huge silver trashcan, and her long hair and her stuff in her and kind of posed and the headline was "The California Woman Through At 21.' And I was 21. I'd had my first baby. I was just turned 21. And I was going with my baby to California and I'm wondering, why am I going to California if I'm already through? And then I would sit and I had my baby, we had our thing and we had no money. George was working as a janitor. And there'd be these fan magazines and they said here was the new actress. And here was the next new actress and here was this other new actress and all. And I kept saying, not me, not me. No, not me again. And, and, and I-- But I didn't want to be them. I didn't want to turn into Meryl Streep. Meryl Streep had already done that, you know. There's a little card that says, 'be yourself, everybody else is taken.' You know? And I just wanted to be there with, you know, in the mix. But I didn't want-- I wasn't envious to be somebody else or to admire somebody else. Not that I haven't had fun in the theater and have people move me and, and tell me stories. But I just I really don't have anybody that I wanted to be like, or or wanted to have their career instead, you know? I mean, everybody wanted Angela Lansbury's career. But you know, but--

Susan Lambert Hatem 1:01:00
I think a lot of people want your career.

Tyne Daly 1:01:02
Well, they can't have it!

You're very good at--

Tyne Daly 1:01:06
I'm almost dead. Second of all, it's taken, you know. There's no repeats. You can't put your foot in the same river twice. All that stuff is true. So I love seeing there being more stories for women. I'll tell you that. I love those. I love seeing those those girl cops on LAPD thing. And so I mean, there were-- Cracks were being made. I was aware of that. But I didn't have time to sit down and watch it because I was busy doing it. You know?

Yeah. No, that's great. That's great. Last question. What's a moment that you've had that you felt like, 'Is this scripted? Am I living in a television moment right now?' You were on set all the time in television moments, but like one moment where you're like, that was so memorable or so like, out of--

Tyne Daly 1:01:48
That I felt like I was in a movie, you mean?

Yeah, like a movie or a television moment of drama?

Tyne Daly 1:01:54
Well, I tell you what my brain thinks of, because I don't I'm not quite sure I understand the question. But I remember, George was doing The Rookies, and was directing and got me a job. I got the-- I an in because I was married to the co-star. And we were doing a show, we'd been in school together from the time I was 17, or 18. And you were just babies. And we were doing a scene which he was also in, he was directing, but he was in it. And he came up and stood up next to me. And I said, Hey, baby, see you and me in the movies. And we had the best laugh. That I could tell you. Um, there are moments when it's amazing that you're that you're on the stage or you know. On the stage, you can't let that awareness end too quickly, or you'll not know what you say next. Anyway, this work, it's good work. It's, um, you know, lined up with other things to do for a living. It's not it's not a terrible thing to do.

Thank you so much. Again--

Sharon Johnson 1:02:49
We cannot thank you enough for this. And it's something we've been looking forward to, and it's exceeded, I think our expectations. So thank you so much.

Tyne Daly 1:02:57
Okay, cheers.

So Tyne Daly challenged us to come up with one word to describe our time now, here in America, or on earth.

This first part of the 21st Century--

This first part-- Oh, in this time period, the first part of the 21st Century. And then we forgot to come back to that to circle back before she left. So I'm going to I'm going to get in touch with her and find out what it was her word. We think we think Kevin thinks it's tribalism, which might be right. And now we have to come up with our own. The first word that popped in my head was change.

I'm just I think I found my word -- turmoil.

Because from the beginning, first, we had 9/11, 2001. We're still dealing with ramifications of of that insanity. We had the historic election of Barack Obama, followed by the kind of-- What's the word I'm looking for? Obstruction from the right, that I don't think any of us have experienced in our lifetimes. Maybe there have been periods in the history of our country where similar things have happened. But this is a whole-- taken to a whole new level.

Turmoil.

A whole new level.

And it's only gotten continued to get worse from there. The fact that we went from Barack Obama, in my mind, one of the best presidents, one of the best men that's ever--

Yes.

Been President of the United States to arguably the worst person that has ever been put into that job, the worst kind of person that ever could have or should have. This is not about ideology. This is about a person, this person. And that that person-- Because I refuse to--

We're not going to speak that name.

That person continues to not only be an effective stirrer, but that there are still so many people who are who have been brainwashed into believing and to sustaining the lies and distortions that he created in his time in office.

He built a cult on hate, and vitriol and fear. And, and division.

Yeah.

And continues to work to divide the country.

Yeah.

Sometimes I'm like, 'Oh, of course, that's who was nominated by a faction of people who want to punish. Like, Oh, yeah. You're not gonna have a woman president. We're gonna give you the worst of men.'

That's exactly what happened. Oh, my gosh.

We will take the worst of men over any woman as a payback. Oh, my God. Sharon. Sharon just broke her paperclip. That's how, that's how wild we're getting here. Okay. All right.

Have you come up with your word?

Well, I-- The first word was changed, but it wasn't enough. And I think turmoil is indeed-- And I-- And you also reminded me that the 21st Century started 20 years ago. So I'm also going to say, opportunity. It's an opportunity for turmoil and crisis. And it's an opportunity for change. And we've seen both of those in the last 20 years. And, and we'll see-- And we know, we're not, we're not at the end of this. We're not at the end of COVID. We're not at the end of the chaos of the result of the last six years in politics, the last 20 years in politics. We are also in the middle of this enormous technology change and a speed of information that's unprecedented and that we're not built for. Right?

Speed of information and disinformation.

Yes. And it's a crisis. But it is also an opportunity. It is-- We are in this-- I mean, I think the word that I can't come up with right now, because my brain isn't working is something that represents both of those.

Well, because you're right, there always is opportunity in chaos and disruption. There's opportunity there. It's just a question of, Do you seize that opportunity to make things better? Do you, you know-- Whether it be something big, like the things we've been discussing, or even in your life. It's hard to see it sometimes; it's hard to believe that it's there. But it is there, it can be there

And it's not even so much about the silver lining. It's about when things are breaking apart, it is a moment to rebuild them in a new way, and to decide to do things differently. So I think that question, which again, is sort of resonating from all of the stuff we talked about today, which is, uh, how did we get here? Right? That's sort of-- We're looking back to be like, how do we get here? And then how do we get out of here? I think it's one of the questions. And it's, you know, again, very serious conversation for in mostly a light podcast, but the undercurrent of everything right now is a struggle to define the new way we are going to be. And because there is opportunity in these crises, because we can recognize things and name them in ways we couldn't. We can recognize that our healthcare system in America is is not appropriate to the situation. It needs to be different. We can recognize that our involvement in government has to be more for the people, by the people, then of the people. We can recognize that these things that are breaking down, are things that we can rebuild in a new way of looking at things. I don't think anybody is interested in doing the same thing. I'm seeing it in theater. You know, I'm seeing people take power from their own place that is often a disenfranchised place. But they're now saying, I don't care, we're now going to unionize, I don't care. We're now going to demand not only these rights back, but more rights. And even though there's a lot of work to divide us into these factions, there's a lot of people that are saying no. More people in in my history than I remember ever are activated, are engaged, are paying attention. And with that attention comes the opportunity. And I, again, I'm seeing really exciting people running for office and really, like amazing people stepping up and finding their voice in their community in a way that, I think, is not what I saw happen in the 80s when things were falling apart, and in the 90s, when people were sort of ignoring that things fallen apart. Anyway, we got into a serious vein, because I think I'm still searching for my word. But if I don't, I'm just going to say opportunity, because it's also an opportunity for bad forces. Right. So it's an opportunity for everybody. And the question is, is, which opportunities are we going to take advantage of, and which opportunities are we going to demand change for good?

We'll see. Now it's your turn, 80s TV Ladies listeners. How would you answer Tyne Daly's request? What is your word? What one word describes our time now here in the 21st Century so far?

Send us your thoughts and your word to 80sTV ladies@gmail.com or contact us through our website or on social media. I don't know, Sharon. Turmoil is a pretty good one.

Sadly, yes, I think so.

And now it's time for our Audiography. For websites. First I want to let you know that you can go to the official Facebook page for Cagney & Lacey facebook.com/Cagney&Lacey. There is a Facebook page for Tyne Daly - Tyne Daly Online. facebook.com/TyneDalyOnline. You can find the Bread Factory, Part One and Part Two at various streaming sites. You can stream it for free using your library card or university login at kanopy.com. That's kanopy.com. And that's for thousands of movies.

You can also rent or buy it on Apple TV.

It was available on Amazon. It's currently only available through Fandor on Amazon right now.

What's Fandor?

I don't know. It's one of those new things. We want to shout out our friends at Rainbow Remix podcast. South Florida singer, rocker JD Danner, and podcaster Denise Warner invited us on to their show, which features LGBTQ lifestyle, news, music, arts, media, mixology, and so much more. They are delightful and they just loved our show and reached out to us.

They had us on their podcast to talk about 80s TV Ladies, 80s television and why we started this podcast. Denise and JD are delightful and we are going to have them on in a future episode to talk more about queer representation in 80s television.

And 70s and 90s. You know, it's slim pickings, I realized, which was a little disheartening, but a very vital part of television history, herstory and all of us to re

Check out Rainbow Remix podcast. A link will be in our audioography.

Alright, so the books that I'm going to call out today are Remembering Cagney & Lacey with Sharon Gless and Tyne Daly by Brian McFadden. And I'm also going to shout out the book that Tyne Daly read to us from. It's called Poems New and Collected. And I'm going to mispronounce this name. Wislawa Szymborska is the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature. And I'm going to run out and get it right now. And then dream of Tyne Daly reading them all to me. And the last book I'm gonna shout out today is New Handbook for Post-Roe America by Robin Marty. It's very helpful. Oh my gosh, thank you so much to our Patreon supporters. Thank you, Michael, Anne, and Kate, Y'all are awesome. If you want a shout out on the show, join our patreon at patreon.com/80TV Ladies. You can get all sorts of cool stuff, but you also can just support us and support us making more episodes.

Support at any level is most welcome, and listeners of any kind are most welcome. And we're grateful to you all. Next Episode, we have Cagney herself, the incredible Sharon Gless.

I can't wait once again. We're just like trifecting.

I'm just thrilled that we have another Sharon on the show. There aren't too many of us out there, it seems.

It was funny. During this episode, Tyne Daly kept saying, well Sharon says this. I was like when did they have that conversation? And then I realized she was talking about Sharon Gless because they're all friends and stuff.

It was a little confusing for me too occasionally. Even though I knew that she was not talking about me, there was a moment where my brain thought, you know, when she mentioned Sharon-- Of course, I'm the only Sharon in the room.

Someday we're gonna get you and Sharon Gless in the room together.

That'll be very fantastic. And probably at times very confusing.

Too many Sharon's.

We hope 80s TV Ladies brings you joy and laughter and lots of fabulous new and old shows to watch, all of which will lead us forward toward being amazing ladies of the 21st century,

Like Tyne Daly, I want to be Tyne Daly but she won't let us because she's Tyne Daly.
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Episode 119: "Cagney & Lacey with Tyne Daly"

The Conversation

Our Audio-ography

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SPECIAL MESSAGE

CREDITS

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