Cagney & Lacey - Original Cast

Original Cast

Actress Loretta Swit played the role of Christine Cagney in the original television movie (October 1981), but she was forced to decline the role in the series when the producers of M*A*S*H refused to let her out of her contract. The movie was then picked up as a series, first airing with six episodes as a midseason replacement in the spring of 1982, with Meg Foster playing the role of Cagney. The show was then picked up for a regular season beginning with the 1982–83 season, but Foster was then replaced by Sharon Gless because CBS deemed Foster too aggressive and too likely to be perceived as a lesbian by the viewers.

CBS executives hoped that Sharon Gless would portray Christine Cagney as more conventionally "feminine" and attempted to pressure the producers to remake Christine into a more "high-class", snobbish woman from wealthy parents. Barney Rosenzweig and Barbara Corday initially refused to change Christine Cagney from a tough, witty, working-class woman. Shortly into Gless' tenure on the program, Rosenzweig and Corday compromised with the network brass. They further developed Cagney's background, explaining gradually in the storyline that she was born to a wealthy mother, who had married Charles Cagney, a New York detective from working-class roots who soon divorced from his wife after Christine was born. Chris was then raised in her mother's uptown Westchester world, which she appreciated; however, the trappings of high society sometimes drove her to miss her father's lifestyle, and she and her father therefore established a special bond.

Cagney, as a result, was portrayed as more glamorous and vivacious than partner Mary Beth Lacey, but could still relate to the world with attitudes that could be shared by people across the social spectrum. The character's appeal to the "every man" or "every woman" led to enduring popularity with millions of fans, and was a significant factor in the show's success.