How Morgan Fairchild got a surprising career bump from Jerry Falwell

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https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/...011158274.html

Falwell's crusade against "too sexy for TV" Fairchild majorly backfired.

Ryan Coleman
Thu, November 13, 2025 at 5:11 PM PST

The Moral Majority took on the Equal Rights Amendment, gay rights, and reproductive justice — but it was no match for the Sexiest Woman on TV.

PEOPLE bestowed the honorific on Morgan Fairchild in 1981, and the actress recently recalled it never would have happened without the Christian conservative advocacy group taking up arms against her.

In an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live on Tuesday, host Jimmy Kimmel — who has faced his own recent problems with the conservative right — read to Fairchild from her PEOPLE cover: "It says, 'Is She Too Sexy for TV?' What the Moral Majority Is Shouting About."

Kimmel asked Fairchild if the Moral Majority and its crusading leader, televangelist Jerry Falwell, got under her skin with their campaign against her racy breakout role in the NBC soap Flamingo Road.

The long and short of it? "No."



Fairchild explained that "we had shot the cover and shot everything" for her first big magazine cover, before the Moral Majority fracas, "and then Ronald Reagan got shot."

Just a year and a half into his first term as president, the former actor was shot by John Hinckley Jr. outside of D.C.'s Washington Hilton Hotel after giving a speech. Hinckley Jr.'s spray of six bullets hit press secretary James Brady, Secret Service agent Timothy McCarthy, police officer Thomas Delahanty, and the president, all of whom recovered, but not without serious and ongoing injury. The media leapt into overdrive while covering the story, overshadowing Fairchild's rising star.

"Then they didn't know what to do with us," Fairchild continued, "because we were in that interim, you know, where we didn't know if the show was picked up." Enter Jerry Falwell.

"Then Reverend Falwell and [Methodist minister Donald Wildmon] declared me 'too sexy for TV,' and honey, the religious group handed me my cover back."

Kimmel's audience went wild with applause for Fairchild, who noted with a wink to Kimmel, "Censorship is not new."

Flamingo Road earned Fairchild a Golden Globe nomination and transformed her from a working actor to a sought-after star. But it was just the beginning. Her career has since included acclaimed turns on series like Falcon Crest, Cybill, and Friends.

Following Matthew Perry's death in 2023, the actress reflected on her time portraying his character's memorable mother, the libertine erotic novelist Nora Bing.

"Several people said, 'You're too young to play that guy's mother, and you shouldn't do that,' And I said, '[I] gotta make that transition at some point, you know, I might as well. And I think the show has potential," she recalled. After witnessing the ensemble cast's incredible chemistry firsthand, she reflected, "I was right."

Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly

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Yet Flamingo Road only lasted two seasons. It might have had more longevity if NBC introduced it as a daytime soap instead of primetime.