Although Kate as Sabrina was an amazing beauty in her own right, she was overshadowed by her gorgeous co-stars Farrah Fawcett, Jaclyn Smith, and then Cheryl Ladd during her three-year run on the show. Sabrina was the leader of the Angels, the intelligent and brainy one who oftentimes solved the crimes.
Unlike the other Angels, Kate refused to wear a skimpy bikini, go braless or show off her body on America's favorite jiggle show of the 1970s.
As a “Charlie's Angels” crew member told Time magazine in 1976, “She's got to be clever to make an impact on the screen. All Farrah has to do is smile. Jackie can just walk by in a bikini. Kate has to get to the audience by strength of personality – a much harder role.”
The only Angel with any real acting experience at the time, Kate had originally been promised a lead role in her own series after starring in a breakout role in “The Rookies” earlier in the decade. She willingly accepted a lesser role for "Charlie's Angels."
“I'd rather share the glory of a hit than star by myself in a flop,” she later said.
Kate was a huge creative force for “Charlie's Angels.” The show was originally called “The Alley Cats” until Kate suggested the girls be called angels instead of alley cats. She also recommended that the identity of their boss remain a mystery. He was originally named Harry, but because another series, “Harry O.” was airing at the time, he was renamed Charlie.
No. 27
Classic TV Beauties 1970s Countdown
KATE JACKSON as Sabrina Duncan in "Charlie's Angels"
“Charlie's Angels” became an immediate hit and made Farrah a superstar. Yet Kate, who was paid double the salary of the other Angels, said she never felt that she was competing with her co-stars.
“I wasn't competing with Farrah, Jackie or anyone else. Just myself” she said in 1977. “I think my looks are just fine. There's a twinkle in my eyes I'm most pleased about.”
As the hype exploded for “Charlie's Angels” – the show drew 18,000 pieces of fan mail each week -- Kate felt suffocated by all of the attention.
“People were constantly milling around my house. I'd be sitting in my living room and flashbulbs would start to go off outside.”
“I remember being blown away by all the attention,” Kate said years later. “I don't have a perspective on it. On the outside, people were talking about T and A. On the inside, we were working.”
Kate called the show “so light it would take a week to get to the floor if you dropped it from the ceiling” and it was reported that she was difficult to work with. She left “Charlie's Angels” after the third season.
“I guess I did cause a few problems,” she admitted to People magazine in 1979. W'hat it comes down to is I got tired of them and they got tired of me. I'm glad I've finally been able to hang up the halo.”
A native of Birmingham, Alabama, Kate grew up in an upper-middle class family and she attended private schools. She recalled practicing signing her autograph, believing that one day she would become famous.
Kate said she knew she wanted to be an actress when she saw Grace Kelly in “Rear Window.” She told her parents after she graduated that she was moving to New York and then California to become an actress.
“They didn't have any objections,” she told the Chicago Tribune in 1975. “Perhaps because I had originally wanted to leave home when I was 15, but they wouldn't let me do that.”
“I never made a conscious decision to be an actress,” she said in a McCall's magazine article in 1978. “But I knew I wasn't just going to stay in Alabama, go to college, get married and have family. I just knew that.”
She attended the University of Mississippi but during her sophomore year she returned home and enrolled at Birmingham Southern College to take theater courses.
That summer she became an apprentice in summer-stock theater in Vermont.
“I chose the theater that would take me farthest from home. I guess subconsciously I was
really making a break.”
Next, she moved to New York and studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. To make ends meet she worked as an NBC page at Rockefeller Center and modeled. “I couldn't type of take shorthand so I modeled bridal gowns on Seventh Avenue,” she joked.
Kate's first career break came when she landed the role of a ghost in the daytime soap “Dark Shadows.” She played Daphne Harridge, appearing in 70 episodes (1970-71).
“I made my mark on 'Dark Shadows,'” she said. “One day I was doing my lines perfectly from Act 3. Everyone else was doing Act 2.”
After her stint in “Dark Shadows,” Kate bought a car and drove to California alone. She appeared in two TV movies, then landed the role of Jill Danko in “The Rookies” in 1972. The show centered around a group of rookie police officers in southern California. Playing a nurse/police officer, Kate became a star of the series during its 94-episode run.
“There'd be this little boy on the cot and I'd pat his hand and say, 'You're going to be all right. Then I'd turn my head and sob, 'Get a priest.'”
After “Charlie's Angels,” Kate, like her co-stars, starred in numerous made for TV movies. She returned to a weekly series in 1983, playing Amanda King in “Scarecrow and Mrs. King.” Nominated for a Golden Globe in 1985, Kate starred in 89 episodes.
