Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, January 29, 1994 TAG: 9401290263
SECTION: SPECTATOR PAGE: S-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By JACKIE HYMAN ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: LOS ANGELES LENGTH: Medium
That's a long way from prancing around in a bikini in "Charlie's Angels," the TV series that brought her fame in the mid-1970s. And it certainly isn't the image projected by countless magazine covers celebrating her can't-take-a-bad-photograph beauty.
"Yeah, I think an image is there and it's hard to break it," said the actress, now 46, who co-stars with Brad Johnson in "Cries Unheard: The Donna Yaklich Story," a CBS movie airing Tuesday (at 9 p.m. on WDBJ-Channel 7).
"With each role, you think you make a step in a different direction," she said. "I knew this was going to be a very different role for me."
Smith plays a woman terrorized by her husband, a policeman and body builder addicted to steroids. The real Donna Yaklich is serving a 40-year prison sentence for conspiring to have her husband killed.
"This is a true story, and you hope it helps people and it spreads some light," said Smith, who spoke to Donna Yaklich on the phone while preparing for the role. "In retrospect, she says she would have killed herself, but she couldn't because of her son. There's got to be answers for women like that. You find help and you keep looking."
Smith sometimes came home bruised after playing violent scenes with Johnson, a former rodeo star.
"I got hurt a lot of times in this," she said. "Hey, it had to be real. . . . It's definitely not glamorous. It's definitely not sophisticated and slick."
"Sophisticated and slick" are precisely the kind of adjectives critics have thrown at Smith for such lightweight miniseries as "Windmills of the Gods" and "Rage of Angels."
Even the biography provided by her publicist refers to "that dazzling smile, romantic good looks and those fetching green eyes."
Her elegant Georgian-style home in Beverly Hills does nothing to dispel the image. And, in person, Jaclyn Smith manages to look picture-perfect gorgeous, seemingly without trying.
Smith began acting with regional theater groups in Boston and New York, moving on to such Broadway musicals as "West Side Story" and "Bye Bye Birdie."
After appearing in commercials, she made guest appearances on several TV series and finally landed a role on "Charlie's Angels," which also launched the careers of Farrah Fawcett, Kate Jackson and Cheryl Ladd.
Since then, Smith's career has gone more smoothly than most, in part due to careful planning.
"I like to be carefree with fun and activities, but as far as thinking out investments and career choices, I research it and I think about it," she said. "I think long and hard about things."
One thing she's especially serious about is spending time with her son, Gaston Anthony, 11, and daughter, Spencer Margaret, 8.
"I try to stay close to home during the school year," said Smith, who is divorced from British director-cinematographer Tony Richmond. "This is ideal, doing two TV movies a year, and I can still be a normal mom. I do get withdrawal when I'm away from them."
Smith also has established long-term business relationships with two companies, Max Factor and Kmart.
For Max Factor, she represents a line of cosmetics and California, her own vanilla-based perfume. Kmart shoppers are familiar with Smith's line of clothes and accessories.
Then, there's her latest endeavor, a video called "Jaclyn Smith, Workout for Beauty and Balance."
"I've been a dancer all my life," she explained. "I thought, `This is an area I know.' But boy, when you do an exercise video, it has to be so medically safe, things I didn't even dream of."
In the future, she said: "I'd like to do a Broadway musical, but that's not in for now. I can't take the kids out of school.
"I did turn down (touring in) `My One and Only' with Tommy Tune to do `Windmills of the Gods,' but if he asks me again and it's for the summer, I'll do it."
Her other wish is time to relax with her children.
"Sometimes, I find that my nerves get jangled because there's no time to sit, just unstructured time," she said. "I'd like to have a getaway place where we go and have a total departure from city life, a farm or a ranch. My brother has an ostrich farm in Texas. They'd love to be down there."
by CNB