For decades, Jaclyn Smith rarely opened the most painful rooms of her private life to the public.
Audiences knew her as Kelly Garrett, the elegant brunette who became one of the defining faces of Charlie’s Angels. They knew about the television movies, the beauty campaigns, the fashion empire and, eventually, the remarkably enduring marriage she found with heart surgeon Brad Allen.
What they did not know was just how chaotic the road to that marriage had been.
Now, at 80, Smith is telling it herself.
In her new memoir, I Once Knew a Guy Named Charlie, Smith reveals that her first two husbands were unfaithful — and the story of her first marriage contains a Hollywood coincidence so extraordinary that it almost sounds written for television.
Her first husband, actor Roger Davis, was having an affair with their real-estate agent, a woman Smith identifies as Laura. And according to Smith’s account, one of their encounters happened inside an apartment while Smith was just downstairs, completely unaware of what was happening above her.
She was talking to Warren Beatty.
The celebrated actor had unexpectedly approached Smith because he wanted to discuss the possibility of her appearing in a movie.
Smith had no idea that while a potentially life-changing professional opportunity was unfolding downstairs, her marriage was being betrayed upstairs. (People.com)
REAL PHOTOS — Jaclyn Smith and Roger Davis During Their Marriage
See PEOPLE’s archival photo of Jaclyn Smith with Roger Davis
The PEOPLE feature contains a rare archival photograph of the couple, along with new portraits of Smith at 80 and photographs from her later marriages. (People.com)
She Thought Roger Davis Was Her Perfect Match
Smith was still years away from becoming one of Charlie’s famous Angels when she met Davis in 1968.
She was modeling and acting when their paths crossed at a commercial casting call. Davis was already working as an actor and would become familiar to television viewers through productions including Dark Shadows and Alias Smith and Jones.
Their romance moved remarkably quickly.
They married in 1968, the same year they met. Earlier accounts of their relationship say Davis proposed after only two dates. (Yahoo)
Looking backward, Smith remembers how convincing their compatibility seemed.
They were both actors. Both were from the South. Neither drank. They shared tastes in food and architecture.
“I really thought it was a match made in heaven,” she recently told PEOPLE. (AOL.com)
At the time, she was young and deeply invested in the idea of marriage.
What she did not yet understand was that sharing preferences with someone did not necessarily mean she understood the person she had married.
REAL PHOTO — Young Jaclyn Smith Around the Time of Her First Marriage
See Jaclyn Smith and Roger Davis in the early years
The gallery reproduces PEOPLE’s archival material and shows Smith and Davis before her Charlie’s Angels fame. (Yahoo News New Zealand)
Then Warren Beatty Appeared
Roughly two years into the relationship, Smith was in New York City with a friend.
She and Davis were considering renting an apartment, and Smith was walking over to see it when she unexpectedly encountered Warren Beatty.
By then, Beatty was already a major Hollywood figure.
And he had something surprising to say.
He wanted Smith to audition for a film he was working on.
For an aspiring actress, it was exactly the kind of chance that could change the trajectory of a career.
But before Smith could properly pursue the conversation, Davis appeared.
According to Smith, her husband essentially shut the opportunity down for her, telling Beatty that she only did commercials and therefore could not be in his movie. (AOL.com)
At that moment, Smith still did not understand why Davis had suddenly appeared.
The explanation would come later.
And it was devastating.
Her Husband Had Reportedly Been Upstairs With Their Realtor
The real-estate agent helping the couple was a woman Smith identifies in her memoir as Laura.
Laura was married to a man named Bill.
According to Smith’s account, Davis and Laura had begun an affair.
Eventually Bill approached Smith and told her what had been happening.
But the revelation came under bizarre circumstances of its own: Smith says Bill first made an advance toward her. After she rejected him, he disclosed that their spouses were sleeping together. (Page Six)
Smith initially struggled to believe him.
Then Laura herself confirmed the affair.
And Laura revealed the detail that transformed an already painful betrayal into one of the strangest stories of Smith’s life.
While Smith had been downstairs speaking to Warren Beatty about a possible film, Davis had allegedly been upstairs in the apartment with Laura. (People.com)
Suddenly, Davis’s appearance during the Beatty conversation made considerably more sense.
REAL PHOTOS — The Marriage Smith Is Finally Talking About
See more archival photos of Smith and Davis and read her account
The revelation comes directly from Smith’s own recollection in her memoir and accompanying PEOPLE interview, rather than from an old anonymous Hollywood rumor. (People.com)
Davis Denied It — and Smith Stayed
This is perhaps the part Smith understands differently at 80 than she did as a young wife.
When confronted, Davis denied the affair.
Smith says he tried to turn the situation back on Laura’s husband, suggesting Bill was attempting to create trouble.
Smith already had Laura’s admission.
Yet she stayed.
In her memoir, she acknowledges how powerful denial could be when accepting the truth meant dismantling the marriage she desperately wanted to believe in.
The relationship continued for approximately two more years. (Page Six)
Looking back across more than half a century, Smith does not romanticize that decision.
She describes herself then as extraordinarily naïve and deeply “in love with love.” (AOL.com)
But eventually, another discovery made staying impossible.
On Their Fourth Wedding Anniversary, She Found Him With Another Woman
The first affair did not immediately end the marriage.
Another woman eventually did.
Smith says she discovered Davis in bed with someone else on their fourth wedding anniversary. (Page Six)
This time, there was no room left for denial.
The couple ultimately divorced in 1975.
Years later, Smith summarized the lesson with a metaphor that sounds almost painfully simple after everything she experienced:
“When the paint starts to peel, get out, because it doesn’t change.” (AOL.com)
It was not the ending Smith had imagined when she married Davis.
And remarkably, it would not be her last experience with infidelity.
Then Came Charlie’s Angels — and an Entirely Different Jaclyn Smith
One year after her divorce, Smith’s life changed professionally.
In 1976, she became Kelly Garrett on Charlie’s Angels alongside Farrah Fawcett and Kate Jackson.
The show became a cultural phenomenon.
Smith would ultimately become the only original Angel to remain throughout all five seasons, from 1976 until the series ended in 1981. (Yahoo)
REAL PHOTOS — Jaclyn Smith in Her Charlie’s Angels Years
See archival photos of Jaclyn Smith and her *Charlie’s Angels* years
The fame that followed was enormous.
And it was during that period that Smith met the man who became husband number two.
Dennis Cole appeared on the first season of Charlie’s Angels. He and Smith eventually fell in love and married in 1978. (People.com)
For a woman who still believed strongly in marriage, it looked like another beginning.
Instead, Smith says she encountered betrayal again.
Her Second Husband Was Unfaithful Too
Smith says her marriage to Cole contained professional tension as her career exploded.
“There was some jealousy,” she recalled, although she also described him as a nice person and resisted turning the failed relationship into a wholesale condemnation of him. (AOL.com)
Then she discovered something in his pocket.
A note.
Smith says it was from his son’s girlfriend — and that it revealed Cole had been unfaithful. (AOL.com)
The marriage ended in 1981.
REAL PHOTO — Jaclyn Smith and Dennis Cole in 1980
See the archival Ron Galella photograph of Smith and Cole
The image captures the couple during their marriage, before Smith says she learned about the infidelity. (Yahoo News New Zealand)
By then, Smith had been married twice.
Both husbands, according to her new account, had cheated.
At 80, she makes an extraordinary admission about those relationships: she does not really feel that either one qualifies as a marriage “in my heart of hearts.”
But she adds something important.
She learned from them. (People.com)
Tony Richmond Was Different
The viral image accompanying this story can create some confusion because it shows several of Smith’s husbands.
But the husband involved in the Warren Beatty/realtor story was Roger Davis — not Tony Richmond.
Richmond came later.
Smith met British cinematographer Anthony B. Richmond while working on the 1980 film Nightkill. Their relationship moved quickly, and the pair married in August 1981 at Smith’s Bel Air home. (UPI)
This marriage gave Smith something she had long wanted.
Children.
Their son, Gaston, was born in 1982, followed by daughter Spencer-Margaret in 1985. (AOL.com)
REAL PHOTO — Jaclyn Smith and Tony Richmond in 1982
See Smith and Richmond together during their marriage
Unlike the way she discusses her first two marriages, Smith remembers this period with considerable affection.
“That period in my life was a very beautiful period,” she told PEOPLE. (AOL.com)
She says Richmond was devoted to her, and she remains grateful that their marriage gave her Gaston and Spencer.
The problem this time, according to Smith, was not infidelity.
It was addiction.
Alcohol and Drugs Ultimately Ended Her Third Marriage
Smith says Richmond struggled with alcohol and drugs, something she found increasingly impossible to live with.
She believes the marriage might otherwise have survived.
“I think it would’ve worked,” she told PEOPLE, before explaining that she could not cope with the substance abuse. (AOL.com)
The couple eventually divorced in 1989.
Smith speaks differently about Richmond today than she does about the betrayals in her first two marriages.
She says he is now sober and doing well.
“My hat’s off to him,” she said. (AOL.com)
That distinction says something about the way Smith now views her past.
She does not seem interested in flattening every failed marriage into the same story.
Each failed for different reasons.
Each changed her differently.
And one gave her the two children who remain central to her life.
Then a Heart Surgeon Entered Her Life
By the beginning of the 1990s, Smith might reasonably have decided she had experienced enough marriage for one lifetime.
Instead, love appeared in a hospital.
Brad Allen was a cardiothoracic surgeon involved in treating Smith’s father for a heart condition in 1991. That is how he and Smith met. (People.com)
They did not rush immediately into marriage.
After the speed and instability of some of Smith’s earlier relationships, this one developed very differently.
Smith and Allen dated for years before marrying in 1997.
And then came another unusual test.
For 17 years, they largely lived in different states because Allen’s medical career kept him in Chicago while Smith remained in Los Angeles with her children. They maintained their marriage through regular weekend travel before finally living together full-time in 2009. (People.com)
It sounds like exactly the arrangement that might strain a fragile relationship.
For them, Smith says, it worked.
REAL PHOTO — Jaclyn Smith and Brad Allen
See Jaclyn Smith with Brad Allen, the husband she says she “finally got right”
Smith and Allen have now been married for nearly 29 years. (People.com)
“I Finally Got That”
The contrast between Smith’s first marriage and her fourth is almost impossible to miss.
With Roger Davis, she says she discovered betrayal in their own home and eventually found him with another woman.
With Dennis Cole, another infidelity followed.
With Tony Richmond, she built the family she had dreamed of, but addiction eventually made the marriage unsustainable.
Then came Brad Allen.
Smith describes him not only as a great husband but as an extraordinary stepfather to Gaston and Spencer.
“I got a great husband, great marriage, and the most fantastic stepfather I could ever dream of,” she told PEOPLE. (AOL.com)
For Smith, that mattered enormously.
Her children did not simply tolerate the new man in their mother’s life.
Allen loved them as his own, she says.
For someone who had always imagined marriage and children as the center of her life, Smith finally felt she had found what she had been looking for.
REAL PHOTOS — Jaclyn and Brad Through the Years
See photos from Smith and Allen’s nearly three-decade marriage
The difference is visible not because a photograph can prove a marriage is happy, but because of something much more concrete: the sheer amount of time that has passed.
Smith’s first three marriages together occupied roughly two decades.
Her fourth has lasted almost three.
At 80, She Finally Told the Story Behind the Glamorous Photographs
This year carries another significance for Jaclyn Smith.
It has been 50 years since Charlie’s Angels premiered.
For half a century, viewers have seen the polished photographs.
Smith with Farrah Fawcett and Kate Jackson.
Smith in glamorous television portraits.
Smith with one husband, then another.
Smith with her children.
Smith eventually beside Brad Allen.
What photographs could never show was what was happening between them.
REAL THEN-AND-NOW PHOTOS — Jaclyn Smith Across Five Decades
See Jaclyn Smith’s early marriages and recent photos at 80
Now she is filling in those spaces herself.
The most astonishing revelation may still be that afternoon in New York.
Imagine the scene from Smith’s perspective.
She is young.
Her acting career is still developing.
She happens to encounter Warren Beatty.
He wants to discuss a film.
Her husband suddenly arrives and effectively closes down the conversation.
She does not yet understand why.
Only later does she learn what she says was happening upstairs.
Her husband and their real-estate agent were together inside the apartment. (People.com)
The coincidence is so strange that it almost obscures the human part of the story.
Smith was being betrayed without knowing it.
The “Mistress” Was Their Real-Estate Agent
The viral headline promises the mistress’s identity, but there is an important distinction worth preserving.
Smith identifies the woman only as Laura, the real-estate agent helping the couple. Major coverage of the memoir has not supplied a verified full name, and there is no reason to speculate beyond Smith’s account. (People.com)
The husband was Roger Davis.
The other woman was their realtor, Laura.
Warren Beatty was not part of the affair.
His involvement was entirely accidental: according to Smith, he happened to encounter her downstairs while the affair was allegedly occurring above them. (EW.com)
That is the extraordinary Hollywood detail.
But the real revelation is how Smith now interprets the young woman who lived through it.
She does not describe herself as foolish.
She describes herself as naïve.
She wanted marriage badly enough that accepting a painful truth was harder than denying it.
The Woman Who Played an Angel Eventually Stopped Romanticizing Marriage
There is something unexpectedly moving about hearing an 80-year-old Jaclyn Smith discuss the romantic decisions of her twenties.
She has enough distance now to recognize patterns she could not see then.
She can acknowledge that she stayed after discovering betrayal.
She can admit that she believed too strongly in what she wanted marriage to be.
And she can recognize that love does not become successful simply because two people seem perfectly matched on paper.
Her new memoir is therefore not merely an exercise in exposing former husbands.
Smith is placing four marriages beside one another and asking what each one taught her.
The first taught her that compatibility could conceal betrayal.
The second taught her that professional success could complicate a relationship.
The third gave her children but ultimately became impossible because of addiction.
And the fourth showed her what stability looked like.
At 80, she does not pretend the road was neat.
She seems almost amused that someone who considers herself such a rule-follower ended up married four times.
But she also refuses to erase any of it.
Because eventually, after the affairs, divorces, heartbreak, motherhood and years of searching, she found the marriage she had imagined from the beginning.
Nearly three decades later, Brad Allen is still there.
And perhaps that is why Jaclyn Smith can finally look back at the afternoon when Warren Beatty was downstairs and her husband was upstairs with another woman without allowing that betrayal to become the ending of her story. (People.com)
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