Sharona Fleming
Encyclopedia
Sharona Fleming is a fictional character
in the award-winning series Monk
. Sharona is a divorced practical nurse
from New Jersey
and a single mother with a young son named Benjy. She was played by Bitty Schram
. Schram was nominated for a Golden Globe for her performance.
The season 2 episode "Mr. Monk Meets the Playboy" reveals that Sharona had married Trevor out of high school, but it did not last leaving her with an infant Benjy to raise on her own. When her son Benjy was one, she did some nude modeling under a pseudonym in Atlantic City, revealed to Monk in that episode when playboy Dexter Larsen of Sapphire Magazine threatens to publish these photos. In the season 1 episode "Mr. Monk Meets Dale the Whale" Dale Biederbeck asks Sharona if she is "still making house calls," to which Sharona replies that "she doesn't do that kinda stuff anymore," implying that she was at one point a prostitute.
An unknown amount time later, Sharona became a registered nurse.
state for three and a half years until Sharona began taking care of him. Monk was able to resume detective work and remarked, "She found me when I was drowning and saved my life." The series started a while after she took the assistant's job, and just how she got it and what their early relationship was are never explained, although it is revealed that Captain Stottlemeyer
originally engaged her as a nurse for Monk.
When Monk becomes a consulting detective, Sharona helps out, sometimes doing independent investigations and sometimes even using her sex appeal to get information that Monk cannot. She also does all kinds of things that Monk's OCD and phobia
s prevent him from doing as she has few such reservations herself. However, in the season 2 episode "Mr. Monk Goes to the Circus," Sharona is revealed to have a fear of
elephant
s, due to seeing a girl falling into an elephant pit when she was seven years old. She takes up smoking
after Monk reacts insensitively to her fear of elephants, telling her to "suck it up".
Sharona drives a tan 1990 Volvo 740 GLE Wagon, which in "Mr. Monk and the 12th Man" is shown to have 100,000 miles. The counter says 99,999, prompting Monk to move the car forwards and backwards until the number is even while staking out Henry Small's house.
She has 'quit' her job as Monk's assistant at least twice; in the episode "Mr. Monk and the Candidate
" and "Mr. Monk and the Billionaire Mugger" (this was due to a pay dispute; she temporarily got a job at a lamp store). Sharona's 'quitting' became a running gag in the show, until she finally left in 2004 to re-marry her ex-husband, Trevor Howe, following "Mr. Monk Takes His Medicine". This was because Bitty Schram quit the show over contract disputes. Subsequently, Traylor Howard
was introduced as Natalie Teeger
, Monk's new assistant, beginning in "Mr. Monk and the Red Herring".
Sharona is mentioned again after her character left the show in "Mr. Monk Is on the Run (Part Two)", having sent flowers for the "deceased" Monk and flying in with Benjy to attend his funeral.
. A primary subplot of the episode is the way that Monk is torn between Natalie's methods and Sharona's. It is hinted that Sharona and Randy may be dating. Sharona mentions during the episode that she and Trevor have separated permanently, and that Benjy is currently making plans to attend college. In the final episode, Randy moves to Summit, New Jersey
to live with Sharona.
has Sharona returning to San Francisco after Trevor is arrested for allegedly murdering a UCLA professor. Sharona goes back to her position as a registered nurse. Monk and Natalie run into her when they bring Natalie's daughter Julie to the hospital. Sharona plans to return to work with Monk and thus results in open hostility between her and Natalie.
Eventually, Monk discovers that Trevor had been framed for the murder. After Monk exonerates him, and Sharona and Natalie—who also have been framed by Ian Ludlow, the real killer—Sharona goes back to Trevor. By this point, Sharona and Natalie have become friends and Sharona is sure Monk is in good hands, thus serving more closure than on the television series. The novel ends with Sharona moving back to Los Angeles with Trevor and Benjy, leaving her character in a better position to be able to return into Adrian's life, e.g. visits, than it would if her character was in New Jersey, perhaps hinting at a possible return of her character. The events of the book run somewhat contrary to how her return was later depicted in "Mr. Monk and Sharona", although some elements of the novel, like Natalie and Sharona's open hostility towards each other, are adapted over.
Fictional character
A character is the representation of a person in a narrative work of art . Derived from the ancient Greek word kharaktêr , the earliest use in English, in this sense, dates from the Restoration, although it became widely used after its appearance in Tom Jones in 1749. From this, the sense of...
in the award-winning series Monk
Monk (TV series)
Monk is an American comedy-drama detective mystery television series created by Andy Breckman and starring Tony Shalhoub as the titular character, Adrian Monk. It originally ran from 2002 to 2009 and is primarily a mystery series, although it has dark and comic touches.The series debuted on July...
. Sharona is a divorced practical nurse
Licensed Practical Nurse
Licensed practical nurse is the term used in much of the United States and most Canadian provinces to refer to a nurse who cares for "people who are sick, injured, convalescent, or disabled under the direction of registered nurses and physicians. The term licensed vocational nurses is used in...
from New Jersey
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...
and a single mother with a young son named Benjy. She was played by Bitty Schram
Bitty Schram
Elizabeth Natalie "Bitty" Schram is an American actress, most widely known for having played Sharona Fleming in the television series Monk.-Career:...
. Schram was nominated for a Golden Globe for her performance.
Biography
Sharona's childhood is only mentioned in the season 3 episode "Mr. Monk and the Girl Who Cried Wolf". Her father, Douglas, owned a hardware store and died when she was a child. This left her mother, Cheryl, to raise Sharona and her younger sister, Gail, who is an actress and appears in the episodes "Mr. Monk and the Earthquake" and "Mr. Monk Goes to the Theater".The season 2 episode "Mr. Monk Meets the Playboy" reveals that Sharona had married Trevor out of high school, but it did not last leaving her with an infant Benjy to raise on her own. When her son Benjy was one, she did some nude modeling under a pseudonym in Atlantic City, revealed to Monk in that episode when playboy Dexter Larsen of Sapphire Magazine threatens to publish these photos. In the season 1 episode "Mr. Monk Meets Dale the Whale" Dale Biederbeck asks Sharona if she is "still making house calls," to which Sharona replies that "she doesn't do that kinda stuff anymore," implying that she was at one point a prostitute.
An unknown amount time later, Sharona became a registered nurse.
Role on Monk
Monk was in a catatonicCatatonia
Catatonia is a state of neurogenic motor immobility, and behavioral abnormality manifested by stupor. It was first described in 1874: Die Katatonie oder das Spannungsirresein ....
state for three and a half years until Sharona began taking care of him. Monk was able to resume detective work and remarked, "She found me when I was drowning and saved my life." The series started a while after she took the assistant's job, and just how she got it and what their early relationship was are never explained, although it is revealed that Captain Stottlemeyer
Leland Stottlemeyer
Captain Leland Francis Stottlemeyer is a fictional police officer played by Ted Levine on the American crime drama Monk. He is Captain of the San Francisco Police Department 's Homicide Detail, and a longtime friend of Adrian Monk from their days on the force together where he served as Monk's...
originally engaged her as a nurse for Monk.
When Monk becomes a consulting detective, Sharona helps out, sometimes doing independent investigations and sometimes even using her sex appeal to get information that Monk cannot. She also does all kinds of things that Monk's OCD and phobia
Phobia
A phobia is a type of anxiety disorder, usually defined as a persistent fear of an object or situation in which the sufferer commits to great lengths in avoiding, typically disproportional to the actual danger posed, often being recognized as irrational...
s prevent him from doing as she has few such reservations herself. However, in the season 2 episode "Mr. Monk Goes to the Circus," Sharona is revealed to have a fear of
Zoophobia
Zoophobia or animal phobia may have one of two closely related meanings: a generic term for the class of specific phobias to particular animals, or an irrational fear or even simply dislike of any non-human animals....
elephant
Elephant
Elephants are large land mammals in two extant genera of the family Elephantidae: Elephas and Loxodonta, with the third genus Mammuthus extinct...
s, due to seeing a girl falling into an elephant pit when she was seven years old. She takes up smoking
Smoking
Smoking is a practice in which a substance, most commonly tobacco or cannabis, is burned and the smoke is tasted or inhaled. This is primarily practised as a route of administration for recreational drug use, as combustion releases the active substances in drugs such as nicotine and makes them...
after Monk reacts insensitively to her fear of elephants, telling her to "suck it up".
Sharona drives a tan 1990 Volvo 740 GLE Wagon, which in "Mr. Monk and the 12th Man" is shown to have 100,000 miles. The counter says 99,999, prompting Monk to move the car forwards and backwards until the number is even while staking out Henry Small's house.
She has 'quit' her job as Monk's assistant at least twice; in the episode "Mr. Monk and the Candidate
Mr. Monk and the Candidate
"Mr. Monk and the Candidate" is the 90-minute pilot episode of the TV series Monk on the USA Network.During the Monk Cast Favorites Marathon, the episode was listed as one of Traylor Howard's favorites...
" and "Mr. Monk and the Billionaire Mugger" (this was due to a pay dispute; she temporarily got a job at a lamp store). Sharona's 'quitting' became a running gag in the show, until she finally left in 2004 to re-marry her ex-husband, Trevor Howe, following "Mr. Monk Takes His Medicine". This was because Bitty Schram quit the show over contract disputes. Subsequently, Traylor Howard
Traylor Howard
Traylor Elizabeth Howard is an American actress. She is best known for her roles as Sharon Carter on the television series Two Guys and a Girl and as Natalie Teeger on the USA Network series Monk.-Early life:...
was introduced as Natalie Teeger
Natalie Teeger
Natalie J. Teeger is a fictional character on the American crime drama Monk. She becomes Adrian Monk's personal assistant midway through the third season of the show...
, Monk's new assistant, beginning in "Mr. Monk and the Red Herring".
Sharona is mentioned again after her character left the show in "Mr. Monk Is on the Run (Part Two)", having sent flowers for the "deceased" Monk and flying in with Benjy to attend his funeral.
Relationships
It is a recurring gag of the series that, as sharp as Sharona is in guiding Monk's life and his investigations, when it comes to men her own instincts are infallibly lousy. Apart from having Trevor in her past, the string of men that she dated while in San Francisco included a secret streaker ("Mr. Monk and the Red-Headed Stranger"), a mob enforcer ("Mr. Monk Meets the Godfather"), several married men, and sometimes (on more than one occasion) the very murderer that she and Monk are pursuing. The seeming common denominator between these and many other men is a compulsive inability to be honest with her.Return to Monk
Despite having left the show as a regular, Bitty Schram returned to play Sharona as a guest star in the season 8 episode "Mr. Monk and Sharona", but did not become a regular for the season. In this episode, Sharona returns to San Francisco after the death of her little-known uncle Howard Fleming, to which Monk believes there has been foul playFoul play
Foul play may refer to:*Foul play, a synonym for crime*Foul Play, an American film*Foul Play , a silent British film directed by Edwin J. Collins*Foul , an unfair or illegal sports act...
. A primary subplot of the episode is the way that Monk is torn between Natalie's methods and Sharona's. It is hinted that Sharona and Randy may be dating. Sharona mentions during the episode that she and Trevor have separated permanently, and that Benjy is currently making plans to attend college. In the final episode, Randy moves to Summit, New Jersey
Summit, New Jersey
Summit is a city in Union County, New Jersey, United States. At the 2010 United States Census, the city's population was 21,457. Summit had the 16th-highest per capita income in the state as of the 2000 Census....
to live with Sharona.
Contract dispute
Bitty Schram left the show halfway through the third season due to a contract dispute. It was explained in the show that her character had moved back to New Jersey and remarried her ex-husband, Trevor Howe.Mr. Monk and the Two Assistants
Lee Goldberg's novel Mr. Monk and the Two AssistantsMr. Monk and the Two Assistants
Mr. Monk and the Two Assistants is the fourth novel based on the television series Monk by Lee Goldberg. It is the first Monk novel to be published in hardcover, on July 3, 2007...
has Sharona returning to San Francisco after Trevor is arrested for allegedly murdering a UCLA professor. Sharona goes back to her position as a registered nurse. Monk and Natalie run into her when they bring Natalie's daughter Julie to the hospital. Sharona plans to return to work with Monk and thus results in open hostility between her and Natalie.
Eventually, Monk discovers that Trevor had been framed for the murder. After Monk exonerates him, and Sharona and Natalie—who also have been framed by Ian Ludlow, the real killer—Sharona goes back to Trevor. By this point, Sharona and Natalie have become friends and Sharona is sure Monk is in good hands, thus serving more closure than on the television series. The novel ends with Sharona moving back to Los Angeles with Trevor and Benjy, leaving her character in a better position to be able to return into Adrian's life, e.g. visits, than it would if her character was in New Jersey, perhaps hinting at a possible return of her character. The events of the book run somewhat contrary to how her return was later depicted in "Mr. Monk and Sharona", although some elements of the novel, like Natalie and Sharona's open hostility towards each other, are adapted over.