Jaclyn Smith

The Spelling survivor

Jaclyn Smith wasn't looking to become a symbol of the seventies. She walked into Aaron Spelling's office with a short resume and a classical ballet background that gave her a different bearing from her colleagues. That audition for Charlie's Angels in 1976 abruptly changed her career.

Unlike Farrah Fawcett or Kate Jackson, she stayed on the show for all five full seasons. She weathered cast changes and the scathing reviews from the trade press, which looked down on the show as lightweight. But audiences had the final say.

And the gamble paid off.

Her character, Kelly Garrett, was neither the most explosive nor the most intellectual. She was the balance. Smith understood early on that television of the era demanded a closeness that big-screen films were losing. That's why she turned down supporting roles in movies to focus on a medium that treated her like a true star.

The Business Behind the Mane

In 1985, she made a decision her agents considered professional suicide. She signed a deal with the Kmart discount chain to launch her own line of clothing and accessories. At the time, prestige actors avoided partnerships with discount stores because they diluted an aura of exclusivity.

She sold more than 100 million garments over the following decades under her own name.

That financial move made her one of the wealthiest women in the industry without having to shoot a single minute of footage. But she didn't abandon acting entirely. She specialized in a format that seems forgotten today but was the king of ratings in the eighties: the prestige miniseries.

In 1981, she played the First Lady in Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy and earned a Golden Globe nomination. She worked with discipline on productions such as Rage of Angels in 1983 and The Bourne Identity in 1988. Critics began to see that behind the model's looks was an actress capable of carrying dense, four-hour dramas.

But the market changed overnight with the arrival of the nineties.

Survival and Measured Comebacks

The entertainment industry is often cruel to actresses over fifty. Smith got through that rough patch by diversifying her investments and selecting very specific appearances that appealed to the nostalgia of her original fan base. In 2003, she accepted a brief cameo in the film Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle to pass the torch to a new generation.

She never disowned the role that made her famous.

In 2010, she returned to television with appearances in shows such as Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. She didn't need the money from acting jobs, but she kept her interest in the technical processes on set. Her private life, marked by four marriages and a battle with breast cancer overcome in 2003, kept her away from the usual Hollywood scandals.

In 2019, she returned to the big screen with another brief appearance in the new version of Charlie's Angels, directed by Elizabeth Banks. It was a nod to the brand that still generates revenue today from image rights and syndication on channels around the world.

Her skincare line, launched in 2008 with her husband, surgeon Brad Allen, brings in millions of dollars a year through a direct-sales model. The company is headquartered in California and employs more than 40 full-time staff.