14:38Classic TV · 1977Charlie's Angels Cast Then and Now
Episode: Charlie's Angels (1976): Cast Then & Now — Who Was Still Alive in 2026?
From Hollywood Legends Era · 18 min ·
About the Charlie's Angels Cast Then and Now
The Charlie's Angels cast then and now is the story of a show that changed what a TV detective could look like. ABC premiered the series on September 22, 1976, and it ran for five seasons and 115 episodes, ending in June 1981.
Three former police academy graduates work for a boss they never meet. They hear only his voice through a speakerphone, while his assistant, Bosley, keeps things running.
Fifty years later, some of the Angels are still with us. Others have passed away. Here is what became of the people this episode remembers.
Who Were the Angels, and Where Are They Now?
Kate Jackson as Sabrina Duncan
Kate Jackson came to the show after four years as nurse Jill Danko on The Rookies. She also helped name it. The working title was The Alley Cats, and according to producer Aaron Spelling, Jackson pointed to a picture of three angels on his office wall and suggested Charlie's Angels.
She played Sabrina for three seasons. She was offered the Kramer vs. Kramer role that went to Meryl Streep, but the show's schedule could not be changed, so she had to say no. From 1983 to 1987 she starred in Scarecrow and Mrs. King.
A mammogram in January 1987 found breast cancer, and she had a lumpectomy and radiation. More surgery followed in 1989, and in 1995 she had open-heart surgery for a heart defect. That same year, she adopted a son.
Jackson stepped away from acting nearly 20 years ago to raise him. At the show's 50th-anniversary reunion in April 2026, she said she was ready to go back to work. She is 77.
Farrah Fawcett as Jill Munroe
Farrah Fawcett was 29 when the show premiered. That same year, a poster of her in a red swimsuit became a sensation. It had nothing to do with the series, yet it sold about six million copies in its first year and an estimated 12 million in all, and it is often called the best-selling poster ever.
She left after the first season to pursue films. The producers sued her for breach of contract, and the dispute ended when she agreed to come back for six guest appearances. In 1984 she showed her dramatic range in the TV movie The Burning Bed, earning the first of four Emmy nominations.
In 2006 she was diagnosed with anal cancer. She was declared cancer-free in February 2007, but within months the cancer returned and spread to her liver. Nearly nine million people watched her documentary, Farrah's Story, in May 2009.
Farrah Fawcett died on June 25, 2009, at age 62. Michael Jackson died hours later, and his death largely overshadowed hers. Her longtime partner, actor Ryan O'Neal, died in December 2023 and was buried beside her in Los Angeles. Their son, Redmond, has struggled for years with addiction and legal trouble.
Jaclyn Smith as Kelly Garrett
Jaclyn Smith is the only Angel who stayed for all five seasons, appearing in every episode as Kelly Garrett.
In 1985 she launched her own clothing line at Kmart. It became one of the longest-running celebrity partnerships in American retail, and by the company's count, more than 100 million women have bought something bearing her name.
In 1991, her former stepson, Joe Cole, was killed during a robbery at age 30, a crime that has never been solved. In 2002 a routine mammogram found breast cancer, and she was treated with a lumpectomy and radiation. She has since urged women not to go back for biopsy results alone.
Jaclyn Smith is 80 and still working, including a guest role on Doctor Odyssey in 2025.
Cheryl Ladd as Kris Munroe
Cheryl Ladd grew up in Huron, South Dakota. After touring the Midwest with a band, she moved to Los Angeles in 1970, hoping for a music career.
When Farrah Fawcett left, Ladd turned down Aaron Spelling three times before agreeing to play Kris, Jill's younger sister. On her first day, she arrived in a T-shirt that read "Farrah Fawcett Minor." She later explained that nobody could replace Farrah, so she made a joke of herself. She stayed four seasons, until the show ended.
Her daughter from her first marriage, to David Ladd, is actress Jordan Ladd. She married music producer Brian Russell in 1981, and they are still together.
At the PaleyFest reunion on April 6, 2026, Ladd revealed for the first time that she had been through an aggressive form of breast cancer and had been bald for quite a while during treatment. Jaclyn Smith said the first thing she did after Ladd called her was send over her wigs. Cheryl Ladd is 75.
Shelley Hack as Tiffany Welles
Shelley Hack was already a familiar face as the model in Revlon's Charlie perfume ads when she replaced Kate Jackson in 1979. A Smith College graduate, she won the part over other actresses, including Michelle Pfeiffer.
Ratings slipped that season, and ABC released her from her contract in February 1980. She went on to films such as The Stepfather (1987).
In 1997 she worked in Bosnia and Herzegovina as a voter registration and polling station supervisor and produced the country's first televised presidential debates. She has been married to filmmaker Harry Winer since 1990, and the two run a production company together. She is 79.
Tanya Roberts as Julie Rogers
For the fifth and final season, the producers chose Tanya Roberts from about 2,000 candidates. The New York native had studied acting with Lee Strasberg and Uta Hagen.
The show ended in 1981, but the role opened doors. She starred in The Beastmaster (1982), Sheena (1984) and the James Bond film A View to a Kill (1985). A new generation knew her as Midge on That '70s Show, a role she left in 2001 because her husband, Barry Roberts, had become terminally ill. He died in 2006.
Just before Christmas 2020, she fell ill and was taken to the hospital. On January 3, 2021, her death was mistakenly announced after her partner believed she had passed. She was still alive. She died the next night, January 4, 2021, of an infection that had spread through her body.
Who Played Bosley and Charlie?
David Doyle as John Bosley
David Doyle was born in Lincoln, Nebraska, into a family of lawyers, and he was expected to follow them. He chose the stage instead, making his Broadway debut in 1956 when he replaced Walter Matthau in Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?
As the Angels' steady, good-humored Bosley, he and Jaclyn Smith were the only actors to appear in every episode.
Off screen, he knew real grief. His first wife, Rachael, died in 1968 after a fall on a staircase, leaving him with their young daughter, Leah. A year later he met singer Anne Nathan, and they soon married.
Children of the 1990s knew his voice as Grandpa Lou Pickles on Rugrats. David Doyle died of a heart attack on February 26, 1997, at age 67. His last Rugrats episode aired that November, dedicated to his memory.
John Forsythe as Charlie Townsend
Viewers never saw Charlie's face. They only heard John Forsythe's warm voice through the speakerphone, and he could record a whole episode's worth of lines in a matter of minutes.
Born John Lincoln Freund in New Jersey in 1918, he joined the first class at the Actors Studio in 1947. He was already a TV star from Bachelor Father, and in 1981 he became Blake Carrington on Dynasty.
In 1994 his wife, Julie, died of cancer. In 2002 he married Nicole Carter. John Forsythe died of pneumonia on April 1, 2010, at age 92. Nicole died about five weeks later.
Why Charlie's Angels Still Matters 50 Years Later
Some critics dismissed the show as fluff. Yet it put three women at the center of an action series every week, solving cases themselves. At the 2026 reunion, Kate Jackson said they were helping "to punch a hole in that glass ceiling."
What stands out now is how the Angels looked after one another. Three of them faced breast cancer and leaned on each other through it, right down to a gift of wigs.
Which Angel was your favorite, and do you remember who you used to watch the show with?
Sources and Further Reading
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