A Pioneering Police Woman

Editor’s Note: This is the third of a series of interviews with veteran television stars who are featured in the PBS series Pioneers of Television. The series runs through Feb. 8. Next up: Willard Scott, on life before Today.

 As Sgt. Pepper Anderson on the 1970s drama Police Woman, Angie Dickinson was the first female to head the cast of a successful TV drama.

"In '74, it was still unique to see a woman in uniform," Dickinson says in the same smart and sexy voice that Police Woman viewers heard when Pepper popped another perp.

Indeed, Dickinson broke ground for women as an actress as well as in portraying that women could be effective cops. That was quite an accomplishment at a time before Law & Order and CSI, and one the actress reflects upon in the third installment of the PBS series Pioneers of Television, this one devoted to our love affair with crime shows.

Her distinction, however, didn’t make her a feminist. "I never felt the need for feminism,” she says. “I never felt competition with men, which I really believed started the movement." It is possible Gloria Steinem would disagree. But, Dickinson has made a very nice living by knowing how to sell her femininity — without selling out.

"When I was up for a role, I didn't compete with men; it was a role for a woman." And, as for the historic inequity between what Hollywood paid men vs. women? "I was content with what they gave me," she says.

This crime show episode, like all four Pioneers hours, is industry-smart without being smart-alecky. For example, it points out that Lucille Ball was the producer of Mission Impossible. Who knew?

The special also looks at the violence inherent to the crime show, an element critics often blame for generating real-life aggression. Dickinson says Police Woman didn't go far enough.

"I always felt like our show was too clean. Oh, you killed somebody! And it all worked out very nicely. The plumbing is still working. Everything … all wrapped up, nice and sweet."