How Cheryl Ladd Pushed Back on ‘Charlie’s Angels’ Bikini Scenes & Won

Cheryl Ladd, late 1970s. — Everett Collection

What To Know

Cheryl Ladd grew frustrated with the frequent bikini scenes required of her character, and subtly protested.
Her bold move prompted producer Aaron Spelling to allow her more modest wardrobe choices.

Dave Sundstrom is a pop-culture entertainment enthusiast and host of The Good Stuff on YouTube.

One of the great television moments during the late ’70s had to be the arrival of Kris Munroe (Cheryl Ladd) on Charlie’s Angels. Ladd, while a newcomer to the series, was a seasoned veteran and was determined to make the most of her moment. However, there came a point during the production of the show where she’d had enough of the nonstop parade of bikinis that she was continually being asked to wear.

The premise behind the arrival of Ladd and the departure of megastar Farrah Fawcett-Majors was that Kris was the little sister of Jill Munroe, and she proved to be every bit as smart, feisty, and beautiful as her sibling. Ladd performed so well on the show that many viewers did not seem to care that the series’ biggest star was no longer solving mysteries for Charles Townsend every week.

While season two of the show (Ladd’s first) was smooth sailing for one and all, by the time the cast and crew started filming episodes for season three, the waters were getting a bit choppy. Why? Well, as mentioned earlier, Ladd was getting extremely weary of wearing a bikini on the show every single week.

One evening, Ladd spoke informally with the show’s producer, Aaron Spelling. She mentioned to him that while she was extremely grateful for the opportunity to be in such a popular program, she would enjoy filming an episode or two in its entirety without slipping into a bikini. Spelling acknowledged that the amount of swimsuit scenes had become gratuitous and told her he would look into it. However, as shooting for the season continued, shots of her character, Kris, in a bikini seemed to become even more frequent.

Ladd knew she needed to send a message to Spelling, something to remind him without seeming like a star throwing a tantrum. So, the next time she was asked to put on a bikini, in an episode titled “Angel on High”, she put on the absolute tiniest thing she could find. This was not the one the wardrobe department had asked her to wear, but Ladd insisted.

If you head on over to the IMDB trivia section for that episode, Ladd is quoted as saying, “Aaron wants me in a bikini, so this is what he’s going to get. We’re running late and we gotta shoot the scene. Let’s go, I’m not changing.”

In that episode, viewers may notice a scene in which a bikini-clad Kris speaks to a man at a table, and the camera zooms in and focuses on her face. This is not how the scene was originally storyboarded, but because of Ladd’s rogue wardrobe decision, delicate editing was required so that the episode could actually air on network television here in the United States.

Aaron Spelling (center) with CHARLIE'S ANGELS stars Cheryl Ladd, Kate Jackson, Jaclyn Smith, at a party for the TV movie THE USERS, 1978

Everett Collection

After the scene was filmed, Spelling was made aware of Ladd’s wardrobe decision. Thankfully, he was more amused than angry and communicated to the creative team that it was okay to cover up Ladd a bit more. Charlie’s Angels ran for five seasons, and because of this gutsy decision, the remaining two and a half seasons were a good experience for Ladd. While she was still asked from time to time to slip on a swimsuit, she noticed a change and was forever thankful to Spelling for finally coming to her aid.

Speaking to journalist Ed Gross, who was interviewing her for Woman’s World magazine earlier this year, Ladd said this, “Isn’t it interesting how intimidated men in the press and in general were by the show? Okay, we were young women who wore bathing suits, and that was part of the draw, but they missed the whole other part. The part of empowered and highly intelligent women. Women who had to act on their feet and make quick decisions and look after each other.”