closeup of Shelley from a promo pic, 1980
Shelley became a bona fide Hollywood superstar in 1979. She was already famous for being THE Charlie Girl when she joined the series, but her fame jumped exponentially when she was cast as Tiffany Welles in Charlie's Angels that year. She had been modeling for many years and, by 1979, had reached the pinnacle of success in her profession. She was one of the highest-paid Supermodels of the era and was one of the first to negotiate previously unheard of lucrative and exclusive deals with giant cosmetics companies. But with Charlie's Angels, she entered a totally different space. As one writer put it, she entered into "rock star space." Charlie's Angels was a huge mega-hit all over the world and every Angel that joined the show was plunged into a fishbowl, where everything they said, did, went, wore or even ate was under the scrutiny of the public eye. But Shelley was determined to keep her private life private and seemed a bit overwhelmed by the amount of attention she got when she became Angel no. 5. "I was totally unprepared for the press "bonanza" that followed," she said in 2000. "I had press people crawling in my windows," she told E! in 2002.
Shelley in a a promo pic, 1980
