Women police officers on TV, from Helen Mirren in Prime Suspect to Keeley Hawes in Honour, streaming soon
- Angie Dickinson laid the groundwork in Police Woman in the early 1970s, while Cagney & Lacey was about two cops on the job and at home
- But it was Prime Suspect with Mirren that first excavated the true cost of such a demanding career on the women who choose to pursue police work
Once a rarity, women police detectives are now frequently seen on television, solving crimes and busting criminal heads alongside men. Angie Dickinson helped lay the groundwork when she slapped a badge on her chest as Sergeant Pepper Anderson in Police Woman in the early 1970s. But while Dickinson’s Pepper worked alone, other women detectives soon followed.
Cagney & Lacey traced a powerful police duo on the job while the camera followed them home chronicling their lives. Sharon Gless was the foxy, single Cagney, Tyne Daly portrayed the dumpy married Lacey.
Betty Thomas held her own in a precinct crowded with men in the innovative Hill Street Blues, as did Barbara Anderson, a police detective in the original Ironside.
These female officers slowly began to infiltrate all divisions of law enforcement. Stepfanie Kramer played a diminutive LA police detective with former American footballer Fred Dryer in Hunter. In fog-shrouded Britain, Sharon Small played the working-class Sergeant Barbara working alongside the aristocratic Inspector Lynley in The Inspector Lynley Mysteries.
The perennially popular NYPD Blue promoted a number of women police officers including Kim Delaney, Paige Turco, Charlotte Ross, Jacqueline Obradors, Andrea Thompson and Amy Brenneman.
