Shelley Marie Hack was born on July 6, 1947 in White Plains, New York, and was raised in nearby Greenwich, Connecticut. She graduated from Greenwich Academy and went off to Smith College where she earned a degree in history. But while still in school, as a teen, she was discovered by A&P heir Huntington Hartford who urged her to try modeling. So her mom took her to see model agent Eileen Ford and she began to model part-time, during her summer breaks. Subsequently, after graduating from Smith College, she signed on full-time at Ford Models Inc., and became one of the top models in the United States. In 1976, she jumped to Supermodel status when she began endorsing Revlon Charlie perfume, cosmetics and various beauty products. She was one of first batch of models who were able to negotiate previously unheard of, lucrative and exclusive million-dollar deals with giant cosmetics companies. The worldwide popularity she gained as THE Charlie Girl brought her to the attention of Hollywood. Woody Allen cast her in a bit part in his 1977 Academy Award-winning movie Annie Hall. She got her first leading lady role in the film If Ever I See You Again and went on to star in various big and small screen projects. In 1979, Aaron Spelling cast her in his hit series Charlie's Angels and she rose to Hollywood superstardom overnight. Although she left after one season, the publicity she gained from the series kept her in the public eye in the 1980s. Shelley then tackled stage via plays like Vanities (1981), Born Yesterday (1982), and Close Ties (1983), and was critically praised for her efforts. This led to roles in movies like Martin Scorsese's The King of Comedy (1983) and cult classics like Troll (1986) and The Stepfather (1987), as well as the lead in two other TV series, Cutter to Houston (1983) and Jack and Mike (1986-87). She married director Harry Winer and in 1990 gave birth to their daughter, Devon Rose. In the '90s, Shelley began delving in grassroots politics and political fund-raising. She would receive her MBA from the New York Institute of Technology (NYIT) and, in 1997, she formed Shelley Hack Media Consultancy (SHMC), a media consultancy firm that worked internationally in pre- and post-conflict countries. She would go into war-torn countries and help them establish democracy through media. She began in Bosnia, producing their first-ever televised presidential debates. She became a member of the Pacific Council on International Policy (PCIP) whose mission was to give a more effective voice to West Coast perspectives on critical global policy issues. She worked extensively in Eastern Europe and Western Asia and traveled all over the world. She also spent two years working with the largest media conglomerate in Eastern Europe helping to develop and build the infrastructure for a new state of the art film studio complex in the region. After ten years of doing that, Shelley settled down in California, and in 2010, she and her husband formed Smash Media Productions where she acts as co-president. Through Smash Media, she has produced documentaries like Citizen of the World (2010) and Maharajah of the Road (2012), feature films like The Expatriate/Erased (2012) and The Doorman (2020) and several movies for the Hallmark Channel [Lucky Christmas (2011), Perfect Match (2015), A Bramble House Christmas (2017), Falling for You (2018), Holiday Hearts (2019), Autumn in the City (2022), and Long Lost Christmas (2022)]. On her own, she has produced Summer of Dreams (2017) and Christmas in Evergreen (2017), also for Hallmark.
