Diane Whittlesey

Officer Diane Whittlesey is a fictional character played by Edie Falco on the television program Oz. According to an article in The New York Times, Whittlesey was modeled after a female unit manager whom series creator Tom Fontana met at a prison in southern New Jersey.

Oz's first female correctional officer is a divorcee and single mother, who has suffered spousal abuse, poverty and substance abuse; through all of that she gained a pretty good understanding of criminal life. She is a CO in the Oswald Maximum Security Penitentiary, but she only works there because she can't find work anywhere else. Her only drive is taking care of her mother, who has cancer, and her young daughter, whom she has to raise all by herself. She works double shifts, sometimes sleeping in the prison, just to make ends meet. Whittlesey is the only primary character who, although she was on for three seasons, was never killed off. She is one of the few characters to have a happy ending to their storyline.

Whittlesey is the supervisor of the guards in Emerald City, Unit Manager Tim McManus' experimental cell block. She helps to keep prisoners' records and to stop any conflicts between inmates. Eventually, she and McManus fall in love and even have sex inside an empty cell. However, when the two receive flak from their fellow staff members over their relationship, she breaks it off with him.

Eventually, Whittlesey gets some bad news — Oz had made a contract with the Department of Corrections that, as a condition, will no longer allow officers to work overtime. More trouble arises for her when Scott Ross enters Oz. He was a biker on the outside; he and her ex-husband used to be in the same biker gang. He is obsessed with Whittlesey, and on the outside he tried many times to have sex with her behind her husband's back. Ross decides to "help her out" with her situation at home; he proposes that she smuggle cigarettes for him and he will give her extra cash. She agrees reluctantly, but when McManus finds out, he tells her to stop. He doesn't fire her, knowing she's only trying to make money for her family. When Ross gets wind of this, he threatens to tell Warden Leo Glynn and take from Whittlesey everything she has worked for.

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