Kate Jackson

Infobox actor
name = Kate Jackson
birthname = Catherine Elise Jackson
birthdate = birth date and age|1948|10|29
birthplace = Birmingham, Alabama, United States|

Kate Jackson (born October 29 1948) is an American actress, director, and producer. She is a three-time Emmy Award nominee, twice in the "Best Actress" category and once in the "Best Supporting Actress" category. She has also been nominated for several Golden Globe Awards, and has won the title of "Favorite Television Actress" in England, and "Favorite Television Star" in Germany several times for her work in the television series, "Scarecrow and Mrs. King".

She also co-produced that series through her production company, Shoot the Moon Enterprises Ltd. with Warner Brothers Television. She is perhaps best-known for her role as Sabrina Duncan in the 1970s television series "Charlie's Angels". Her other starring television series roles include "Daphne Harridge" on "Dark Shadows", "Jill Danko", in the 1970s crime drama, "The Rookies", as "Amanda King" on "Scarecrow and Mrs. King", which co-starred Bruce Boxleitner. She played the lead role on the short-lived television adaptation of the film "Baby Boom".

Biography

Born in Birmingham, Alabama as Catherine Elise Jackson, she attended The Brook Hill School for Girls [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altamont_School] and then went on to the University of Mississippi in Oxford, where she was a member of Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority, but moved to New York to study acting at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts during her sophomore year at Ole Miss.

Upon graduation from The American Academy, she played a year-long role in the soap opera "Dark Shadows" in 1970 as "Daphne Harridge", and, from 1972 to 1976, co-starred as "Jill Danko" in "The Rookies". From 1976 to 1979, she played "Sabrina Duncan" in "Charlie's Angels".

During her stint on "The Rookies", she met with producers Aaron Spelling and Leonard Goldberg to discuss her contractual obligation to star in another television series for Spelling/Goldberg Productions upon cancellation of "The Rookies". The producer, Leonard Goldberg told her of a series that was available -- because "...every network has passed on it..." --entitled "The Alley Cats". Spelling asked her if she had any ideas, and she read from the back of "blue" revision pages from "The Rookies" her pitch for a new kind of television series starring three women who worked for a boss they never saw. Fact|date=June 2008 It was entitled "Harry's Angels". "Newsweek" magazine (July, 1999) quotes Spelling as saying that when he told Jackson the title of the series had to be changed and asked her what she would like to call it, she replied, "Charlie's Angels". Subsequently, the most famous pop culture television series in the history of the medium was born. Fact|date=June 2008

Though Spelling and Goldberg claimed "Charlie's Angels" was the "passed on by every network" series they had pitched to Jackson,"The Alley Cats", this was not so. After a disastrous attempt to "morph" Ernest Tidyman's "The Alley Cats" into Jackson's original series pitch, Robert Wagner suggested that it be given to the highly sophisticated and successful writing team of Ivan Goff and Ben Roberts. Goff and Roberts went back to Jackson's original pitch and wrote a 90 minute pilot episode based on circumstantial mistaken identity. The network, having little faith in the show, threw it on television in the middle of the summer, expecting no one to ever see it. However, more than 50% of the television viewing audience watched "Charlie's Angels". The original "Angels", Jackson, Farrah Fawcett-Majors and Jaclyn Smith formed a close bond during the first season of the series. Fawcett never signed her contract with Spelling/Goldberg Productions, citing their demand that they share in the profits from her hugely successful poster. But the poster had been made before she shot the television series, and she stayed firm in her ownership of it, refusing to give Spelling/Goldberg a percentage of something with which they had had nothing to do. Fact|date=June 2008 She did not return for the second season, and though she won her court battle against the producers, she was required to do a handful of "guest appearances" on the show in the third and fourth seasons.

Jackson was offered one of the two leading female roles in the Dustin Hoffman film "Kramer vs Kramer" at the beginning of the third season of "Angels". Although the studio rearranged the shooting schedule three times to accommodate Jackson's obligations, the producers of the movie, Stanley Jaffe and Sherry Lansing were finally told by Spelling that if Jackson appeared in it, the soon to be classic "...would never see the light of day..." Spelling and Goldberg feared that Jackson would not return to the television series if she was in a successful motion picture, wishing to trade her TV success for movie stardom. Fact|date=June 2008

At the end of the third season of "Charlie's Angels", Jackson left the show saying, "I served it well and it served me well, now it's time to go." Privately, she told friends that if Spelling had not taken the movie opportunity away from her she "...would have stayed with the series forever". "Charlie's Angels" was canceled after four and a half years on the air. (Spelling reportedly blamed Jackson's departure from the show for its demise.) Fact|date=June 2008

"Charlie's Angels" has been on the air in reruns continuously around the world since its debut in 1976. In 2004, the television film "" aired, with actress Lauren Stamile portraying Jackson. [http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117923326.html?categoryid=32&cs=1&query=behind+the+camera%3A+charlie%27s+angels] In August 2006, Jackson, Fawcett and Jaclyn Smith, the three original Angels, appeared together in a surprise appearance at the Emmy Awards in a tribute to Aaron Spelling who had recently died. Holding hands, they were greeted with thundering applause, shouts of approval, and smiling faces in the audience at the Shrine Auditorium. In 1982, Jackson starred opposite her "Rookies" co-star, Michael Ontkean, and Harry Hamlin in the feature film "Making Love", a movie some considered to be ahead of its time. It attempted to deal sensitively with the issue of homosexuality. Arthur Hiller directed the film but it received tepid reviews and did poorly at the box office.

As soon as she was free of "Charlie's Angels", Jackson had made what was for the time a whopping $6,000,000 deal with CBS to star in a comedy series. She elected instead to accept the starring role in "Scarecrow and Mrs. King", a one-hour action comedy in which she played housewife Amanda King opposite Bruce Boxleitner's spy, code named "Scarecrow". Jackson also co-produced the series with Warner Brothers Television through her production company, Shoot the Moon Enterprises. It was during this series that she developed a keen interest in directing. When asked on the set one afternoon "What do you do tomorrow?", Jackson replied, "I don't work, I just direct." "Scarecrow and Mrs. King" was on the air from 1983-1987, The series was strong enough in the ratings that it crushed its NBC competition, "Boone", starring Tom Byrd and Barry Corbin.

After "Scarecrow and Mrs. King", Jackson in 1988 played the main role in "Baby Boom", a TV sitcom version of the original movie starring Diane Keaton, but it only lasted one season. In 1989, she starred in the film "Loverboy" playing Patrick Dempsey's mother. She had taken the job in order to work with the director, Joan M. Silver, having admired the work Silver had done on the film "Hester Street". Silver had described the film to Jackson as a "French farce" and had said she would be shooting it so that there were always so many different ways to look on the screen, the audience would be hysterical with laughter, but the film was a disappointment, both critically and popularly.Fact|date=June 2008

Since then, Jackson has starred in many TV movies and has made numerous guest appearances on TV. However, she gave up all professional pursuits when her son, Charles Taylor Jackson, was adopted in 1995. She stated at the time, "I don't see how I can go about a directing career and be a good mom at the same time. And if I'm not a good mom, I don't think it matters much what else I do well."

Jackson has a recurring role on "Criminal Minds". In August 2008 she was a guest judge on an episode of fellow "Angel" Jaclyn Smith's Bravo reality series "Shear Genius", presiding over a hairdressing competition to update the original trio's signature hairdos.

Jackson has also written a children's book. Her portfolio of photographs taken over the past thirty-five years is in negotiations to be published.

Personal life

In 1978, Jackson married fellow Southerner, the actor/producer Andrew Stevens, who is seven years her junior and the son of actress Stella Stevens; they divorced in 1980. She later married David Greenwald in 1982, but they divorced two years later. Her third marriage was to stuntman Tom Hart in 1991, but they also divorced two years later. She stated to friends, "I feel like they backed a Brinks truck up to my bank account and drove away. Except for Tom. Tom's a good guy. He just couldn't stand Los Angeles. I think the decent thing for Andrew and David to do would be to give back all the money they took. They've both done very well. David even told me that since he hadn't looked for wealth, wealth had found him. Then he said all his friends had told him to take everything he could get from me, but he was proud of himself for only taking several hundred thousand dollars. Can you beat that? And Andrew. When I told Andrew I wanted a divorce he said, and I quote, 'I'll take you to the cleaners.' And he did."Fact|date=August 2008

She successfully battled breast cancer twice, in 1987 and 1989. She also successfully underwent open heart surgery to correct a hole in her heart she had had since birth. Fact|date=June 2008

Awards/Nominations

Emmy Awards
*1977: Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series (nomination) for "Charlie's Angels"
*1977: Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Movie or Special (nomination) for "James at 15"
*1978: Outstanding Lead Actress for a Single Appearance in a Drama or Comedy Series (nomination) for "Charlie's Angels".

Golden Globe
*1977: Best TV Actress - Drama (nomination) - "Charlie's Angels"
*1978: Best TV Actress - Drama (nomination) - "Charlie's Angels"
*1979: Best TV Actress - Drama (nomination)- "Charlie's Angels"
*1985: Best Performance by an Actress in a TV-Series - Drama (nomination) - "Scarecrow and Mrs. King"

Bravo Golden Otto Germany (won 3 times)"Scarecrow and Mrs. King"
*1986: TV Star winner
*1987: TV Star winner
*1988: TV Star winner

References

External links

* [http://www.kate-jackson.com/ Website about Jackson]
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