Jaclyn Smith Reveals Her Biggest Career Regret & Why She Thought Farrah Fawcett Would Return to ‘Charlie’s Angels’
Last month, Jaclyn Smith took the stage at GayDays in Anaheim, California, and chatted about her life, her career, and the enduring legacy of Charlie’s Angels, sharing candid memories, regrets, triumphs, and the values that shaped her. Smith’s new book I Once Knew a Guy Named Charlie has landed at #9 on the New York Times bestseller list.
Smith said her book I Once Knew a Guy Named Charlie took years to complete because of the emotional weight behind the stories. “I started a long time ago. I put it down, and then I picked it up, and then last year I got serious. It took a long time, but you know, I know my parents are fine. I can do it,” she said.
Jaclyn Smith’s early years
She reflected on how different her childhood was compared to the world her granddaughters are growing up in. “The way I grew up is so different than the way my granddaughters are being raised — computers and cell phones and no cursive writing. They don’t know how to write a thank you. I mean, they’re going to because of me. It’s a different terrain, it’s a different world, and I want them to see Houston and Texas. That is my true geography — the gentleness, the manners. It’s expected in Texas. You do not misbehave.”
Credit: Mike Pingel
Smith said writing about others requires honesty. “When you’re talking about other people, tell the whole truth because that’s their story too.”
One of the most emotional parts of the book is her childhood. “I think my childhood — that idyllic, perfect parents, perfect grandfather — I’ll start crying. I mean, that whole growing up with just these people that I miss every single day. I was discerning enough at seven to know what to believe and what not to believe.”
Smith recalled her early career in New York. “I did start in New York at a very idyllic time because you didn’t have to have a social media following. New York in the late ’60s… I was a rule follower. I never took the subway because I had to make a promise to my dad that I wouldn’t. So now today when I go, and I want to get on the subway, I’m lost. I don’t know where to go.”
She described the strict etiquette at the Barbizon Hotel where she lived. “No pants in the lobby. You couldn’t wear slacks. You wore heels, hose, sometimes my hair in a bun.”
Art Zelin/Getty Images
Smith also opened up about her first marriage. “I married somebody that could have made me disappear — that first husband, which shouldn’t have been in the book, okay? But yeah, that was hard to take for an innocent girl from Houston. And why I put that in is there is survival. Sometimes love and attraction masquerade as foundation and trust, and they’re two different things.”
She hopes younger readers learn from her experience. “You think you’re madly in love, but you also see on paper that you share many things — love of architecture, homes and redo — and none of it made a marriage come together.”
What is Jaclyn Smith’s biggest regret?
She expressed regret about turning down Broadway. “My biggest regret is that I didn’t do my one and only with Tommy Tune because he’s a Texas boy and he asked me to do it. I just didn’t think my voice was strong enough at the time and I was scared. I say to my kids: go out on a limb, that’s where the fruit is. Go toward the fear.”
Stage work still intimidates her. “Yeah, I’m scared still. I think, what if I forgot the words? But I was offered The Vagina Monologues. I was offered Love Letters with Richard Chamberlain, but he couldn’t do it at the last minute. We would have done that. He’s a dream.”
Favorite Charlie’s Angels memories
Everett Collection
Smith shared vivid memories from Charlie’s Angels. “We had 18‑hour days — long, long days — and then because the show was popular, we had weekends to shoot magazines or make an appearance. It was a whirlwind.”
Smith said Jackson was the leader on set and remembered the day of the Time magazine shoot and how Jackson wanted to have lunch first. “She was really protecting us, but it did seem a little extreme. She said the doors jammed, you’ll have to go through the top vent in the motorhome, open it up and drop a wrench down. But we all had fun. We went along with it, and we got on the Time cover anyway.”
She remembered going out in public in disguise with costar Kate Jackson. “When we went to get her baby and a couple of other times I did that – Kate’s voice alone would identify her — a very identifiable voice.”
Smith laughed, recalling filming a scene from “The Séance” with Farrah Fawcett. “Farrah’s going, ‘I’m Lilybeth, I’m Lilybeth.’ And she was so funny and so real. We just stopped before we went off that cliff and burst into laughter.”
But how did she feel when her good friend Farrah Fawcett left the show? “She [Farrah] did say, ‘I didn’t sign my contract, I’m not coming back.’ You know, we’re so busy, I thought, ah, she’s gonna change her mind, and we’re all going a million miles a minute, and I just thought she’d go home, rest on the hiatus, and come back.” Smith confessed she never discussed it with her and has theories why not. “We were very close friends. I don’t know if she regretted it because she had to go through a lot of legal battles, and life moves on; you forget it, and it was a thing of the past. So I don’t know if she regretted leaving.”
About that hair and those disguises…
Everett Collection
Smith said Aaron Spelling insisted on their signature hair. “Aaron Spelling only wanted our hair a certain way. He never wanted us to cut it, whereas if you see a show today, every season, you get to wear a new hairstyle or try new things. He didn’t like it. He liked us like the way we were. He said, ‘Nope, I don’t want your hair natural.’ I have naturally curly hair.”
One of her favorite episodes was “Avenging Angel.” She gushed, “I got to shed the glamour. My hair got to be kinky and curly. It was fun. That was with Cameron Mitchell, and he was wonderful. He was a character actor.
She loved experimenting with disguises. “Playing all those disguises and being able to experiment and take chances and improvise, it was great. It was like an education. It was like an acting class. It was like being at the actors’ studio because, you know, we were sort of, it was around us, and we could say, Can we try this? They let us experiment. It was a wonderful education. I was a prostitute, I was a nun. I was a belly dancer, I was an ice skater, I was a bully, I was everything.”
However, Smith said Charlie’s Angels never defined her. “I was happy before this show, I’m happy now, and if it ends tomorrow, I’ll still be happy.”
I Once Knew a Guy Named Charlie is available at bookstores and online everywhere. Smith’s next stop on her book tour will be in her hometown in Houston, Texas, on October 8 at My Village Books in The Woodlands.
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