The First Cop Show To Focus On A Female Police Officer Was A Forgotten '50s Drama

The first ever cop show led by a woman was the 1957 series "Decoy" — but there wouldn't be a second for another 17 years. 

"Decoy" starred Beverly Garland as police officer Patricia "Casey" Jones, who goes undercover to catch criminals across New York City. Casey is the show's only recurring character, and each episode has her sent off on a new assignment to deal with a new cast of suspects. She's also always cool and competent, rarely doubted or patronized on account of her gender. Garland herself later recalled meeting policewomen who'd been inspired to join the force by her character. And while Casey may not often be remembered on lists of female TV trailblazers, critics at the time praised her tough and daring nature. 

"Decoy" enjoyed a 39-episode run on syndication until its production company ran out of money, although the show continued to play on reruns for years afterwards. The next female-led cop procedural, "Police Woman," was a hit '70s show that ran for four years and made leading woman Angie Dickinson a star. Nevertheless, Dickinson doesn't look back fondly on her time as Sergeant "Pepper" Anderson. "I regret doing the series," she said in a 2019 interview with CBS Sunday Morning. "It just sapped me of four years of my life." 

"I've always vowed that I wouldn't tie myself down to a series of my own," Beverly Garland told reporters during her time on "Decoy." She preferred life in California, but her show kept her in New York full time. She also didn't like being confined to a single character, which meant that, for her, the quasi-anthology format of "Decoy" was its saving grace: "I really do love it," she said in a 1958 interview with The Minneapolis Star. "I have to take on a different guise every episode. So actually I'm always playing different characters."

Garland's initial reluctance to join the show ended up working in her favor, too. "I'd never been able to warm up to New York so my agent put a price on my services that we thought would kill the deal right away," she explained, "but the firm met the figure, and I even own a little piece of the property."

Two years later, while "Decoy" was enjoying its third round of reruns, Garland said the show "didn't do much" for her as an actress, but appreciated that it had helped make her resilient. "One thing a series does is make you a trouper," she said. "I found out you can work with the measles and 105-degree temperature. ... In TV this can be important."

In "Beverly Garland: Her Life and Career," Garland's biographer, Deborah Del Vecchio, wrote that the actress later believed starring in "Decoy" had harmed her movie career. In the years after the show, Garland expressed some frustration to reporters that the roles producers were offering her were beneath her abilities. "In this business there comes a time when you've got to stop letting them use you and finally say to yourself, 'Okay this is my year to starve.' From here on I am going to do the top shows only," Garland said. 

Throughout her long career, Garland starred in over 40 movies and played significant roles in shows such as "Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman" and "My Three Sons." Some critics compared her early-career stage presence to that of Marilyn Monroe's, while others noted that Garland was willing to ignore beauty for the sake of an authentic performance. She reportedly once told a makeup artist, "You've made me look like Marilyn Monroe. I'm supposed to be a dissolute, unhappy drunk. Put some lines in my face and some creases on my forehead." 

Garland never became an A-list star, but the unconventionally tough and gritty performances she gave in projects like "Decoy" helped make her a long-standing favorite among B-movie fans. "She was seldom a shrinking violet," sci-fi expert Tom Weaver told The Los Angeles Times when Garland passed away in 2008. "She didn't play the demure, reserved heroines very well."