Shelley in a promo pic from the 1980s
Shelley was a very busy actress in the 1980s. After her big break on Charlie's Angels, she immediately tackled stage via the Jack Heifner play Vanities and gained critical praise for her work. Other stage plays soon followed - Elizabeth Diggs's Close Ties and Garson Kanin's Born Yesterday. She got critical praise for her performances in them as well. She also starred in Martin Scorsese's The King of Comedy and Joseph Ruben's The Stepfather; and got glowing reviews for her work in both film features. For her work on the series Cutter to Houston and Jack and Mike, she got mixed reviews but was generally praised for efforts. She ended the decade with another play John Krizanc's Tamara.
a writeup about Shelley from 1990
Shelley appeared in the play Tamara from late-1989 to 1990. Tamara is a play by John Krizanc about the painter Tamara de Lempicka and her historical meeting with Gabriele D'Annunzio at his villa at Gardone Riviera. The play was different because it had no "fourth wall", a theater term that means the imaginary "wall" at the front of the stage through which the audience views the action in the world of the play. So that means audience members could follow any cast member as this play was going on. It was staged at the Il Vittoriale in Los Angeles. Shelley played the character Luisa Baccara, a character "who starts out crazy and gets crazier" according to her. "I love theater. I thought it would be fun, and it is," she added.
Shelley in a promo pic from the 1980s
