Charlie’s Angels was a tv hit after the debut of its first season in September 1976. Stars Kate Jackson, Jaclyn Smith and Farrah Fawcett grew to become well-known for his or her portrayal of cops turned non-public detectives Sabrina, Kelly and Jill. Fawcett’s star energy was boosted by her famous 1976 swimsuit poster, and, because of this, she obtained extra fan mail and media protection than each of her fellow angels.
Given the present’s success, it was a shock when Fawcett introduced in 1977 that she was quitting. Nonetheless, there have been monetary, artistic and private concerns that compelled her to go away.
READ MORE: The Story Behind Farrah Fawcett’s Iconic 1976 Swimsuit Poster
Cash could have motivated Fawcett’s departure
Fawcett performed a key position in attracting viewers to Charlie’s Angels. According to series producer Aaron Spelling, “Her hair helped make the show. It became one of our signatures.” But she was solely paid $5,000 per episode, half of what co-star Jackson, who was higher recognized previous to the present’s launch, made. And whereas the whole lot from lunchboxes to board video games featured Fawcett’s face, she received just two percent of the merchandising revenue.
Due to the success of the primary season, which ran from 1976-77, Fawcett was in line for a elevate to $10,000 per episode, however, in line with the Washington Post, it was rumored she wished $75,000. When it comes to merchandising, she reportedly requested 10 p.c. Nonetheless, the manufacturing firm found Fawcett wasn’t curious about negotiating. “I would say, ‘Well, Farrah, if we give you eight percent?’ and she would say, ‘Well, no, I don’t know,'” producer Leonard Goldberg recounted to Vanity Fair.
Fawcett stated she wished to make films
Maybe Fawcett did not haggle over her Angels revenue as a result of films appeared to current the chance to earn an even bigger payday. Early in 1977, she’d shared with the Washington Post that she wished to make a “picture with real woman’s emotions,” and co-star Smith has confirmed Fawcett “wanted to do features instead of a series.” As Fawcett had thousands and thousands of followers who watched her on TV and bought her well-known poster, it made sense to suppose the general public would pay to look at her on the large display.
Fawcett and then-husband, Six Million Greenback Man star Lee Majors, created Fawcett-Majors Productions to supply their very own movies. According to Goldberg, Angels producers tried to tempt the actress with a deal to have her star in an upcoming film whereas persevering with to satisfy her Angels duties. Fawcett would even have had the chance to make extra characteristic movies sooner or later. Nonetheless, she did not take this provide.

Farrah Fawcett filming throughout season one in all ‘Charlie’s Angels’
Photograph: Walt Disney Tv through Getty Photographs Photograph Archives/Walt Disney Tv through Getty Photographs
Fawcett was curious about artistic development
Nonetheless, producers could not assure Fawcett’s artistic satisfaction on Charlie’s Angels. “I want them to start showing she’s had some hard knocks, too, and cries, and is sad,” she instructed the Washington Post. “Who’s gonna care about her if all she does is say, ‘Ooo! This week I get to play the hooker?'” However Fawcett understood the restrictions of starring on a program that had been labeled “jiggle TV,” saying at one level, “When the show got to be No. 3, I figured it was our acting. When it got to be No. 1, I decided it could only be because none of us wears a bra.”
Realizing that Charlie’s Angels was by no means going to be a creatively fulfilling endeavor was one other think about Fawcett’s choice to go. “For me to have stayed, I would have been very unhappy and I don’t think I would have done good work. We didn’t have, in my opinion, the greatest writers on that show,” she once stated. “Creatively, I just felt stifled. So, it was time for me to leave.”
Majors inspired Fawcett to stop the present
Along with artistic and enterprise motivations, marital considerations possible performed a task in Fawcett’s decision to quit Charlie’s Angels. Making the present referred to as for lengthy days that would start at 5 within the morning. When not busy with Charlie’s Angels, she nonetheless had commercials to make on the weekend. Fawcett herself admitted, “I was working very hard, I wasn’t pleased with the hours.”
Fawcett reportedly had a clause in her contract that stated she wanted to complete on set in time to go dwelling and make dinner for her husband, in line with People. But starring on two TV exhibits meant the couple had much less time for one another. Majors, who’d advised his wife about her profession from the time she’d first arrived in Hollywood, inspired her to go away Charlie’s Angels to make films. Nonetheless, the wedding did not final – by 1979 the couple had separated and formally divorced three years later.
Fawcett could have wished a break from stardom
Along with lengthy hours, making Charlie’s Angels could possibly be harmful. Whereas on location, Fawcett as soon as had a run-in with a race automobile that left her leg severely bruised. Plus outshining her co-stars had drawbacks. “I felt uncomfortable when all of a sudden I got more attention and fan mail than Jaclyn Smith or Kate Jackson,” she told People in 1981. “I felt them change, not outwardly, but inwardly. We never had any arguments, but I felt a little barrier.”
With legions of followers, Fawcett could not take pleasure in a traditional life when she wasn’t working. She could be surrounded anytime she went out in public and needed to in the reduction of on common actions. And she or he believed she wanted to take steps to adapt to her new life, saying in 1984, “I became successful before I was ready for it or knew what I was doing. The success came before I had done what I thought was a good role. I knew that if I was going to stay in the business I had to change and I wanted to change.”

Fawcett throughout season three of ‘Charlie’s Angels’
Photograph: Walt Disney Tv through Getty Photographs Photograph Archives/Walt Disney Tv through Getty Photographs
A lawsuit was filed in opposition to Fawcett when she stop
Regardless of the explanations behind Fawcett’s choice to go away, she wasn’t capable of merely stroll away from her hit present. The present’s manufacturing firm insisted she was beneath contract, however she instructed Folks that she “began to movie Charlie’s Angels earlier than my contract was labored out.” A $7 million breach of contract swimsuit was filed in opposition to her when she stop.
The dispute was settled with an settlement that Fawcett would visitor star in six extra episodes all through the rest of the sequence, which ran till 1981. Nonetheless, she stated she was blackballed for different initiatives as a result of she’d left the present. “The whole lawsuit almost sank me,” she revealed to People in 1979. “The industry was furious with me and hostile because I was a TV sex symbol who wanted to be an actress. People thought I was really pretentious, and for months no one would touch me.”
‘Charlie’s Angels’ was all the time a part of Fawcett’s life
Fawcett’s profession by no means reached the identical heights after she left Charlie’s Angels. Her first movie post-Angels, Any individual Killed Her Husband (1978), was a failure that grew to become generally known as “Somebody Killed Her Career.” With Fawcett’s departure, actress Cheryl Ladd started showing on Charlie’s Angels because the youthful sister of Fawcett’s character. Fawcett admitted to People, “I was surprised that I was so easy to replace.”
Through the years, Fawcett continued to be recognized with Charlie’s Angels, at the same time as she garnered respect as an actress by showing off-Broadway and incomes an Emmy Award nomination for the TV film The Burning Mattress (1984). But she additionally benefited from the lasting ties the present had created — when Fawcett was identified with anal most cancers, Jackson and Smith (each breast most cancers survivors) gathered to assist their fellow “angel” till her loss of life in 2009.
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