Shelley at a Charlie's Angels
cocktail party, June 1979
Charlie's Angels was a phenomenally successful TV series; and its popularity spanned the entire world. The landmark TV series began with Kate Jackson, Farrah Fawcett and Jaclyn Smith, as the Angels. Cheryl Ladd, Shelley Hack and Tanya Roberts played Angels in later seasons. The series ran from 1976 to 1981; and everything about the six Angels was written about... their family lives, the men they dated, their fashion choices, their beauty secrets, as well as their diet and exercise regimens. In 1981, the Spanish-language magazine TV Semana divulged the diet secrets all the Angels were forced to follow during their Angels days. Don't know if its true or not, but its a fun read. The writeup translates as follows:
By contract, they were required to follow
these never-before-revealed diets.
THE SECRET DIETS REQUIRED OF "THE ANGELS"
The famous series has stopped filming as of this month.
And now the beauty obligation required of the girls is revealed.
It's not easy being an Angel. No one disputes that. Aside from having a great body, having smooth skin, being sexy, slender and beautiful... being a Charlie's Angel requires following a strict diet regimen.
And that's what the six lovely Angels from the TV series did as the seasons progressed. Initially, there was Kate Jackson, Farrah Fawcett, and the ever-faithful Jaclyn Smith. Later, Tanya Roberts and Shelley Hack, succeeded sweet Sabrina (Kate Jackson's character), and Cheryl Ladd replaced early 1980s superstar, Farrah Fawcett. A strict diet regimen was required of them by contract and was key to being cast in the series. The diet wasn't difficult, but it required a consistent amount of willpower. For example, Cheryl was strictly forbidden from eating chocolate. This habit, which stems from her adolescence, gave her a plump figure, quite different from her current one. Jaclyn, on the other hand, claimed her legs were too thin for her liking and was very self-conscious about them. But the series producers thought she was being overly self-critical and told her to just maintain her figure without going to extremes. "When you have to maintain your figure," said Jaclyn, "you have to be very demanding of yourself. You need to be enthusiastic and to never get discouraged."
A writeup about Charlie's six gorgeous Angels
from the Spanish-language mag TV Semana,
April 1981
The rules of the "Charlie's Angels" diet are not difficult to follow. First, you must eat slowly and deliberately, giving your brain time to register the impulses of your ingestion. Second, the diet must be accompanied by regular exercise. Slim Shelley, for example, runs 5 kilometers every day of the week and also jumps rope for 30 minutes a day. Jaclyn, for her part, does ballet daily, which, in addition to burning calories, shapes her figure. The basic foods for following this diet are cooked vegetables, minimal beef, chicken, lamb, and seafood. Surprisingly, fruit salad is allowed in this diet, but without sugar, of course. "The diet should never be radical or rapid," explains the specialist who treats them, "because if you stop for even one day, your metabolism becomes unbalanced again, and you have to start over. You have to create a meal plan - like Scarsdale's, for example - chew well and slowly, drink diet soda, and forget about candy and sugar."
"You have to avoid pills and exercise daily with as much energy as possible. The most important thing in any diet is willpower and perseverance. You have to learn how to eat and know how to eat. After you overcome that stage, you can maintain yourself." Cheryl says that before starting this diet, she couldn't abstain from eating anything at any time. "Once you set a course of action, you get used to it, and seeing the results encourages you more and more." This is how Tanya, Shelley, Cheryl, Jaclyn, and their predecessors became "Charlie's Angels." It's not easy, but it's not difficult either. The best ingredient for a solid diet is perseverance.
the English translation of the picture captions
on the writeup about Charlie's six gorgeous Angels
from the Spanish-language mag TV Semana,
April 1981
The writeup even included the diet Farrah Fawcett was supposedly on at the time. It translates as follows:
Farrah: The Most Demanding, Crazy, and Expensive Diet
Monday
Breakfast: a glass of dry champagne, 6 grapes, and a small apple
Lunch: a salad of avocado, slices of grapes, and a hard-boiled egg
Mid-afternoon: two slices of toast, a sugar-free rosemary jam
Evening: 2 tablespoons of black caviar, 3 small cookies, and a glass of milk
Tuesday
Breakfast: a glass of milk, a ham omelet
Lunch: shrimp with natural yogurt, oysters with lemon, a tomato
Mid-afternoon: a slice of cheesecake, an avocado
Evening: a glass of dry champagne, two celery stalks, a carrot
Wednesday
turtle soup all day
Thursday
Breakfast: orange juice, 2 scrambled eggs, a chocolate bar
Lunch: mineral water, half a shrimp with lemon, an apple
Mid-afternoon: coffee with cream
Evening: a cardoon cutlet, apple puree, 6 cherries
Friday
Milk, yogurt, and jasmine milk all day
Saturday and Sunday
Anything you can think of
