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Neither Bionic Woman Lindsay Wagner nor Wonder Woman Lynda Carter has, obviously, the mature appeal of an Angie Dickinson. But Los Angeles-born Wagner, who did a couple of low-budget features (notably Paper Chase), has potential. The show's creator, Ken Johnson, says he modeled her character after an ideal date he had in mind, someone "truthful, witty and eminently attractive," and Wagner seems to fill the bill. Says Wagner: "I'm trying like hell not to be Wonder Woman." Carter, 24, who is trying like hell to put that character across, is a former swimming champion and ballet student with the physical skills to do most of her own stunts. She is convinced the show has value because it "shows that women don't have to be unattractive to be independent." She, of course, has the hardest row to hoe—trying to humanize a cartoon character who is located in the never-never land of nostalgic camp.
As for the Angels, Texas-born Farrah Fawcett-Majors, 30, is the best known of the three. Off-screen she is married to Six-Million-Dollar Man Lee Majors and has starred in many oft-played commercials (Mercury's Cougar, Wella Balsam shampoo). A warm, giggly sort of girl, she is a practicing Roman Catholic who has a clause in her contract that allows her to leave the set to rush home in time to make supper for her husband. She has a sense of humor (asked once when she first realized she was beautiful, she replied, "Just after the makeup man got here; before that it was touch and go") and a developing shrewdness about her own power. Her contract specifies that she may keep any wardrobe items that strike her fancy, and because she does, her co-stars have the same privilege, since they are treated with scrupulous equality.
Jaclyn Smith, 28, who plays Kelly, the most streetwise of the Angels, is also out of Texas and commercials. She won an audition for Angels because she was dating Producer Husky at the casting time. On the set, she is not considered an easy person to get to know. She lives alone in a Beverly Hills mansion she bought largely as an investment and tends her career and her earnings carefully. But she also has a romantic streak. The twelve-room mansion is a replica of Tara, and Jackie is proud of it.
Sabrina, cast as the most intellectual of the Angels and their unofficial leader, is played by Kate Jackson, 27, who is the only one of the three women who had real acting experience before the show. From Birmingham, she studied acting at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. Then came a four-year run in Spelling-Goldberg's The Rookies. When that show was canceled last spring, she was promised the lead in another series, which accounts for her top billing on Angels. She insists that "I'd rather share the glory of a hit than star by myself in a flop," but observers find her the tensest and toughest of the Angels on the set. Says an executive: "At times Kate makes me feel like Kissinger negotiating between the Israelis and the Arabs. She ain't easy." Says a crewman: "She's got to be clever to make an impact on the screen. All Farrah has to do is smile; Jackie can just walk by in a bikini. Kate has to get to the audience by strength of personality—a much harder role."