Cagney & Lacey
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50 free Cagney & Lacey trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Cagney & Lacey put two women at the centre of a police drama at a time when the genre was built around men. One detective was single and ambitious, the other a married working mother, and the series gave as much room to their friendship and home lives as to the cases they closed. This quiz covers the whole story: the actresses who played the leads, the squad room regulars, the storylines that got people talking, the awards, and the cancellations the show survived. You will also meet the creators, the guest stars who went on to bigger things, and the reunion movies that followed. It is written for fans who watched every week and for newcomers who know the title from reruns. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you pick up the stories behind the series as you play.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Cagney & Lacey began as a female buddy film script titled after which pair of male movie stars?
Newman & Redford
Newman & Redford was the comedy's working title until legal worries forced a change. No film studio wanted the script, so the story went to television instead.
Q 02In which sitcom does Terry Jeffords have twin daughters named Cagney and Lacey?
Brooklyn Nine-Nine
Brooklyn Nine-Nine gives squad leader Terry, played by Terry Crews, twins named for the two detectives, plus a third daughter called Ava.
Q 03Which actress played Christine Cagney in the 1981 Cagney & Lacey pilot movie but was unavailable for the series?
Loretta Swit
Loretta Swit was still Major Houlihan on M*A*S*H, whose producers refused to release her from her contract for the new series.
Q 04Which fan protest, organized by the producer of Cagney & Lacey, helped reverse the show's 1983 cancellation?
A letter-writing campaign
A letter-writing campaign, a summer time-slot change that lifted the ratings and an Emmy for its Mary Beth Lacey persuaded the network to bring the series back in March 1984.
Q 05Which illness makes Mary Beth Lacey miss a promotion exam in the fourth season of Cagney & Lacey?
Breast cancer
Breast cancer is a fear Mary Beth at first refuses to take to a doctor, and the operation that follows keeps her away from the exam her colleagues sit.
Q 06What joking nickname did the two stars of Cagney & Lacey give their four 1990s reunion television movies?
The Menopause Years
The Menopause Years stuck so well that it became the official title of the DVD set collecting all four films.
Q 07Which series' four-year hold on the Outstanding Drama Series Emmy did Cagney & Lacey end in 1985?
Hill Street Blues
Hill Street Blues had won the award every year from 1981 to 1984 before the two women detectives took it in 1985 and again in 1986.
Q 08Which actress took over as Christine Cagney in the second season of Cagney & Lacey and won two Emmys?
Sharon Gless
Sharon Gless had been the creators' first choice from the start, but a studio contract kept her out of the pilot movie and the short first season.
Q 09Which actress won four Emmys as working mother Mary Beth Lacey in Cagney & Lacey?
Tyne Daly
Tyne Daly was the one lead who stayed from the pilot movie to the final season, while three different actresses played her partner.
Q 10Which actor, a detective in Cagney & Lacey, went on to play ruthless sensei John Kreese in The Karate Kid?
Martin Kove
Martin Kove made the 1984 film while playing Detective Victor Isbecki, and returned to the villain decades later in the series Cobra Kai.
Q 11Which American network aired Cagney & Lacey, canceling the series twice in two years before reviving it?
CBS
CBS dropped the show after six episodes in 1982 and again in 1983, by which time the sets had been destroyed and the cast released before the network changed its mind.
Q 12Cagney & Lacey follows two women detectives at the 14th Precinct in which American city?
New York
New York is the setting: the show's fictional 14th Precinct sits in Manhattan and goes by the name Midtown South.
Q 13Which addiction does Christine Cagney share with her ex-policeman father Charlie in Cagney & Lacey?
Alcohol
Alcohol takes hold of Christine after Charlie's death in the sixth season, until Mary Beth steers her partner back to Alcoholics Anonymous.
Q 21Which actor won a 1986 Emmy for playing Mary Beth Lacey's husband in Cagney & Lacey?
John Karlen
John Karlen had earlier played Willie Loomis, the man who releases the vampire Barnabas Collins from his coffin in the gothic soap Dark Shadows.
Q 22Which Canadian star of King of Kensington played Lt. Bert Samuels, the detectives' boss in Cagney & Lacey?
Al Waxman
Al Waxman became such a Canadian icon that a statue of him was erected in Toronto's Kensington Market after his death.
Q 23Which actor, Detective Marcus Petrie in Cagney & Lacey, later played super soldier Isaiah Bradley for Marvel?
Carl Lumbly
Carl Lumbly began as a journalist in Minnesota and was cast in his first play while on assignment to write about a workshop theatre.
Q 14What is the first name of Mary Beth Lacey's husband, a construction worker, in Cagney & Lacey?
Harvey
Harvey is also the name of the couple's elder son, Harvey Jr., and the loyal husband returns in all four of the reunion movies.
Q 15Cagney & Lacey held its own for years in the same time slot as ABC's weekly broadcast of which sport?
Football
Football filled ABC's Monday nights, and the detectives shared that 10 p.m. slot with it until the network moved them to Tuesdays midway through the final season.
Q 16Which spy series cast Cagney & Lacey's Christine Cagney actress as chain-smoking mother Madeline Westen?
Burn Notice
Burn Notice reunited the two leads in 2010, when her former screen partner guest-starred in an episode as a different character.
Q 17Which Rocky composer wrote the instrumental theme that Cagney & Lacey used from its second season?
Bill Conti
Bill Conti's instrumental replaced the first season's vocal theme song, and played over a collage of action and comic scenes from the series.
Q 18Which Dirty Harry film cast Cagney & Lacey's Mary Beth Lacey actress as Clint Eastwood's first female partner?
The Enforcer
The Enforcer cast her as Inspector Kate Moore opposite Harry Callahan in 1976, six years before the television series began.
Q 19For which Broadway musical revival did Cagney & Lacey's Mary Beth Lacey actress win a Tony Award?
Gypsy
Gypsy was revived for her after a Broadway producer saw her sing a duet with Dolly Parton on a television variety show and cast her as Rose.
Q 20Which actress played Christine Cagney for only six episodes in the first season of Cagney & Lacey?
Meg Foster
Meg Foster was replaced after the network judged her Cagney too aggressive, a dismissal one columnist suggested cost her other roles.
Q 24Which rank does Christine Cagney earn by promotion during the fourth season of Cagney & Lacey?
Sergeant
Sergeant was only a step on the way: by the 1990s reunion movies Christine has been promoted again and works as a special investigator.
Q 25What is the profession of David Keeler, Christine Cagney's steady boyfriend late in Cagney & Lacey?
Lawyer
Lawyer David Keeler, played by Stephen Macht, angers Christine in the sixth season by agreeing to represent a drug dealer on trial.
Q 26In the 1990s Cagney & Lacey reunion movies, the partners work as investigators for which official?
District Attorney
The District Attorney employs Christine as a special investigator, and Mary Beth, retired from the force, joins her partly because money is tight.
Q 27Which legal drama won Cagney & Lacey's Mary Beth Lacey actress another Emmy as caseworker Maxine Gray?
Judging Amy
Judging Amy cast her as the title character's widowed mother, and her old precinct partner guest-starred in a 2003 episode.
Q 28Which Showtime series cast Cagney & Lacey's Christine Cagney actress as Debbie Novotny from 2000 to 2005?
Queer as Folk
Queer as Folk cast her as the mother of Hal Sparks's character, and in 2009 she took her first leading lesbian role in the film Hannah Free.
Q 29On which British channel was Cagney & Lacey originally shown, regularly making the national top 10?
BBC1
BBC1 audiences kept the series in the British top 10, and London's British Film Institute later staged a 30th anniversary event for it.
Q 30Which executive producer of Cagney & Lacey later married the actress who played Christine Cagney?
Barney Rosenzweig
Barney Rosenzweig fought two cancellations to keep the series on air, wrote a memoir about making it, and married his leading lady in 1991.