No Gless ceiling for her

Sharon Gless plays women with toughness, drive and, when it counts, a comic streak.

She’s in her third season on her latest series, the action drama “Burn Notice,” which airs Thursdays at 9 p.m. on USA.

But for many viewers, she’ll always be Det. Chris Cagney, the lovelorn cop partnered with matriarchal Det. Mary Beth Lacey (Tyne Daly) on “Cagney & Lacey.”

A “buddy drama” with realistic female heroes, it broke new ground in the 1980s. Since then, Gless, to no one’s surprise, has remained an unstoppable force.

A few years ago she tackled an unusual role, even for her: The fiercely proud mother of a young gay man in Showtime’s “Queer as Folk.”

In “Burn Notice,” Gless plays the meddlesome mother of Michael Westen (Jeffrey Donovan), a mysteriously blacklisted spy stranded in Miami, where he’s trying to wangle some work while he clears his name.

She has a theory about how she landed the role: “They needed the mother from hell: ‘Let’s get Gless!’ ”

The L.A. native has logged movie, stage and TV credits reaching back to “Marcus Welby, M.D.,” where in the mid-1970s she was cast as the love interest for series co-star James Brolin.

“They said there was no chemistry between us,” she recalls with no argument.

At 66, she sports a sleek, ivory-white haircut and lives in her native Miami with her husband of 18 years, producer Barney Rosenzweig, whom she met when he cast her for “Cagney & Lacey.”

“He’s the first feminist I ever met,” she declares with clear admiration. “The kind of feminist who says, ‘You want to be equal? Open your own door.’ ”

She bursts out with a laugh: “So there’s an edge.”

The birthday bunch

Actor Ted Shackelford (“Knots Landing”) is 63. “American Idol” judge Randy Jackson is 53. Actress Frances McDormand is 52. Actress Selma Blair is 37. Singer KT Tunstall is 34. Singer-songwriter Jason Mraz is 32. Singer Duffy is 25.