Catching up with Jaclyn Smith, Houston’s very own ‘Angel’
“Charlie’s Angels” is getting a reboot. There’s no script, no cast and no timetable, but there apparently is a director: Elizabeth Banks, who directed the successful “Pitch Perfect” series.
One “Angel,” Houston native Jaclyn Smith, who played Kelly Garrett for all five seasons of the TV show’s original run, is excited about the prospect.
While she had no other knowledge of what’s to come for the concept that inspired a TV series and two movies, she talked about her years on the show as an opportunity to empower women.
Pop-culture followers may say that the show launched the term “jiggle TV” when it began in 1976, but Smith said that all three of the show’s characters were so much more than that.
They were feminists, in fact, even if they occasionally fought crime wearing bikinis and evening gowns.
“We wanted to inspire women to be emotionally and financially independent,” Smith, now 70, said in a phone interview. “Of our show, you could say there were pretty girls in pretty clothes, but it was really about the bond between the girls and what they could accomplish.”
The show’s opening credits explain that although the characters — Kelly Garrett (Smith), Jill Munroe (played by the
late Farrah Fawcett) and Sabrina Duncan (Kate Jackson) — have graduated from police academy, LAPD saw fit to place them in jobs as a crossing guard, office worker and meter maid, respectively.
They walked away from those boring jobs and into the exciting world of the Townsend Agency as private investigators solving all kinds of crimes.
It was a top 10 show in the Nielsen ratings in its first two seasons. And though it was canceled after five seasons, it continued to have a following, including film remakes starring Drew Barrymore, Cameron Diaz and Lucy Liu.
Smith, who graduated from Lamar High School and later Trinity University in San Antonio, went to New York to study ballet. Her plan was to return to Houston, open a dance school and live down the street from her parents, Margaret and Jack Smith.
But Smith — who has made “best dressed” and “most beautiful” lists all of her life — kept getting approached by people asking if she was an actress. Some offered to be her manager or her agent. They wanted her to sign studio contracts.
She signed on and was instantly booked for commercials — including a stint as a “Breck Girl.”
Her quick success didn’t spoil her. In fact, it emboldened her to do what she wanted.
Her “Angels” fame brought more work. She did commercials for Wella Balsam shampoo, and she was under contract with Max Factor cosmetics when she was first approached by Kmart about a clothing line.
Her managers advised against it.
“I wasn’t thinking of branding, but design and creativity,” Smith said, noting that no one even used the term “branding” in the mid-1980s when she introduced her line. She was a pioneer.
“I took a meeting and couldn’t believe what I saw,” she said. “It was a line called Hunter’s Glen, reminiscent of Ralph Lauren, and I could be involved. I wanted to do it, and I did — and here we are 35 years later. It’s pretty exciting.”
Since then, she’s added home furnishings to her line and launched a wig collection, Style by Jaclyn Smith for Paula Young Wigs, with her longtime friend and hairstylist José Eber. She makes skin care products and a fabric line, too.
“People asked why I was doing it. And now there’s a brand mania — everybody’s doing it,” she said. “It was hard work. I traveled once a month all over the U.S. to meet customers. I didn’t just lend my name, I was really involved.”
Soon she’ll open a Jaclyn Smith brand store in Chicago, with her products all under one roof.
She’d be there now, except that she’s about to become a grandmother and she wants to stay close to home in case she’s needed.
“It’s my first grandchild, and it’s a little girl. I’m so excited,” Smith said. “My mother was the best grandparent; I’m going to love every minute of it.”
Since 1997, Smith has been married to Dr. Brad Allen, whom she met while he was a heart surgeon at Memorial Hermann Hospital in Houston. He had operated on her father and when she needed to leave the hospital, her mother played matchmaker, asking Allen to walk her daughter to her car.
Smith’s parents have both died, and she said that coming back to Houston is bittersweet. “Every corner is a memory. Just saying ‘Houston’ brings tears,” she said.
She remembers growing up in a sophisticated city that felt like a small town — she describes it “as living in an enchanted forest” — where she could ride her bike down the sidewalks in her neighborhood.
She grew up eating trays of watermelon at Bluebonnet Gardens, and as an adult, she loved eating burgers at Cliff ’s, Tex-Mex at Sylvia’s Enchilada Kitchen and Italian food at DaMarco.
“There are so many great things that I miss, but Houston lives in my heart,” she said.