A reprint of an Australian TV Week article from 3 December 1977.
DARK-EYED beauty Jaclyn Smith of Charlie’s Angels has proved she really is an angel with a bitter attack on Hollywood’s per-
missive lifestyle.
The 28-year-old actress, who plays a liberated, sexy super-sleuth on the top-rated show, says she’s nothing like her image in real-life. She is, she insists, just an old-fashioned girl who is horrified by the movie capital’s boozing and drug-taking party scene.
“I don’t want to sound like a saint heading for church every Sunday, but I do have my own values,” Jaclyn said.
“I’m shocked when girls talk about their one-night stands. I just don’t understand how they can meet somebody and then . . . boom the next minute.”
Jaclyn, who has been divorced and is currently going steady with actor Dennis Cole said she found Hollywood life upsetting and offensive. “It would be impossible for me to relate to the casualness of most girls here who are off with a different man each
night,” she said.
“In a million years I wouldn’t want that for myself. I know it is accepted and this is the way it is. I’m not saying it is wrong, but it is just not the ideal lifestyle for me.
“I went to one discotheque and saw people openly passing envelopes containing drugs to each other. I would never go back to a discotheque again. It was a dreadful place. I’ve never tried pot. I have no desire for it, or hard liquor. I’ve had a little wine every now and again but I’d rather have ginger ale.”
Jaclyn grew up in a religious home in Houston, Texas, in a “Sunday school atmosphere”, Her grandfather was Methodist minister Gaston Hartsfield, and she used to help him recite long passages from the Bible when his eyesight started failing.
She said: “My parents are still my best friends. They instil in me a sense of conscience. Their life is how I would like my life to be. So I have never needed to rebel or go against my parents or their values.
“I was late in learning things in life — my husband was the first man in my life — but that’s not so wrong and I’m not going to apologise-for it.” Jaclyn is divorced from actor Roger Davis, of Alias Smith And Jones fame. She married him after a brief courtship — he proposed on the second date. She struggled both outwardly and physically to make a go of the relationship but found it impossible.
The word divorce horrified her and it was two years after they separated before she could bring herself to go through what was for her an unforgivable severing of the sacred vows of marriage.
She was so upset that she could not tell her parents until some time later of the divorce. Jaclyn claimed that her conservative beliefs are laughed at by many people who think she is missing out on life. “I’m labelled goody-two-shoes but I don’t really know
why,” she said. “My beliefs are simple, nice and they give me answers; they make me laugh and feel lucky. They give me security in life and I can always turn to them. There can’t be anything wrong with that.”
Boyfriend Dennis Cole, who once posed nude for a magazine centerfold, insists he shares many of Jaclyn’s beliefs. “I believe in marriage and in being faithful,” he said. “I’m going to keep the high standards she holds to, She may well be old fashioned but what a delightful change to find somebody like her in Hollywood.”
But Jaclyn is not in a rush get married: “My first was a mistake and it didn’t work. I’m really for marriage and a family and home. When I love somebody I’m totally devoted and faithful and I couldn’t bear a second failure.”
Besides her $15,000 an episode job with Charlie’s Angels, she has just negotiated a $3 million contract to launch her own movie production company. And she has guest spots lined up in top-rated series. Jaclyn also gets $100,000 a year from commercials for Wella Shampoo and Max Factor cosmetics, and has $5 million tied up in land buildings in Hollywood and antiques.
