meg foster as cagney

Meg Foster and Tyne Daly look nothing alike. What the producers wanted -- or their alibi -- was a blonde to cover the entire demographics of eighties tv shows: the whole gamut from blonde to brunette.

just seen for first time this meg foster she was good i never knew in the series there had been anyone else apart from sharon gless in the part
meg foster did not look anytihng like tyne daly and the character was as sassy as sharon was

i like sharon gless but on she always reminds me of miss piggy in the looks departments and women who want to take control all the time are a big turn off too much testosterone ,tyne daly wow real homely wifey and sexy and indeed one of usas best charracter actrresses

i had vbeen atchin her in judgin amy till the uk tv station shjowing them decided not to shoe any more and only one channel i dont have showing them.


tyne daly in 3 quincys in diff parts and many other shows and films pre lacey what an actress and always found her sexy and still do

Meg Foster homely? Now I've heard everything.

Meg Foster was only in 6 episodes (6 hard to watch/stomach episodes) as Christine Cagney. I didn't like her, and her eyes made me think of a horror show, not to mention she didn't have the spunk that Sharon Gless did. I liked Sharon Gless as Cagney and she was great back then.

She (Meg Foster) was replaced with Sharon Gless on "Cagney & Lacey" (1982) after 6 episodes. CBS reportedly wanted somebody more 'feminine'.

Have you seen Msg Foster recently? She's a very unattractive wrinkled old woman. And when she , played Cagne, she delivered her lines much the same as did Tyne Daly.

Yes - ME-TV is now showing those first episodes which I had never seen. They are SOOOOO BAD as they are hitting me. I don't like Meg Foster - but it's not just her. Her look is boring, her dialog is boring, the writing is worse than boring, and I imagine nothing gave her much inspiration to add 110% or her own touch to the role.

Sharon Gless was very much better. But there was a major makeover of many production elements when she comes in, not just a new face. It kind of helps you see & appreciate what great television production is. Her character has a deeper background, and attitude, and this was likely a collaboration with writers, actors, producers, and directors. Her hair, makeup, and wardrobe are more photogenic, and just plain more entertaining. The music is improved. The plots with cringeworthy, unrealisitic dialog by male coworkers is gone. She has dialog with excitement. The lighting improves.

I swore I wasn't going to get hooked on another rerun series, but now I'm grabbed. I think mainly because it has been so interesting to see the early tuning up of a series which then succeeded for 7 years.

I think it's really only fair to compare Foster's seven or eight episodes to the first seven or eight episodes that Gless did, and I think the entire show was just better in Gless's first episodes. The theme music was better, the writing was better, the stories were more interesting, the characters seemed to 'gel' better. All of that isn't Foster's fault, and while she may not have had the chance to really develop the character, the first few Gless episodes make me forget Foster as Cagney. I think Foster played Cagney as more reserved - she seemed to have the same tone whether she was happy, sad, angry, scared, etc, but Gless's Cagney yelled and cried and laughed and wore her emotions on her sleeve, and I think that's a better choice given that Lacey was the calmer of the two. They didn't need two calm personalities, they needed opposites, and Gless brought that to the show.

I remember that story in 1982 as well. Never watched it back then, but watching those episodes from the box set now I can see why she was replaced. Meg Foster did look very mannish and came across cold and bland in the role.