'Charlie's Angels' Alight at PaleyFest 50 Years Later
My experience at the once-in-a-lifetime cast reunion of a show that *was* my 1970s
April 15, 2026
Fifty years ago was the birth of one of my very first pop cultural obsessions: Farrah Fawcett.
I was a little gay boy, already enthralled by reruns of Gilligan’s Island (mostly for Tina Louise), Bewitched (for Elizabeth Montgomery) and I Dream of Jeannie (for Barbara Eden). But Farrah was something fresh — she was of the ‘70s, not a throwback to the ‘60s. She was an icon-in-the-making who I could worship in real time.
Fueling the frenzy was my older cousin Cathy’s own interest in the show. Cathy was a tough jock, but also had a kind of glamour of the era — blonde hair, a penchant for sunbathing with a reflective mirror and actual Crisco, and the ability to skateboard and roller skate. And Cathy took to Farrah immediately. After the debut episode of Charlie’s Angels in 1976, Cathy’s hair was forever feathered.
We would watch the episodes and then meet up to pop-quiz each other on what had gone down. I was basically pretending to be a teenager five years early, and let’s not forget how racy the show was. I was 7 years old and watching storylines about women in prison (complete with a leering lesbian guard), money-laundering and murders in discotheques.
And along with Farrah, I was intoxicated by Jaclyn Smith’s smoldering brand of pretty and Kate Jackson’s no-nonsense, brainy beauty.
Still, there is always a fave, so I bought that Farrah poster with the prominent nipples and hung it on my wall, and I went to Bueche’s and bought all the Modern Screen and Rona Barrett rags in order to plaster the insides of my closet (how appropriate) with Farrah pinups.
When Farrah left Charlie’s Angels after one single season — I know, impossible to believe her run was so brief! — I promptly embraced her character’s peppy younger sister, played by Cheryl Ladd.
Weirdly, I vividly remember deciding I needed to grow out of my Farrah phase, tearing up all the posters and pinups. I save everything, so this was wildly out of character.
Charlie’s Angels continued on, and I devoured every episode. I remember when Kelly (Jaclyn; who was the first star I ever wrote to for an autograph) got shot in the head by a kid (she lived), I remember Kris’s (Cheryl Ladd) introduction via bikini and Jill’s (Farrah) occasional returns as a guest star, and I remember Sabrina’s Will Rogers-esque proclamations. Then there was the time when Kelly was flown upside in a by-plane in a murder attempt (she lived, again), and the time when Kris crashed a nude beach.
Actually, an image of Cheryl Ladd, nude save for a palm frond, decorated my most coveted Charlie’s Angels trading card. It was one I did not have — but Cathy did. I was so beside myself trying to get one, she actually gave it to me for Easter! “Happy Easter Matt” she wrote on it, effectively ruining it as a collector’s item, but definitely not ruining it for me.
In 2019, so many decades after Charlie’s Angels ended — after a painful season with Shelley Hack and a decent send-off with Tanya Roberts — Cheryl Ladd appeared at Chiller Theatre in New Jersey, an autograph show. I trekked out and met her, showing her the card Cathy — who had since died — had gifted me. Cheryl got choked up and signed it (among other things), even posing in the classic Angels way with me.
Though I was also lucky enough to meet Tanya before her death, that encounter with Cheryl was the most nostalgic thing I did regarding my dormant Angels obsession until this past week, when I journeyed to L.A. for the PaleyFest Charlie’s Angels reunion in honor of the show’s 50th anniversary.
The event turned out to be a wonderful, warm celebration. Held at the Dolby at Hollywood & Highland, the show opened with local TV host George Pennacchio introducing Kate, Jaclyn and Cheryl (nobody knows if Shelley, the only other surviving cast member, was invited). The three walked out onstage together for the first time since, I believe, the ‘90s, projecting a comforting sense of unity.
In my opinion, the ladies look beautiful in their 70s and (in Jaclyn’s case) early 80s, but a lot of people who do not own mirrors certainly came out of the woodwork to publicly criticize them for looking old, plastic … different.
It’s like people forget their manners when fame is in the mix.
Pennacchio was an okay moderator, but he was a bit tentative in his questioning for my taste and allowed some major oversights — no guns-drawn pose was requested, no questions about famous guest stars and he never asked them about the rumors that some of them didn’t get along.
Kate’s Career Package Was Highlighted by Scenes from Making Love:
On the plus side, the program included generous clips (including some that individually honored Tanya, Shelley, David Doyle and Farrah), scenes from throughout the series, a package of each of the women’s non-Angels career, the women speaking at length about John Forsythe, humorous reminiscences of Kate playing protector (“She didn’t want our lunches interrupted, I can tell you that!” Jaclyn exclaimed) and wry commentaries about the show’s feminism, the network’s lack of faith in it and the absence of major royalties.
One stirring moment was when Cheryl revealed she has recently defeated “aggressive” breast cancer, meaning all three of them had battled the disease. (Plus, as we know, Farrah died of anal cancer.) It’s ironic that the women of “jiggle TV” all had this common, yet life-changing, challenge, and it felt like it bonded them to talk about it. Cheryl quipped that the good thing about breasts is “you get two,” while Kate emphasized early detection.
Cheryl went a bit Evangelical (“I just have a thing for Jesus!”), Kate was hysterically blunt (she all but rolled her eyes when asked if watching her career retrospective package meant anything to her) and Jaclyn played diplomat and often took the lead in steering the storytelling.
It was over all too soon, but I thought a lot about Cousin Cathy while communing with fellow fans.
Did I get to meet them? No. My site Boyculture.com gets me lots of access, but it’s not exactly a major outlet. So, I happily absorbed the heavenly vibes and left hearing the show’s memorably twinkling, scene-ending theme trilling in my head.⚡️
My celebrity interactions have been much more limited, but my pop culture fascination and timeline aligns with yours more often than not. I too had the Farrah poster, and a Cheryl poster (blouse blowing open suggestively), and also was decidedly a gay kid. But in truth, for me Charlie's Angels was all about Sabrina/Kate. Both her character and her acting. And once she was gone, the bloom was off the rose for me (though I feel sure I watched it til the end).
Is George going to interview them in NY? If so, it won't be worth $2,000. He's terrible.