Shelley with Jaclyn Smith and Cheryl Ladd
on the cover of Télé-Junior, March 1981
Shelley became Charlie's newest Angel in 1979, and she jumped from being Revlon Charlie's Supermodel to becoming TV's latest Superstar Angel, joining incumbent Angels Jaclyn Smith and Cheryl Ladd. Cheryl joined the cast of the hit TV series two years earlier, as Farrah Fawcett's fill-in. This time, Shelley was joining the cast as a fill-in for Kate Jackson who left the series early that year. Charlie's Angels was Shelley's very first TV series and her casting made news all over the world. It was a huge deal. "I still have not really recovered from the surprise of landing the part," Shelley said at the time. "It has been quite a whirl," she added. She was instantly propelled to international superstardom; and her face appeared on magazines, tabloids and newspapers all around the world.
Shelley with Jaclyn Smith and Cheryl Ladd
in a promo pic for Charlie's Angels, 1979
Shelley's fondest memory of Charlie's Angels was the first time she met Jaclyn and Cheryl. She said they were both so nice to her. When asked whether she liked being a TV star, Shelley said, "Yes. I've got two parking spaces with my name on them. It's wonderful. Someone on the set asked me if I was scared, but it never even occurred to me. Before joining the cast, I thought the show was very well-produced. Really, it's a wonderful tongue-in-cheek fantasy; three terrific-looking girls running around packing pistols. And it's funny." And Shelley slowly figured out how to go about her newfound Hollywood fame.
Shelley with Jaclyn Smith and Cheryl Ladd
on a Télé-Junior magazine poster, March 1981
But by 1980, Shelley had decided to move on. She signed a one-year contract with the show which had a three-year option; and she opted to leave the show and move on to other things after a year. "I never expected to be there more than a year and I wasn't," Shelley told TV Tales: Charlie's Angels in 2002. "So I did my year and I moved on," she added, "That was just fine. That was plenty for me." And Shelley's fill-in for the next season was Tanya Roberts.
Shelley with Jaclyn Smith, Cheryl Ladd,
Kate Jackson, Farrah Fawcett and Tanya Roberts
on the pages of Télé-Junior, March 1981
Télé-Junior was a youth-oriented magazine that was produced from 1977 to 1983 in France. The French-language mag featured writeups and comic strips adapted from popular superhero characters (like Spider-Man and The Fantastic Four), cartoons (like Scooby-Doo and The Great Grape Ape Show) and Japanese super robot manga (like Mazinger Z and Grendizer). It also featured writeups and comic strips about the popular TV series of the era (like The Six Million Dollar Man, and, yes, Charlie's Angels). In March of 1981, the mag featured Jaclyn Smith, Cheryl Ladd and Shelley Hack on their cover. Inside, it featured a poster and a writeup about them and the series Charlie's Angels. Since the issue came out in March of 1981, the Angels lineup had already changed from Jaclyn/Cheryl/Shelley to Jaclyn/Cheryl/Tanya. So the writeup was headlined as:
Charlie's Angels
Things are shaking up at Charlie's Angels!
The series is just on its 13th episode at the A2 channel
- next Sunday, to be exact - and reports are already coming in
regarding the fate of the current trio Cheryl, Jaclyn and Shelley.
So what's going on?
