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Queer As Folk's PFLAG Poster Mom
By: MEG ALLAN
Source: www.proudparenting.com
Debbie Novotny is a bit like every mom. She's certainly a lot like mine. Strong, bigger than life, and never afraid to speak her mind, even when she knows she's wrong. Queer As Folk's resident den mother is also loving, generous, and always ready to pick up the pieces.
We'll have to wait for another month to see what the new season of Queer As Folk has in store for Debbie. Last season Sharon Gless, who brought Debbie to life got to expand on the role. She trimmed down in season three (she put on about 20 pounds to make Debbie more of a believable 'mom' in season one) and looked her glamorous self again. Not gone though were the outlandish costumes, the big hair, and the assortment of PFLAG buttons with which we've come to associate Debbie Novotny.
The role may seem like a far cry from her portrayal of New York Police Detective Christine Cagney on the hit series Cagney & Lacey, a role that garnered her two Emmys, a Golden Globe, and six Emmy nominations.
Gless says both Cagney and Novotny have a lot in common.
The are both strong women. And, they have both given women a reason to be strong, Gless says.
When Cagney & Lacey first premiered a lot of people assumed Cagney was a lesbian. No, the character wasn't gay, but Chris Cagney became a role model for young women, gay and straight.
As waitress Debbie Novotny, on QAF, she is the poster mom for PFLAG. The mother of a gay son, and the sister of a gay man dealing with AIDS, Debbie does not suffer fools or homophobes lightly.
Producer Ron Cowan calls her a gem. Sharon came to us, he said. When we began casting in Hollywood, Gless contacted us.
At first we didn't see her in the part, he said.
Cowan recalls her saying, I have to do this part.
Cowan, and his co-executive producer, and life partner Daniel Lipman read her for the part.
As soon as she began reading we knew she was Debbie Novotny, Lipman said.
Gless recalls Showtime President Jerry Offsay saying she would bring class to the part.
I sent a message to him: `Class is not what I had in mind.
Debbie is a complex person. When Michael fell in love with a man (Robert Gant) who is HIV-positive, Debbie went on the offensive.
Debbie Novotny is the greatest champion of gay men and women. But her first priority is her son, Gless said. All she sees is her son with a man who could kill him. You've hit her where she really lives.
In real life, Gless is less of an outspoken activist than Novotny.
I'm not anyone who gets on the band box. . . . I do my activism in the roles I play, she says.
Not all of her friends like the fact she's appearing in the series. A couple of them told her she was making a mistake when she went after the role.
My really, really, really uptight friends here on the island say, `Sharon, we just can't look.' I say, `No problem.' That's their problem.
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