Jumping in with Kate Jackson
One summer evening in 1977 or thereabouts, while my family was enjoying a visit with our next door neighbors and their pool, my mom attempted to coax me into going for my first big girl jump off the diving board.
It was twilight, I believe — and since this was Texas, likely still scorching hot, even at sundown. I was floating near the pool’s steps, listening to the symphony of cicadas and grownup chatter. Mom must have been somewhere behind me; in my mind’s eye, all I see is that big ol’ diving board at the other end of the pool, looming over The Deep End as she talked. To my six or seven-year-old self, this treacherous expanse of blue water seemed as vast and intimidating as the open sea.
“Just try it,“ she urged. “If you jump, I’ll get you a Sabrina doll.”
Mom’s canny attempt to bribe me into kicking a little ass, diving board-wise, was no doubt inspired by my fascination with the kick-ass Sabrina Duncan, a central character in the TV crime drama “Charlie’s Angels”, then at the apex of its massive popularity. For those unschooled on the Angels: the iconic series chronicled the adventures of three women detectives who are plucked from low-level law enforcement jobs by the wealthy and mysterious Charles Townsend, who puts the former policewomen’s talents to better use nabbing bad guys on behalf of his LA-based private investigation agency…all while looking beautiful and sporting fabulous outfits, of course, in standard network TV fashion.
“Charlie’s Angels” debuted on ABC in 1976, the same year I entered kindergarten. By the time the Angels flew off the airwaves in 1981, the show had ascended to an eternal presence in the American pop culture firmament; it also spawned a dizzying empire of merchandise and collectibles that are still sought after today, not to mention updated treatments over the next 40 years in the form of feature films and a rebooted TV series. One of the show’s most enduring motifs (coming in right behind that famous Angels pose) was Charlie’s recurring “appearance” as a disembodied voice on a speakerphone, heard but never seen — which, getting back to my story, makes my mom’s off-camera presence in my watery recollection satisfyingly appropriate, now that I think about it.
My mental curtain rings down on the swimming pool scene almost as soon as it begins, so I don’t remember exactly what happened next. But I can tell you that while it wasn’t too long before I was jumping off the diving board with gusto, I don’t recall ever owning a Sabrina doll, so I assume that I failed to rise to Mom’s challenge that particular summer evening. No doubt we would have worked something out if I had pressed the issue. (“Now that I’ve jumped, can I have her?”) But my guess is that I was disappointed in myself for not being bold — like Sabrina — and never brought it up again.
All the angels were bold, of course — it’s pretty much a job requirement if you’re called upon to solve mysteries, battle gender stereotypes, and remain glamorous, all at the same time. Even so, there was something special about Sabrina, the brainiest and sassiest of the crime-busting trio. As a child, I doubt I could have articulated anything beyond “I just like her” by way of explaining why she was my favorite angel. But when I got a little older, I began to understand that Sabrina’s specialness was as much about Kate Jackson, the doe-eyed, svelte, raspy-voiced actress who brought Sabrina to life, as it was about Sabrina’s attributes as a character.
The club of actors known for more than one famous part is pretty exclusive, but Kate locked in platinum membership for herself when “Scarecrow & Mrs. King” launched on CBS in 1983, a few years after she shelved her “Charlie’s Angels” halo — and I once again fell in love with another Kate Jackson character, this time with lifelong implications.
The popular action/rom-com series featured the escapades of a playboy secret agent and his unlikely civilian sidekick, a suburban single mother named Amanda King, who inadvertently team up to chase Cold War-era villains and eventually (spoiler alert) fall in love. To say that I was a keen fan of the show would be an understatement, and by this point I had become an ardent Kate Jackson fan as well. But more than 30 years would go by before I began to consider the question of why — Sabrina Duncan and Amanda King aside, what is it about Kate that makes her so special to me?
BOSLEY: “So we’ll all need to have a cover, but one of you will have to be a wanted criminal. Tough, streetwise, and capable of anything.”
SABRINA: “Wait a minute, why are you looking at me?”
*Bosley was a Townsend Agency employee, portrayed by actor David Doyle, who often helped the angels with cases.
Fast forward from mid-1980s me, a “Scarecrow”-swoony teenager, to middle-aged me in the spring of 2020. Like millions of other people, I was stumbling as I struggled to right myself following a series of vicious blows dealt by the pandemic — the worst of which was the sudden death of one of my closest friends, who fell victim to the virus in its earliest days of destruction.
As a means of escaping my grief and isolation, I began revisiting old favorites from the past — books, movies, and other fare that rank high on my nostalgia meter. One night it struck me that I had been half-consciously thinking about Kate for a while, so I looked up “Angels” and “Scarecrow” on Amazon and began re-watching episodes for the first time in decades — and as I watched, I found myself contemplating, also for the first time, my longtime fascination with Kate and her work.
On the surface of things, it’s easy to categorize Kate’s two best-known series as top-shelf escapist fun and leave it at that; it’s also easy to get distracted by the long-running debate about the cultural impact of “Charlie’s Angels”, which is often criticized for promoting the image of the women detectives as sex objects. “Scarecrow & Mrs. King” has been far less analyzed, but I imagine that contemporary viewers might question the show’s depiction of a “housewife” who was compelled to justify her worth, professionally and personally, to an initially skeptical male partner who was slow to see her as an equal.
There’s no doubt that observations along these lines are valid — but in my view, they also miss the point. Completely. They don’t take into account either show’s big-picture impact within the context of the eras in which they were created, and they also ignore the array of positive images of women that both series offered, then and now.
Yes, I saw Sabrina as beautiful. But I also saw a smart, funny, and financially independent single woman who was more than capable of succeeding in a man’s world. Yes, I saw Amanda as a fish out of water. But I also saw a determined single mom (a rarity on TV at the time, by the way) who didn’t need a man to survive or be happy, and who always showed bravery and ingenuity when faced with demanding or dangerous situations. Today, women characters like Sabrina and Amanda abound on TV and in other media. In the 1970s and ’80s, not so much.
As a kid, I only knew that I enjoyed Sabrina and Amanda because they were fun — but now, I look back and see that they weren’t just fun, they were significant influences on my life. Much like Mary Richards (“The Mary Tyler Moore Show”) helped me understand that a woman didn’t have to be a wife and mother to have a rich and rewarding existence, Sabrina and Amanda, as interpreted by Kate, showed me that a woman could be tough but tender, speak her mind freely, and take on stimulating challenges that were usually reserved for men — without waiting for anyone’s permission or approval. When you consider that Kate came of age in an era where women were told that their primary position and their worth was in the home, taking care of a husband and children, the fact that she turned around and told millions of girls and young women otherwise is worth noting — in fact, it’s flat out remarkable.
AMANDA: “Now, wait a minute. You can’t just walk into my life, hand me a package, tell me to give it to the man in the red hat, tell me that you love me and walk out of my life again…”
If all I wanted to do was pen a valentine to Kate, I could dash off a final paragraph at this point and type “the end” with a clear conscience. She portrayed two iconic characters from my formative years. She has an impressive resume that includes multiple hit TV shows, movies, Emmy nominations, and director and producer credits. She triumphed over breast cancer and heart surgery, and used her experiences to advocate for women’s health. She raised her child as a single mother. And even more importantly, she did all of this in an industry and a media environment that is often brutal to women — particularly women who are noted for their looks, or women who are smart, or women who are viewed as outspoken — and Kate checks all three boxes. In short: Kate’s a bottom line bad ass, and the attributes I’ve just enumerated should be more than enough to explain my near-lifelong affinity for her.
Except — they don’t. Not quite. There are many women in the arts whose work I admire equally, but none have quite the same status with me that Kate does. As I’ve tried and failed to uncover the precise reason why this is so over the last few months, my mind keeps wandering back in time to a scene from a movie Kate made in between “Angels” and “Scarecrow”, the 1979 TV reboot of the Cary Grant/Constance Bennet screwball comedy classic “Topper”, which I watched while sitting on the floor of my parents’ bedroom when I was about eight.
The plot centers around the “rescue” of a stodgy businessman, Cosmo Topper, as carried out by the ghosts of an eccentric fun-loving couple, Marion and George Kerby, who were his wealthy clients when they were alive.
In this particular scene, Topper’s secretary (Mrs. Quincy, played by Frances Bay) has just handed him a handkerchief that Marion (Kate Jackson) unknowingly dropped moments before as she strolled out of Topper’s office. Mrs. Quincy then settles in to take a letter from Topper, who is having trouble focusing:
TOPPER: (breaking off dictation as he absently plays with the handkerchief):
“…what a fascinating woman, that Marion Kerby. She reminds me of an Easter egg I once had as a small boy.”
MRS. QUINCY (puzzled): “An Easter egg?”
TOPPER: “Yeah. The kind with a pinhole in it? I used to look in and see a little angel…I wonder why Marion Kerby reminds me of an angel…”
It’s a tiny moment in a movie I only saw once as a child — and yet I recall so vividly, even at a distance of more than 40 years, how the imagery evoked made my little girl heart swell, and how beautifully the dialogue sums up the ethereal, impossible-to-fully-explain charm of someone who is magical.
The friend I lost was magical to me, too, but I didn’t fully appreciate this until she was gone, and now I deeply regret not spending more time with her while I could. As I’ve found myself thinking about Kate, I’ve come to realize that perhaps my rediscovery of her work is less about me seeking comfort in nostalgia, and more about me applying the life lesson I hope I’ve learned during the pandemic, which is: Next to kindness, nothing matters as much as spending time with the people and things that we love — in other words, that which we find magical.
Thank you for giving us Sabrina and Amanda, Kate. I promise to always keep them close — and the next time someone challenges me to jump off life’s diving board, I’ll do my best to live up to their legacy.
Image credits: “Charlie’s Angels” via Wikimedia Commons. Many thanks to callmeacab.com for gracious contribution of the “Scarecrow & Mrs. King” and “Topper” images.
