Sally Shamrell, who left Tucson's KVOA for Hollywood, lands role in TV drama

Remember Sally Shamrell, the Bisbee native who graduated from the University of Arizona, became a pretty popular Tucson TV personality at KVOA Channel 4, then went off to Hollywood to seek a career in front of a different kind of camera?

Well, she’s starting to make some headway in that direction.

On Tuesday, Shamrell, who left Tucson four years ago after she and her Australian husband shuttered their short-lived Aussie Cantina restaurant near the UA, will appear on Shonda Rhimes’s midseason ABC legal drama “For the People.”

Shamrell, who works a day job as a writer and editor for KTLA 5 News in Los Angeles, will appear as a news anchor on the episode Tuesday, May 1. The series, which premiered March 13, airs at 7 p.m.

“It’s a role that people strive for around here,” Shamrell said from home in Los Angeles. “When you say Shondra Rhimes, it’s like, ‘Oh, yeah’.”

The show is about law school graduates feeling their way around the legal profession on the prosecution and defense sides of the aisle.

“I channel my old self,” Shamrell said of the role.

Since returning to LA, Shamrell, who spent eight years at KVOA in Tucson from 1995 to 2003, has landed several small roles including playing a politician on “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” and a surgeon on Ryan Murphy’s “The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story.”

“This past year, I just feel really fortunate because I’ve been on some really good productions,” she said. “It’s quite exciting. That’s why I came out. I sort of accomplished what I wanted to in news in Tucson. ... I just needed to try something new and super challenging, so here I am.”

Her shot on “For the People” is a one-time deal, with an open door. Shamrell said that the exposure to Rhimes, whose credits include the monster hit “Grey’s Anatomy,” as well as “Scandal” and “How to Get Away With Murder,” could lead to more opportunities.

“I have other news friends at my station that sometimes Shonda Rhimes will go, ‘OK, I’ve got my pool of news anchors and reporters. I’m going to tap you again’,” Shamrell said. “That’s why it was exciting to get this role. I have a friend from KTLA who was the regular news reporter on ‘Scandal.’ They called him in about eight times.”

Shamrell’s first TV role came not long after she left Tucson in the early 2000s when she was cast as a nurse — and later as a doctor and surgeon — on the daytime soap opera “Young & the Restless.” She’s also appeared on “Cold Justice” and “CSI: Miami.”

Shamrell also appears in a commercial for Consumer Cellular that began airing nationwide in early April.