Cagney & Lacey ... and Me: An Inside Hollywood Story OR How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Blonde [Paperback]

Barney Rosenzweig (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 19, 2007

“If they gave out Emmys for best book about an Emmy-award winning TV series, Executive Producer Barney Rosenzweig would have another to add to his huge collection. If you love Cagney & Lacey—as I do—this is a must read. Triple love it!” —Rosie O’Donnell, award-winning TV and motion picture icon

“Cagney & Lacey ... and Me is terrific—a must-read for anyone interested in how the television business really works. From insecure stars with over-sized egos, to network executives blundering their way to success in spite of themselves, Barney Rosenzweig’s chronicle of the rise and fall of the hit series Cagney & Lacey has it all: tempers, tears, greed, deceit, duplicity and sex—in short, more juicy melodrama than a daytime soap opera.”—Steven Bochco, producer writer of award-winning series Hill Street Blues, LA Law, and NYPD Blue

“One of Hollywood’s greatest producers is also a brilliant storyteller. Barney recounts tales from the front lines of network television battlefields—with candor, intelligence and inimitable wit. If you want to know how television really works, this is the book for you”—Linda Bloodworth and Harry Thomason, award-winning creators, writer, producers and director of Designing Women

"It is the nuts-and-bolts story of creating the show, putting it on the air, then keeping it on the air. Fascinating and fun."—Liz Smith, America's most loved gossip columnist

“Barney wrote a book?”—Peter Falk, Emmy-winning star of iconic television series, Columbo, and twice nominated Academy Award star of motion pictures too numerous to mention

"Just as William Goldman’s Adventures in the Screen Trade is considered a bible for screenwriters, Rosenzweig’s new memoir offers a Master Class for television producers."—Kevin Howell, Publisher's Weekly

Hardcover Collector's Edition also contains the official Cagney & Lacey "bible" of key credits and storylines for all 125 episodes, along with annotated index.

Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

Heroes and villains, life and death, and sex and betrayal are part of a producer's life in the Hollywood fast lane.  For author and Emmy Award-winning producer Barney Rosenzweig, that trip started on the set of the television show Cagney & Lacey.

Rosenzweig personally supervised each episode of Cagney & Lacey - every piece of casting, every script, music cue, and film edit.  One hundred twenty-five episodes and five Cagney & Lacey movies made him a master of the craft of producing.  The show - with its unique social commentary that cemented Rosenzweig's role in television history - gave him a rare insider's view of the show business world.  Now, twenty-five years after Cagney & Lacey's debut, Rosenzweig reveals with rare candor the secret society-like machinations of Hollywood's seductive spin machine.

The series and the people who made the show possible are responsible for some of the most memorable years of Rosenzweig's life.  He fondly recalls that period and provides an intriguing behind-the-scenes view in Cagney & Lacey ...and Me.

From the Back Cover

"If they gave out Emmys for best book about an Emmy Award-winning TV series, executive producer Barney Rosenzweig would have another to add to his huge collection.  If you love Cagney & Lacey - as I do - this is a must-read.  Triple love it!" - ROSIE O'DONNELL, award-winning TV and motion picture icon.

"Cagney & Lacey ...and Me" is terrific - a must-read for anyone interested in how the television business really works.  From insecure stars with oversized egos, to network executives blundering their way to success in spite of themselves, Barney Rosenzweig's chronicle of the rise and fall of the hit series Cagney & Lacey has it all:  tempers, tears, greed, deceit, duplicity, and sex - in short, more juicy melodrama than a daytime soap opera." - STEVEN BOCHO, producer and writer of award-winning shows Hill Street Blues, LA Law, and NYPD Blue.

"One of Hollywood's greatest producers is also a brilliant storyteller.  Barney recounts tales from the front line of network television battlefields with candor, intelligence, and inimitable wit.  If you want to know how television really works, this is the book for you." - LINDA BLOODWORTH and HARRY THOMASON, award-winning creators, producers, writer and director of Designing Women.

"It is the tru nuts-and-bolts story of creating the show putting it on the air, then keeping it on the air.  Fascinating and fun." - LIZ SMITH, American's most beloved gossip columnist

"Barney wrote a book?" - PETER FALK, Emmy-winning star of the iconic television series Columbo and twice-nominated Academy Award star of motion pictures too numerous to mention.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 406 pages
• Publisher: iUniverse, Inc. (April 19, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0595411932
• ISBN-13: 978-0595411931
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #883,028 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Barney began his show business career as an MGM office boy in 1959, and rose to become one of television's most honored producers, winning two Emmys from the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences for Outstanding Dramatic Series (Cagney & Lacey), and a Golden Globe from the Hollywood Foreign Press Association for Best Miniseries (John Steinbeck's East of Eden). He is the recipient of citations from the Congress of the United States, the State of California, the cities of Los Angeles, Chicago and New York, multiple women's groups throughout the country, and, from the University of Southern California, where he now serves on the prestigious Board of Councillors of the School of Cinematic Arts.

Other honors awarded Rosenzweig's work include the ACLU "Bill of Rights Award," the Humanitas, Scott Newman and Christopher Awards, a special Luminas from Women in Film, as well as citations and salutes from the National Commission of Working Women, the Museum of Television & Radio, the National Organization for Women (NOW), the "Good Guy Award" from the National Women's Political Caucus, and the "Award of Merit" from USC as one of the university's "outstanding alumni."

Rosenzweig received his degree in political science at USC (1959), where he has established a Cagney & Lacey Scholarship. Other philanthropies include a two-year term in Los Angeles as chairman of the entertainment division of the United Jewish Fund, and as chairperson of the President's Council of the American Lung Association.
In 1991, Rosenzweig married his third wife, multi Emmy Award-winning actress Sharon Gless. They reside on Fisher Island in Florida, where Rosenzweig, paraphrasing playwright Terrence McNally, says he "hasn't retired, he's stopped," conceding the difference to be subtle. The producer goes on to note that his "best productions" are daughters Erika, Allyn, and Torrie, and the "spin-offs," granddaughters Hailey Laws, Greer Rose Glassman, and Zoey B Rosenzweig.

Cagney & Lacey ... and Me is Rosenzweig's first book.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Barney's Beanery, October 18, 2007

By 

Kevin Killian (San Francisco, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Cagney & Lacey ... and Me: An Inside Hollywood Story OR How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Blonde (Paperback)

Barney Rosenzweig's memoirs of the 1980s are long on industry detail and short on self-examination, but that's Hollywood for you.

CAGNEY AND LACEY was credited as being the first big feminist TV show and it was hailed as such by Gloria Steinem and other pundits in the pages of MS. Magazine.

Rosenzweig was there from the beginning, after a checkered and mostly D-level career as a producer and sort of go-fer for more famous producers. He had worked his way up to a midlevel status when the job that made him notorious sort of fell in his lap. As he sees it, his then-wife created the show with another woman, and he managed to get it made and shown on the air, albeit with different stars. There was a version with Loretta Swit, another with Meg Foster, etc. Finally the lineup shifted to Sharon Gless and Tyne Daly, and after a year of threatened cancellations, CAGNEY AND LACEY became a huge hit and won Emmys for everyone involved with it.

Rosenzweig's tale of what it was like producing the show is filled with ugliness. He savages some of his writers, including the man who went on to become the renowned thriller writer Robert Crais, but he saves most of his venom for his blow by blow depiction of the vanity and ego wars between his two leading ladies. Both equally insecure, Sharon Gless and Tyne Daly come off in Rosenzweig's rendition as supremely neurotic and paranoid, each one afraid the other was getting more money, perks, or directorial attention. Gless was a blonde beauty on the model, Barney admits, of Doris Day. But could she act? Tyne Daly could act, or should I say "act" in capital letters, but was she attractive enough for TV? Neither of them ever enjoyed a single happy moment, and made everyone miserable on the set and off for years and years. As a producer, it was Rosenzweig's job to keep them content, butter them up, flatter them outrageously, promise each one that the other wasn't getting anything she didn't have, and so on.

This element of the book just goes on and on and on and on. You feel like you were in the stars' trailers for every beef they had. Gless would complain that Daly was married to the show's director, Georg Stanford Brown (another diva according to Barney). Daly would say that Gless was getting all the close-ups. The picture got even grimmer once Barney himself started seeing past the tantrums that Gless threw on a daily basis, and started falling for her, leaving his wife and eventually making Gless his number one woman. After the way he writes about her throughout the first three quarters of the book, I'm surprised he could stomach her, much less love her. And they're still married apparently! Life is stranger than fiction and this book proves it for sure.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars loves Cagney & Lacey, July 14, 2007

By 

Candace Kiekhefer "avid book reader" (STURTEVANT, WI United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Cagney & Lacey ... and Me: An Inside Hollywood Story OR How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Blonde (Paperback)

When I first found out that Barney Rosenzweig wrote this book I just had to have it. I loved the entire Cagney & Lacey series from start to finish including all the movies they did later. What stuff Barney Rosenzweig went through to get that show on the air. It was very interesting to read how much work is involved in getting a TV show on the air - especially a show that was cancelled and then brought back. I would higly recommend this book to any Cagney & Lacey fan. For that matter, to anyone who is curious about how TV shows get on the air.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Great Read!, May 22, 2007

By 

Nancy J. Boyle "Nancy J. Boyle" (Pompton Lakes, New Jersey USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Cagney & Lacey ... and Me: An Inside Hollywood Story OR How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Blonde (Hardcover)

Whether you are a fan of quality TV shows such as "Cagney and Lacey," "Trials of Rosie O'Neill." "Cristy," and others or if you have wondered exactly how programs make it to our TV screens, you will find this book informative, interesting and hilarious. Producer Barney Rosenzweig outlines not only how difficult it is to get a program on the air, but many network "executives" are totally out of touch with what the viewers want, cancelling programs before they have had time to "find" their audience. "Cagney and Lacey" was a ground breaking show, won awards every one of the seven years it was on TV. Week after week it dealt with topics that would timely even today, twenty-five years since it's premiere. Mr. Rozenzweig married "Christine Cagney" (actress Sharon Gless) in 1991. Ms Gless and Tyne Daly (Mary Beth Lacey) had such a wonderful rapport, it was almost like they were destined for these roles.
The actresses and Producer Rosenzweig brilliantly "saved" the show from cancellation, twice and I am sure it was no accident that this book coincides with the long awaited release "Cagney and Lacey's" first season on DVD!