Television: Farewell to a Phenomenon

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After 109 episodes, Charlie's Angels are folding their wings

Let Our Angel Live is the title of this doomed show. Jaclyn Smith is pursuing a villain who has robbed a client of $200,000, but when she tries to question him, he shoots her. Right in the head. Screams. A smear of blood beside the right ear. So they rush her to the hospital, and there, as one of the studio memos puts it, "the other Angels and Bosley reminist [sic] about their experiences."

There was the time, for instance, when Jaclyn was shot full of heroin and did not even know it, the time the three beautiful detectives all went killer-hunting on the ski slopes at Vail — all those wildly implausible climaxes that framed the weekly beauty pageant, shoot-'em-up farce and national phenomenon known as Charlie's Angels. "And we're going to decide right now," says Bosley (David Doyle), the den father who romps but never flirts with the Angels, "that it has all been worth it. Every damn minute."

But can Jaclyn be saved? As the doctors go to work, Bosley and the other two Angels retire to the hospital chapel, where a closeup shows a tearful Cheryl Ladd whispering, "Oh, please, God, please." Enter, after a commercial break, a doctor announcing Jaclyn's miraculous recovery: "It was the damnedest thing."

No such miracle came to save Charlie's Angels, for that installment, to be shown June 24, is the 109th and last. At its height, the show was consistently among the top five, ogled by an estimated 36 million people. Its first heroine, Farrah Fawcett, previously known primarily as a model for Ultra-Brite toothpaste and Wella Balsam shampoo, became almost overnight the biggest star in the business. Her poster image adorned thousands of dormitory walls, and thousands of gum-chewing adolescents imitated her long, layered hairdo. But celebrity was an ordeal. Armed guards had to be hired to keep the clutching fans at bay. But at fees of up to $30,000 per week, the Angels got rich. Producers Aaron Spelling and Leonard Goldberg got even richer, and so did the merchandisers who hawked the cornucopia of pop junk: 4 million Angel dolls, 3 million lunch pails, etc. "It was a milestone," says Doyle. "There won't be another one like it—which opens the way for a lot of people to say, 'Thank God.' "

As with many epochal ideas, nobody seems to remember exactly where Charlie's Angels came from. Perhaps somewhere deep in the tribal memories and seaside fantasies of Southern California. It was Goldberg who suggested, in the summer of 1974, some kind of adventure series featuring female detectives. In the first brainstorming sessions, the heroines were apparently very fierce, all leather jackets and karate chops.

Kate Jackson, then working in another Spelling-Goldberg series, The Rookies, claims credit for some key changes. Says she: "I was pacing the floor in Aaron's office, saying 'O.K., suppose these three girls work for this detective named ... Harry.' And then I saw the intercom on Aaron's desk, and I said, 'Suppose you never see Harry. He always calls them on that squawk box. And suppose instead of tough—mmm ...' And then I saw a picture on the wall of three angels. 'Suppose they're, like, Harry's angels.' "