Forget Cagney--Here’s Rosie

Sharon Gless suffered from burnout after six years on the acclaimed CBS series “Cagney & Lacey.” Despite winning two Emmys as tough New York cop Chris Cagney, the actress vowed she would never do a series again.

“I just retreated for about two years,” she explained in her distinctively husky tones. “It sounds corny, but I just got in touch with me again. I got my personal life together. I have no regrets. I am very happy. I have never been as happy as I am today.”

And she’s happily back on the airwaves in CBS’ new series, “The Trials of Rosie O’Neill,” premiering Monday at 10 p.m.

But during her self-imposed hiatus, Gless also had trials of her own. Earlier this year, Joni Leigh Penn, a 30-year-old woman who said she was in love with Gless, broke into her Studio City home armed with a rifle and barricaded herself. In July, Penn pleaded no contest to burglary charges and was sentenced to six years in prison.

“I think she is a very rare case,” said Gless, who no longer lives in the Studio City home.

“Most of my fans are very loyal. We were very blessed that our fans on ‘Cagney & Lacey’ are highly educated people. My audience is primarily women, but I get letters from young women and men. (Producer Barney Rosenzweig) says the men who like me aren’t the type that write and say, ‘I kiss my pillow at night.’ They aren’t the type who write fan letters.”

The Penn experience hasn’t really changed her lifestyle. “I have extra security in my house,” Gless said. “I have had experts come and fix my house so it cannot be broken into. But I walk around like anybody else. I have a very private life.

“I don’t go to a lot of parties--partially because I am not invited to many,” she added with a laugh.

Gless got the itch to return to series TV late last year. She had plenty of offers--all three networks wanted her to do a sitcom.

“I didn’t want to do a sitcom,” she said. “I prefer to do humor in a dramatic format. It seems easier for me to produce something humorous out of a dramatic situation. I like the hour format.”

“Rosie O’Neill” casts Gless as a divorced 43-year-old Beverly Hills lawyer who becomes a public defender. She has a new look as O’Neill--a short, sophisticated hairstyle and an upscale wardrobe.

The series reunites Gless with Rosenzweig, who produced “Cagney & Lacey,” and it has the same time slot as “Cagney.”

Rosenzweig said he was reluctant to do another series when Gless approached him. “It’s a painful process and a hard job,” he said. “It’s also a wonderful job. Eventually I began to think on the positive side.”

“In my opinion Barney is the finest producer for women in the dramatic format,” Gless said. “He’s proven it, so I wanted to sign on with him again.”

Initially, Rosenzweig and Gless had a production deal with ABC. The network, though, wasn’t interested in another lawyer show.

“ABC’s position was that, ‘We have enough lawyer shows,’ ” Rosenzweig said. “Ultimately, we compromised with a social worker. We even did a script on it.”

But the premise was not suited to Gless and Rosenzweig.

“I tell you there is no humor in social work,” said Gless. “We went and researched it, and it was just too sad. I got in the car and just started crying after what I saw. It’s grim.”

Too grim, at least, to make a TV series. After their deal with ABC ended, Rosenzweig had breakfast with CBS president Jeff Sagansky. Forty-five minutes later and without a script, Sagansky gave Rosenzweig the green light to do “Rosie.” “It was very gratifying for me and Sharon to be trusted that way,” he said.

Though Sagansky told Rosenzweig to be ready for the fall, “Rosie O’Neill” didn’t make the fall schedule. Rosenzweig said Sagansky didn’t want the fall schedule to have two new series without pilots (the other is the Burt Reynolds comedy “Evening Shade”). “He had nothing to show the affiliates,” said Gless.

But when Connie Chung decided in July to take a pregnant pause in her career to concentrate on having a baby, the Monday evening time slot opened.

“I had been doing some heavy praying,” Gless said. “Barney sent her (Chung) balloons and wished her a happy mother’s day.”

“It was a miracle,” said Rosenzweig.

Rosenzweig and Gless promise that just as with “Cagney & Lacey,” their new series will not shy away from controversial topics. “With Barney at the helm, he gets to make his political statements and I get to act,” Gless said with a laugh.

On the premiere, Rosie defends a young woman accused of murdering her baby. “She’s underage and tried to get an abortion in her state and her parents wouldn’t sign the agreement,” Gless said. “She came out here to get an abortion and was too far gone. She has the baby and believes the child is still-born, wraps it in a sweater and then buries it.”

Gless admitted some of her friends thought she was crazy to return to the grind of an hour series. “People said to me that you have no life when you do an hour show,” said Gless. “Well, (the show) becomes my life. It’s what I know how to do. When I’m working, I’m working. When I play, I play. I don’t know how to split my focus.”