Top TV Moments: Cheryl Ladd

One of the customary career trajectories in the Comfort TV era was to break into television doing guest spots on established series. Even if the roles were small, doing enough of them could put an actor on the radar of series producers and casting directors. If it worked, one day they would land a series of their own.

Cheryl Ladd is one of many who followed that career path. And the series she was offered was...Family. She was this-close to landing the role of Nancy Maitland, but at the last minute producer Aaron Spelling chose Meredith Baxter-Birney. When he asked her to join Charlie's Angels instead, she turned him down. Thankfully, she changed her mind.

Ladd is still known almost exclusively for her four seasons as Kris Munroe  – but she played a lot of guest spots before that, and kept busy for decades after hanging up her halo.

These are some of her most memorable TV moments.

Josie and The Pussycats (1970)

How bizarre that the first television credit for one of the most gorgeous TV stars of the 1970s would be one where viewers would never see her. Jackie Joseph provided the voice for the character of Melody in this musical cartoon trio, but Cheryl Ladd provided her singing voice for the songs featured in every episode. 

Viewers finally got to see what she looked like if they bought the Josie and the Pussycats album, which holds up as well as the series if not better. 

The Partridge Family (1973)

Keith lands a date with Johanna Hauser (Ladd) “the most desirable female at San Pueblo JC” (that would be “Junior College”). 

Unfortunately, he already has another date for that same night. Will Keith do the honorable thing? Of course not. Despite his sister Laurie’s catty comment that Johanna “goes steady with the basketball team,” Ladd doesn’t play her as promiscuous. But she clearly knows that with one smile at a hapless guy she can get whatever she wants.

Satan’s School for Girls (1973)

Charlie’s Angels wasn’t Ladd’s first Spelling-Goldberg production – she also appeared in this macabre TV movie, which also featured her future co-star Kate Jackson. 

It’s fun to see the two future Angels playing coeds together in several scenes. The movie itself is a bit like Suspiria. Of course it doesn’t have the visual flair of Dario Argento’s famed giallo, but at least it’s a lot shorter.

Happy Days (1974)

Richie wins the chance to escort Hollywood star Cindy Shea to his high school dance. This is by far the best of Ladd’s roles while she was still billed as Cheryl Stoppelmoor. The easy route would have been to make Cindy a spoiled brat who is only visiting schools to promote her new movie. But before this series became The Fonzie Show it was still capable of nuance. 

Charlie’s Angels (1977)

To the extent that Charlie’s Angels has become a globally familiar brand that inspired multiple remakes and reboots over the past four decades, much of the credit rightly belongs to Cheryl Ladd. 

Of course the series made a huge pop culture splash in its first season when Farrah Fawcett-Majors’ face and form were on every magazine cover in the country (as well as a poster that sold more than 12 million copies). But Farrah was gone after that one season, and the show’s legacy would have been very different had she taken a sizable segment of the show’s audience with her.

Fortunately (and perhaps surprisingly), that didn’t happen. Season two actually posted higher ratings than it did with Farrah, and the show ran for another three years. 

As Kris Munroe Cheryl was not Farrah - but she was beautiful and likable and fit in well with her established costars. Relations off-screen with Kate Jackson were less than cordial, but when the trio tackled cases together their camaraderie was believable. That was not always the case when Shelley Hack replaced Jackson.

Battle of the Network Stars (1977)

This is just the third installment of what became a semi-annual competition, and they had not yet settled on the right mix of events. Ladd is under-utilized in the early events, which seems understandable after you watch her bowl. But she helps the ABC team win the running relay, taking the baton from Penny Marshall and passing it on to Kristy McNichol. Her team finished second, because Robert Conrad was captain of the NBC team, and he wasn’t about to lose again. 

The Cheryl Ladd Special: Souvenirs (1980)

Cheryl Ladd starred in three music/variety specials on ABC. The first one had a storyline about her going back home to South Dakota and hanging out at a truck stop where one of the waitresses is played by Melanie Griffith. The message was that for all her fame she’s just a downhome country girl at heart. I doubt anyone bought that.

“Souvenirs” played more to her strengths – big, splashy song and dance numbers instead of country music, and colorful costumes that enhanced her stunning appearance. She also sings a duet with Joyce Dewitt, so what more could you want?

When She Was Bad (1979)

Ladd never found a prestige drama after her Angel days, like Farrah Fawcett did with The Burning Bed. This one aired while she was still playing Kris, and might have been a tough pivot for the ABC prime time audience. Ladd played a young wife and mother who takes out the stress in her life on her preschool daughter, verbally and physically. Stuff like this is always tough to watch. Ladd and Robert Urich do their best with an earnest but cliché-heavy script.

Grace Kelly (1983)

There was a lot of fanfare surrounding this TV movie biography of the movie star turned princess, and landing the part was a big coup for Ladd. It even landed her back on the cover of TV Guide. 

No one could blame her for taking on such an iconic role, but…it just wasn’t a very good fit. It’s not Jennifer Love Hewitt-as-Audrey Hepburn bad, but Ladd doesn’t look or sound like Grace Kelly, so it’s difficult to focus on the character and not on who is playing her. Still, it’s not dull, and it’s not a poor reflection on its subject.

The Hasty Heart (1983)

Now this is more like it. John Patrick’s play was originally performed in the 1940s, and was staged for the Showtime network in 1983 starring Ladd, Gregory Harrison, and Perry King. The story is set in a British military hospital in Burma during World War II. 

Ladd plays Sister Margaret, a British nurse tending to the wounded, including Harrison as a bitter Scot who finds himself surrounded by people who accept him despite his temper – though he won’t know the reason until…well, that would be telling. Though Cheryl Ladd has continued to work steadily (she did a couple of Hallmark Christmas movies that aired last year), this is my favorite of her post-Angels credits.