Shelley, along with Meredith Baxter Birney and Annette O"Toole, tackled stage in the play Vanities which was going to aired on the cable network HBO in 1981. The women were chosen to bring star power into the production which was going to be different in the way it was going to be shot. Director-producer Norman Twain was going to try to capture the dynamics between the audience and the performers. Shelley was less experienced than her co-performers but proved to be a solid actress when the the show premiered on TV. She even won over her biggest Charlie’s Angels detractor, writer/producer Ed Lakso. "One year after the show, I saw Shelley in the stage play Vanities, and she did a wonderful job," Lakso said.
