Sharon Gless Gets Notice

Gina Wilhelm Actress - Sharon Gless Gets Notice

Sharon Gless is happy she gets to smoke on TV.

She lives in California, so she doesn't get to smoke in public places. However, her character on the USA Network series "Burn Notice" is a chain-smoking hypochondriac, so she's pleased.

"My husband said, 'How happy are you? They're paying you to smoke.'"

Gless likes the ways she can use the cigarette to enhance her characterization. "I can take a hit, hold it in my lungs, say whole sentences, and then blow it out when I choose for emphasis."

Of course, she's no stranger to television. She won two Emmys for best lead actress for her work on the series "Cagney and Lacey," a series that itself won 14 Emmys.

The show was also a blueprint for cop shows that followed it.

In the '90s, she was mostly being ignored, as she had put on weight. Still, she remained focused on her acting and landed a role on Showtime's "Queer as Folk."

At the time she was doing a play in Chicago, but someone sneaked a copy of the script to her. She called Showtime and told them she wanted the role.

The producers told her she didn't want it because there's no money in cable. Gless insisted she did because she knew what she could do with the character.

She knows that "Queer as Folk" changed her life. For one thing, it put her back on television.

For another thing, because she wasn't constantly being beaten up about her weight, she actually started slimming down.

She says since "Queer as Folk," she's never stopped working.

For the first season of "Burn Notice," her character was described as "needy." Since then, the network said they loved what she was doing, and she's been getting richer scenes ever since.

She works for hours at home, trying to instill every word of dialogue with meaning.

She says that she's happiest when she is working, and is fortunate because most of her female peers simply aren't anymore.

Gina Wilhelm Actress