Trivia: Willowy brunette actress Kate Jackson spent her early adulthood in summer stock, in training at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, and as a page and tour guide at the NBC studios in Rockefeller Center. Anxious to burst forth with reams of dialogue as a film and TV actress, Jackson found herself in the utterly non-speaking role of a glamorous ghost on the mid-1960s daytime TV serial Dark Shadows. She was allowed to flap her gums a little more often as Jill Danko on TV's The Rookies (1973-76). Full stardom arrived for Jackson when she was cast as Sabrina Duncan, "the smart one" on the prime time jigglefest Charlie's Angels; she remained with this series from 1976 through 1979. Her last regular weekly TV effort was Scarecrow and Mrs. King (1983-1987) in which she played an average housewife who moonlighted as a secret agent. Though Jackson has made sporadic film appearances, it is safe to say that her greater fame rests upon her small-screen work. Jackson received an outpouring of industry sympathy and support when she battled breast cancer in the early 1990s. Kate Jackson has been a prolific and popular TV commercial spokesperson, and narrated Trouble in Mind, a series documenting the effects of mental illness, from 1999 to 2000.

Trivia: After attending Trinity University and the University of San Antonio, brunette Jaclyn Smith flourished as a model and cover girl. Making her first film appearance in 1969, Smith endured such negligible movie projects as The Moonshiners (1974) before achieving stardom as Kelly Garrett, showgirl-turned-PI, on the spectacularly successful TV series Charlie's Angels. She was the only member of the original Angels to remain with the series from its debut in 1976 to its final telecast in 1981. Like her Charlie's Angels cohorts Cheryl Ladd and Farrah Fawcett, Smith went on to a busy career in made-for-TV movies, efficiently playing the title roles in Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy (1982) and Florence Nightingale (1985). In 1989, she returned to the weekly-TV grind as star of the mystery series Christine Cromwell. That same year, a random sampling of Hollywood insiders (technicians, grips, "gofers", etc.) voted Smith as one of the nicest and most cooperative actresses in the business (parenthetically, her Charlie's Angels co-star Kate Jackson was elected one of the least likeable performers in Tinseltown). Jaclyn Smith was previously married to actors Roger Davis and Dennis Cole, and cinematographer Tony Richmond. Her fourth marriage was to Dr. Bradley Allen in 1998.

Trivia: Actress/singer Cheryl Jean Stopelmoor billed herself as Cherie Moore when she performed as a backup singer on the 1970 Hanna-Barbera animated TVer Josie and the Pussycats. She reverted to her given name when appearing as a regular on the prime-time programs The Ken Berry WOW Show and Search (both 1972), and in various TV guest assignments. Stopelmoor was occasionally written up in fan and industry magazines of the period, more because of her unusual name than her acting skills (often, her last name was longer than the parts she played). Stopelmoor finally became a star when she adopted her married name of Ladd (her husband of many years was actor David Ladd, son of film luminary Alan Ladd) and replaced Farrah Fawcett on the highly-rated ABC "jiggle" show Charlie's Angels. She played blonde angel Kris Munroe from 1977 through 1981, then concentrated on made-for-TV films, wherein she was permitted plenty of creative input. Ladd's TV movies found her cast as both victim (A Death in California) and victimizer (When She Was Bad); arguably her best outing was the title role in the 1983 TV biopic Grace Kelly. She has since returned to series TV from time to time, playing Liane DeViller on Crossing (1986) and Holli Holliday on the syndicated Baywatch wannabe One West Waikiki (1994). Tirelessly active in civic and charitable endeavors, Cheryl Ladd was at one time Goodwill ambassador to Childhelp USA.

Trivia: Philadelphia-born James Darren came to Hollywood armed with far more impressive credentials than most teen idols, notably several years' training with Stella Adler. Signed to a Columbia Pictures contract in 1956, Darren was developed into a popular leading man-and, briefly, a recording artist. Columbia required him to show up in everything from 1958's Gidget to a 1965 episode of TV's The Flintstones (as "Jimmy Darrock"). In 1966, Darren was cast as Dr. Tony Newman on the Irwin Allen sci-fi TVer Time Tunnel, wherein he was given the unenviable task of reacting in alarm to miles and miles of 20th Century-Fox stock footage. After Time Tunnel folded in 1967, Darren's career was one of a few peaks and several valleys. Though he'd never really been away, Darren made what was labelled a comeback in 1982 in the solid supporting role of Officer Jim Corrigan on the weekly William Shatner TV vehicle T.J. Hooker. Since that time, James Darren has received a number of plum guest-star assignments on various TV dramatic and comedy programs, and has directed individual installments of such programs as Police Story.

Trivia: Burly character actor Ramon Bieri made his first professional stage appearance in 1954. A film performer from 1970, Bieri has often shown up as rednecks and rabblerousers. One of his best-remembered screen assignments was also one of his smallest: as the strong-arm police captain in Warren Beatty's Reds, Bieri responded to Beatty's explanatory "I write" by growling "No...you wrong!" A more affable Bieri was seen as Babe Ruth in the 1977 TV movie A Love Affair: The Eleanor and Lou Gehrig Story. Ramon Bieri's many TV-series credits include the starring role of Detroit blue-collar worker Joe Wabash in Joe's World (1979-1980).

Trivia: In 1959, American actor Charles Tyner appeared on Broadway with film star Paul Newman in Sweet Bird of Youth. Duly impressed by Tyner's work, Newman brought his theatrical coworker to Hollywood eight years later to play Boss Higgins, the sadistic prison camp guard in Cool Hand Luke (1967). It was the first of many such roles for Tyner, who spent the next several years playing a variety of tight-lipped, vicious rural authority figures. One of his better roles in this vein was as Unger, the vengeful football playing "screw" in the Burt Reynolds prison comedy The Longest Yard (1974). Less brutal but no less inimitable was Tyner's interpretation of Uncle Victor in the 1971 cult classic Harold and Maude. Charles Tyner went back to the stage in 1977, occasionally stepping before the cameras for such TV movies as The Incredible Journey of Dr. Meg Laurel (1979), theatrical features like Hamburger: The Motion Picture (1985) and Planes, Trains and Automobiles (1991), and his recurring role as Howard Rodman on the weekly television drama Father Murphy (1981).

Trivia: American actor Read Morgan chose his profession after two years at the University of Kentucky, where he starred on the basketball court. In 1950, Morgan went on a regular dietary and exercise regimen that earned him quite a few photo spreads in major American magazines like TV Guide. Thanks to his physique, Morgan was cast as an athletic mountaineer in the Broadway play Li'l Abner, which led to TV work in a similar vein: he played a wrestler on US Steel Hour, a ballplayer on Twilight Zone, a skindiver on Adventures in Paradise and a boxer on Steve Canyon. Thus it was that Morgan was more than prepared for the strenuous requirements of his role as cavalry sergeant Tasker on the Henry Fonda TV-western vehicle The Deputy (1960). Following the cancellation of this series, Read Morgan found himself on call for innumerable rugged character roles, usually as sheriffs, detectives or highway patrolmen. Among his many film credits were Fort Utah (1967), Easy Come, Easy Go (1968), Marlowe (1969), Dillinger (1971), The New Centurions (1972), Shanks (1967), and the made-for-TV movies Return of the Gunfighter (1967), Helter Skelter (1976), The Billion Dollar Threat (1979), Power (1980) and A Year in the Life (1986).

Trivia: American actress Farrah Fawcett was an art student at the University of Texas before she deduced that she could make more money posing for pictures than painting them. A supermodel before that phrase had fallen into common usage, Fawcett moved from Wella Balsam shampoo ads into acting, making her first film Myra Breckenridge in 1970. She worked in TV bits and full supporting parts, obtaining steady employment in 1974 with a small recurring role on the cop series Harry O, but true stardom was still some two years down the road. In 1976, producer Aaron Spelling cast Fawcett, Kate Jackson and Jaclyn Smith in a pilot for an adventure series titled Charlie's Angels. The pilot graduated to a series, and the rest was TV history; during her Charlie's Angels tenure Fawcett was the most visible of the three actresses, adorning magazine covers and pin-up posters (including one particularly iconic image), which set sales records. There were even Farrah Fawcett dolls before the first season of Charlie's Angels was over.Now in the hands of high-profile agents and advisors, Fawcett (billed Farrah Fawcett-Majors after her marriage to Lee Majors) decided she'd outgrown Angels and left the series, even though she had another year on her contract. While the studio drew up legal papers to block her move, she was replaced by Cheryl Ladd. Fawcett settled her dispute by agreeing to a set number of guest appearances on the program. Some industry cynics suggested that Fawcett would have problems sustaining her popularity. Certainly such lukewarm film projects as Sunburn (1979), Somebody Killed Her Husband (1978) and Saturn 3 (1980) seemed to bear this theory out. But Fawcett took matters into her own hands and decided to make her own opportunities--and like many other performers who strive to be taken seriously, she chose the most extreme, demanding method of proving her acting mettle. Playing a vengeful rape victim in both the play and 1986 film version of Extremities (an apt title) and making a meal of her role as a battered wife who murders her husband out of self-defense in the TV movie The Burning Bed (1984), Fawcett confounded her detractors and demonstrated she was a more-than-capable actress. Other TV movie appearances of varying quality cast her as everything from a child killer to a Nazi hunter to famed LIFE photographer Margaret Bourke-White. Never as big a name as she was in 1976, Fawcett nonetheless affirmed her reputation as an actress of importance. Her fans were even willing to forgive her misbegotten fling at situation comedy in the 1991 series Good Sports, in which she co-starred with her longtime "significant other" Ryan O'Neal. Fawcett died in 2009 at age 62, following a lengthy and well-publicized battle with cancer.

Trivia: A professional model since her teens, Shelley Hack made her film bow in Woody Allen's Annie Hall (1977). She's the blonde passerby on the street who confesses to Woody that she's too shallow to understand what he's saying. We heard (and saw) a lot more from Hack when, in 1979, she replaced Kate Jackson on the long-running TV jigglefest Charlie's Angels. Shelley played Tiffany Welles for a single season, until she herself was replaced by Tanya Roberts. Shelley Hack survived on screen a lot longer than many people would have predicted back in 1980, co-starring in the TV weeklies Cutter to Houston (1983) and Jack and Mike (1986-87), and delivering an excellent performance in Martin Scorcese's controversial theatrical film King of Comedy (1982).

Trivia: After experience as a model and off-Broadway actress, curvaceous Tanya Roberts began appearing in film roles that relied almost exclusively on his physical attributes. In 1979's Tourist Trap, for example, the camera took a near-fetishist interest in her long and well-toned legs. Even in her big-budget movie appearances, her acting was not her strong suit, nor was it expected to be, especially in such escapist fare as Beastmaster (1982) and Sheena, Queen of the Jungle (1984). In 1980, Roberts was hired to play streetwise Julie Rogers, the last of a long line of replacement actresses in TV's Charlie's Angels (she was replacing the recently departed Shelley Hack). After her single Angels season, Roberts went back to movies, primarily horror films and high-class, soft-focus erotica. Tanya Roberts exhibited an engaging flair for self-parody as luscious secretary Velda in the made-for-TV Mike Hammer: Murder Me, Murder You (1983); but when time came to develop the film into a series, Roberts had other commitments, and was replaced by Lindsay Bloom.