Shelley in a 1979 publicity pic
After her stint in Charlie's Angels, Shelley immediately tackled live theater via the filmed-for-TV-play Vanities by Jack Heifner. She had no stage experience but was ready to take up the challenge. “I don't know how I got the guts to go right into a play immediately after leaving the series,” Shelley said. "I started doing theater for the first time in my life although I'd never been on a stage before." But her gamble paid off, as she left her critics dumbfounded by her excellent performance. And it didn't stop there. She won more good notices in her subsequent efforts too, Close Ties and Born Yesterday (attracting the highest critical praise for her performance in the latter). Her success on stage opened doors for Shelley as she got parts in the Martin Scorsese film The King of Comedy, the George Segal starrer Trackdown: Finding the Goodbar Killer and her own TV series Cutter to Houston.
a writeup about Shelley from 1983
