Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates/Lady Blue (TV series)/archive1

TFA blurb review
Lady Blue is an American detective and action-adventure television series. Produced by David Gerber, it originally aired for one season on the American Broadcasting Company network from September 15, 1985, to January 25, 1986. Its pilot aired as a television film on April 15, 1985. The show revolves around Chicago detective Katy Mahoney (Jamie Rose) and her violent methods of handling cases. The supporting cast includes Danny Aiello, Ron Dean, Diane Dorsey, Bruce A. Young, Nan Woods, and Ricardo Gutierrez. Johnny Depp also guest-starred on the series in one of his earliest roles. With cinematography by Jack Priestley, the episodes were filmed on location in Chicago. Rose said she joined the project after being drawn to its action genre. She prepared for the role by watching Clint Eastwood's films, received advice from Eastwood on how to handle a gun, and practiced at a shooting range. Lady Blue has not been released on DVD, Blu-ray, or any online streaming service.

Pinging Aoba47; as you know, we're doing blurbs for articles promoted at FAC in June, July and August 2018. Thoughts and edits are welcome. - Dank (push to talk) 01:07, 3 December 2019 (UTC)


 * Thank you! Aoba47 (talk) 01:47, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

Nexis hits
A few sources from Nexis. I hope some are useful. There were also some press releases, but I don't know how citable they are. Josh Milburn (talk) 18:34, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

In the gospel according to Lady Blue (Thursdays, ABC and CHCH), God's vengeance assumes a more traditional televised form - the rebel cop who speaks softly and carries a big Magnum. The gimmick du jour - the cop happens to be a red- headed temptress - has already brought the inevitable dubbing: Dirty Harriet. But judging from a recent interview, the lady in question (a certain Jamie Rose) will brook no pernicious comparisons: "It's still going to be a lot different because I'm a woman and I can show lots more emotions than Mr. Eastwood". Quite a challenge, yet the two-hour pilot proves that the girl is as good as her word. No doubt about it, marble can out-act granite any old day of the week. "'Lady Blue.' Producer David Gerber's baldly campy ultra-violent cop show about a woman detective who shoots first and checks her lipstick later. The series will be killing time, as well as bad guys, until 'Dynasty II: The Colbys,' as self-explanatory as a TV title can get, moves into this time slot for its November premiere. If 'Lady B' succeeds, she will be moved elsewhere or held in reserve as replacement for a flop. (Thursdays, 9 p.m., Sept. 26)." "I borrowed a prop gun from the studio, rented all the Dirty Harry movies I could find," she says, "and sat in front of the TV set shooting along with Clint Eastwood." Adds the New York-born actress, who plays the fearless lady cop Kate Mahoney, "I mimicked all of Clint's moves because I wanted to look realistic in the show. The best movie for gun action is Magnum Force." In TV circles, the aggressive and tenacious lady with a pistol has been labelled Dirty Harriet, although she says, "I'm not really worried that anyone thinks I'm ripping off Clint Eastwood. It doesn't matter how I do it, it's still going to be a lot different because I'm a woman and I can show lots more emotions than Mr. Eastwood." Rose is no stranger to TV. Raised in Los Angeles, she got her TV baptism in commercials and then landed parts in Green Acres and Family Affair before becoming a regular as one of the Gioberti daughters on Falcon Crest. She was dumped from that show, but before she could become depressed she was hired for Lady Blue opposite Danny Aiello, who plays her father- figure boss, Chief Detective Terrance McNichols, who spends a great deal of time defending his pretty underling.
 * "Four new shows Poverty gets equal time" // September 17, 1985 Tuesday // The Globe and Mail (Canada) // BYLINE: RICK GROEN; GAM
 * The Washington Post // September 15, 1985, Sunday, Final Edition // "The Soul Of a TV Season; From Gleason to Spielberg, Glimmers of a Better Year" // BYLINE: By Tom Shales, Washington Post Staff Writer // SECTION: Show; H1
 * The Globe and Mail (Canada) // September 14, 1985 Saturday // Is Lady Blue 'Dirty Harriet'? You bet it is // BYLINE: IVOR DAVIS; GAM // LENGTH: 542 words // DATELINE: Los Angeles CA

Rose admits she had never handled a gun before getting the role of the unorthodox cop. But she was a quick learner and after spending several days at the Chicago police department firing range she became adept at pulling the trigger.

But she concedes the Eastwood influence was a big one. "I worked with Clint in his movie Tightrope, and again earlier this year for about two weeks when he directed one of the Amazing Stories anthology shows that Steven Spielberg is producing. He wanted me in the show and I did it. "I told him I was doing Lady Blue, and asked him for tips about handling a gun. I was gripping with two hands, but Clint suggested, 'Every once in a while just lay 'em with one hand.' So you'll definitely be seeing me with the Clint influence." The 25-year-old actress hopes that Lady Blue will get a permanent berth on the network. Currently it will have a fall slot until The Colbys: Dynasty II, is launched in November. If the show continues, Lady Blue will alternate between Chicago and Los Angeles, but still with a Windy City setting.

After the first two-hour movie, which is repeated as the series' opener, there was a lot of criticism about the violence and the shoot- first-ask- questions-later attitude of Kate Mahoney. "I don't think they're gearing the show toward a body count," says the red-haired, green-eyed Rose. "It's a show about crime; there's a lot of violent crime in our society and it reflects that, so there will be people killed. We're not doing Hill Street Blues or Cagney or Lacey or docudrama. We're not saying this is how the police really work. We're bringing in more of the heroic fantasy world. "We're doing more like John Wayne versus the Indians, Dirty Harry versus the bad gays, Rambo against the Vietnamese. It's not sedate. "Kate is a superhero," she says, "and we have a formula that works." Already dubbed "Dirty Harriet" by critics, this single-minded exercise in mayhem can be accused of many things, but originality isn't one of them. Jamie Rose, as Katy Mahoney, is a renegade cop who walks a very thin line between the right and wrong sides of the law as she lays waste to the vermin infesting the city streets. In the pilot episode, aired in the spring, red-haired Katy scored a ratings bull's-eye while tallying a body count Clint Eastwood might envy. There's every possibility the series will do the same, but ABC is hedging its bet. Dynasty II: The Colbys moves into this time slot in November, and Katy may be forced into early retirement. (Sept. 26, ABC and CHCH at 9 p.m.). Thursday: Only one new show. At 9 p.m., ABC's brutal Lady Blue battles Simon and Simon on CBS, and the block of Cheers and Night Court on NBC. ABC has already scheduled The Colbys: Dynasty II for Lady Blue's time-slot in November, which should tell us something. Except - Blue's pilot did extremely well in the ratings last spring, and its star, Jamie Rose, has appeal. She might make it in another time- slot, but not this one. Come November, it may be a different story. The Colbys has a powerhouse cast and a built-in audience. Mark it a survivor at the expense of the comedy block.
 * The Globe and Mail (Canada) // September 7, 1985 Saturday // THE NEW SEASON THURSDAY // BYLINE: GAM
 * The Globe and Mail (Canada) // September 7, 1985 Saturday // THE NEW SEASON // BYLINE: NEIL MacVICAR; GAM // LENGTH: 774 words
 * The Globe and Mail (Canada) // August 14, 1985 Wednesday // TV Rose doesn't mind 'Dirty Harriette' label // BYLINE: CP // LENGTH: 656 words //DATELINE: Los Angeles CA

LOS ANGELES (CP) - Some actresses curl up on the couch with a script and a scotch and soda to rehearse their roles. To play Katy Mahoney, Jamie Rose rented Clint Eastwood's Dirty Harry movies, borrowed a make-believe gun and began firing at the TV.

The 25-year-old curly redhead plays a fast- firing Chicago police detective in the coming TV season's most violent show, ABC's Lady Blue. She's an ardent student of the all-too- eager Eastwood school of 'Make my day' bloodshed.

Rose smiles at the mention of her new nickname - Dirty Harriette - and warmly recalls advice on blow-away technique the screen star gave her when they met on the film set of Tightrope: 'Every once in a while, lay one on them one-handed.' It isn't easy to distinguish between the involvement of violence in Rose's professional life and personal life; indeed, they seem intertwined. Just as she has grown comfortable playing a hardened detective, she has accepted the need for a weapon to protect herself.

A question about the brutality of her show - 18 were killed in the two- hour pilot movie, and the producers promise more deaths to come - easily prompts an anecdote about her new, pro-handgun beliefs.

Rose's security system sounded one night while her fiance was out of town. Alone, armed with only a baseball bat, she was sure there was an intruder in her apartment and sure she could do nothing about it.

It turned out to be an equipment malfunction, but the incident left its mark. Her fiance, writer-director James Orr, now is going to buy a gun to keep in the apartment. 'I had this horrible feeling of powerlessness,' Rose says. 'That experience changed my opinion.' That same helpless feeling among viewers, she says, could develop a loyal following for her show. Just as there was considered to be widespread support for a New York subway vigilante earlier this year, and just as Rambomania has swept the land this summer, Rose says Lady Blue touches that get-even nerve inside everyone. 'I think people are tired of having to take what's been going on because of lax laws or whatever the reason. There's a lot of violence going on in the country and I think people are feeling very powerless.' Lady Blue made its debut last spring as a TV movie opposite the second instalment of the CBS Space mini-series. Not much was expected, but the film's audience grew each half-hour and outdrew the highly touted competition. It cracked that week's Top 10.

Despite those results, only mild expectation is accompanying the show as it makes its series debut Thursdays in September. At this point, Lady Blue is scheduled to be replaced in November by The Colbys, a spin-off of Dynasty. If the ratings are strong, however, it will move to a new time slot.

A recent Gallup poll suggests that 51 per cent of Canadians find TV detrimental to family life. Of those people, 52 per cent thought there was too much violence, crime and killing on the tube.

Rose, who appeared for two years in the Falcon Crest serial drama, isn't convinced there is a connection between TV and street violence. She says people can make a distinction between real violence and what she calls her 'John Wayne against the bad guys' type of TV violence. 'I am a lot less concerned by this show than I am by what's on the news,' she says.

Concern has a way of eroding when a cheque is at stake, but Rose insists she wouldn't play Mahoney simply for the money. She expresses ambivalence about her new lifestyle. 'I'm not happy about this, but that is the reality,' she says. 'As long as the criminals have access to that kind of bad power, we should as well.' But, as someone many young people will be watching in coming months, isn't she concerned about the type of role model she is setting? 'I'm not going to join the National Rifle Association and I'm not going to go around telling everyone to buy handguns,' she says. 'But I can only be true to what I believe.' "Lady Blue," starring Jamie Rose as a maverick cop in Chicago, rivals "Dirty Harry" in the body-count department. The two-hour ABC movie, airing tonight at 9 on Channel 7, is so crammed with the freshly killed that it looks like the city morgue. This is a movie in which stiffs turn up among the mourners at funerals for mass-murder victims, and mere fender-benders result in coffins scattered all over the road.
 * The Washington Post // April 15, 1985, Monday, Final Edition // Blood-Spattered 'Lady Blue' // BYLINE: By Lloyd Grove, Washington Post Staff Writer // SECTION: Style; TV Preview; B3 // LENGTH: 442 words

The rampant carnage in Robert Vincent O'Neil's script -- which overpowers, and eventually sours, what could have been an agreeably fast-paced show -- is matched only by its rampant larceny. O'Neil steals shamelessly from "The French Connection" -- notably the famous car-train chase scene, shrunk to TV scale on the Chicago El -- and a fistful of Clint Eastwood movies.

The red-haired, long-legged Rose plays homicide detective Katy Mahoney, a sexy law-woman with a deadly aim, who frequently finds herself in excessive-use-of-force hearings. The movie's opening scene, in which Katy interrupts her pedicure to foil a bank robbery across the street, leaves little doubt as to why.

"Look, I have three down and one bought it," Katy tells a fellow officer, in tones usually reserved for shopping lists, after spraying the bank with bullets. When she returns to the beauty parlor to resume her pedicure, the other patrons, far from cheering her exploit, stare at her dumbly -- and just a little fearfully.

It's a nice touch by director Gary Nelson, who manages the whole bloody business with professional aplomb. The problem is, it's not a pretty business, and after a while, it's a rather tiresome business -- a textbook example of gratuitous TV violence.

Rose is joined in the mayhem by Danny Aiello, her gruff but indulgent superior (de rigueur in cop dramas) and Tony Lo Bianco, her charming partner/lover, who cheats on his wife (and ends up dead). Child actor Ajay Naidu plays Paquito, a worldly-wise waif whom Katy befriends (after a nicely comic scene in which she chases him through a men's health club).

Katy Jurado plays Don a Maria Teresa Alcazar, a cocaine queen with a heart of iron, and the beleaguered Jim Brown puts in an appearance as a South Side drug czar.

Brown's character gives Katy a chance to strut her machismo, if that's the right word, when she confronts him on his own turf, a South Side saloon. "Today we deal, tomorrow's a new day," she informs him with a coquettish smile, having just terrorized the saloon's patrons a la Gene Hackman in "The French Connection." "I catch you crossing the line, I'll bust your butt."

When it comes to "Lady Blue," you'd better believe she'll do at least that.