Record Breaking Hit

 

screen captures of Shelley

from the Jack Heifner play Vanities filmed 

for the HBO series Standing Room Only, 1981

 

Immediately after leaving Charlie's Angels, Shelley was cast in the Jack Heifner three-character play Vanities. Set in 1963 (as high school cheerleaders) then 1968 (as college roomates) and finally in 1974 (as young adults), the play was about three girls from Texas - their friendship and demise thereof. Meredith Baxter Birney and Annette O'Toole played the other two characters. The play was a record-breaking hit and was taped and aired as part of the HBO series Standing Room Only in 1981. "I guess I did get spunky," Shelley said in a 1983 interview, "I decided I was going to run my own life. I started doing theater for the first time in my life although I'd never been on stage before." And Shelley received glowing reviews for her performance, surprising many critics, detractors and Charlie's Angels producer Ed Lakso who thought she couldn't act and that casting her in Angels was a mistake. "One year after the show, I saw Shelley in the stage play Vanities, and she did a wonderful job," Lakso admitted.

 

more screen captures of Shelley
from the Jack Heifner play Vanities
filmed for the HBO series Standing Room Only, 1981