"The Unknown Angel" Shelley Hack Recalls How She Became One of 'Charlie's Angels'

[Brian Damage]

A white Rolls-Royce driven by a beige-clad blonde pulls up to a swanky restaurant. She turns heads as she strides in, while cabaret great Bobby Short sings, "Kind of young, kind of now." Everyone in the restaurant wants to know: "Who's that girl?"

After this 1976 TV commercial for the fragrance Charlie aired, the rest of the world did, too.

The spot launched the career of model-actress Shelley Hack, who went on to become one of "Charlie's Angels" and took direction from Martin Scorsese in "The King of Comedy." Hack is scheduled to appear at the Super Mega Show in Fairfield on July 9-11.

She recalls that she wasn't initially aware of the Charlie commercial's sudden success.

"This became the best-selling fragrance in the world within, like, two weeks," Hack says.

"But I had no way of knowing that; I just did the commercial and went home. I'd graduated from college and was modeling in the summer. Luckily enough, I was successful at it. I guess I had the right look for the time."

According to Hack, Revlon then commissioned a survey to determine why her commercial had caused such a sensation.

"They found out that, for one thing, it was the time," Hack says.

"This was the beginning of women starting to become more independent. In the commercial, I pull up in a car and very confidently walk into a restaurant by myself. In those days, women didn't walk into restaurants by themselves. So the response was, 'This woman looks so confident. If she can do it, I can do it.' It hit the time exactly right.

"The other thing was that I was attractive, but not so attractive that girls would hate me. And also not so attractive that guys wouldn't think I was approachable. That had a lot to do with it.

"So it was playing on the subconscious, playing on women's independence and liberation, if you want to use that word."

Hack joined the cast of "Charlie's Angels" for the action series' fourth season (1979-80).

"They'd gone on this big 'Angel' hunt," she recalls. "I think they wanted a redhead, because they already had a blonde and a brunette with Cheryl (Ladd) and Jaclyn (Smith). They asked me to test. I was, like, No. 85 of the girls they tested that day. At the end, the director had me come up and he talked with me on camera. As we were talking, I said, 'Wait a minute! This is a personality test! A Hollywood personality test like they did in the '40s.' He said yes, it was. I said, 'Too bad I left my personality home!' "

Hack -- who wasn't living in Los Angeles at the time -- was staying at the Chateau Marmont.


She recalls: "I was in the bathroom and I dropped one of my contact lenses on the floor. It was a wet, white-tile floor. I was on my hands and knees looking for this lens, and the phone rang. It was my agent, saying, (producer) 'Aaron Spelling wants to see you!' Me, with my wet hair and one lens. I said, 'When?' He said, 'Now!'

"I found the lens. I quickly ran to my car, which was this old rattletrap Mustang I'd found. Fortunately, it was a convertible, so my hair kind of dried on the way.

"(At the meeting) Aaron Spelling said, 'Well, you're the new Angel.' I was sitting there, thinking, 'I hope my hair is dry next time.' "

After Hack left acting in the late '90s, she entered a new field as a media consultant for pre- and post-conflict countries.

She explains that with autocratic governments, the population is often fed state television, which delivers biased content. Among Hack's duties was to help spread independent media such as newspapers, radio and television; Hack worked in the television sector.

"I did it for 10 years," she says.

"I traveled all over the world. It was not a cause; it was a business, but a very satisfactory business. It's pretty hard, if you've never been a democracy before. It's learned and earned.

"When I did the first televised debate in Bosnia, the candidates looked at me, like, 'Why should we debate?' "

Hack recalls that no one even knew what kind of questions should be asked, so she solicited questions via a call-in radio show.

"It's a huge, huge thing to do in a post-war country," Hack says. "But if you move forward and enable people, people get it."

http://www.nj.com/entertainment/inde...interview.html

[catlover79]

Great story - thanks for posting it!!! I've always felt that Shelley Hack got a bum rap on Charlie's Angels. Tiffany was actually one of my favorites!! God bless her and I wish her nothing but the best in her future endeavors!!

[Fallon97]

Thanks so much for posting, Brian. I really enjoyed it.

I like Tiffany/Shelley as well.

[angiefan]

I like her,too.She's also very pretty. She was in the movie with Jack Wagner called Frequent Flyer,playing one of his wives,He has 3,1 from Dallas,1 from Hawaii and 1 from Atlanta.,what a Bigot!

[catlover79]

Originally Posted by angiefan

I like her,too.She's also very pretty. She was in the movie with Jack Wagner called Frequent Flyer,playing one of his wives,He has 3,1 from Dallas,1 from Hawaii and 1 from Atlanta.,what a Bigot!

I saw that movie. It was awesome!!!!

[TMC]

Originally Posted by catlover79

Great story - thanks for posting it!!! I've always felt that Shelley Hack got a bum rap on Charlie's Angels. Tiffany was actually one of my favorites!! God bless her and I wish her nothing but the best in her future endeavors!!

Here are some likely reasons for why she didn't fly at the time:

--She replaced Kate Jackson, the best actress on the show, whose character was a strong-willed, "natural leader" type. Shelley, in contrast, was the weakest of the actresses (but she did improve, as you may see). She often had small roles in the episodes. Audiences probably didn't really know what to make of her, but they did know that the leader of the pack was gone and missed.

--The show was going downhill in quality and getting increasingly repetitive. I think both the producers and the viewers scapegoated Shelley for this. One would have to think, though, that if the public had embraced Shelley to the point where ratings stayed constant or even went up, they would have kept her.

--Shelley really wasn't that different from Jaclyn and Cheryl (Shelley looked too similar to Cheryl Ladd), and the show suffered for the lack of variety. All 3 could pass as sisters, if not cousins. They were all rather mellow, too.

[Kasey]

I think when Tiffany displayed attitude (like when standing up to Freddie the Pimp in "Angels on the Street" or Joanna Pettet's character in "Nips and Tucks") she came across as a better character (and replacement for Sabrina) than when she was, as you said, more mellow. The show needed a strong, assertive Angel, which of course Kelly most definitely wasn't. They tried to make Kris the leader but she wasn't convincing either.

I always thought that had Jamie Lee Curtis been about 10 years older, she would have been great to replace Sabrina because she had that edge to her persona and could have pulled off playing a short-fused, no-nonsense Angel very well.

[scrapple]

I was surprised at how good she was in her small role in "The King Of Comedy"...and up against Robert DeNiro, no less!