Kathie Lee Gifford Said An Agent Told Her She Was Not Pretty Enough For ‘Charlie’s Angels’ TV Casting

Who's the lady in the picture? 🤔

Truth hurts Kathie Lee.

Agreed, r2. Gifford WASN’T pretty enough for that show.

And the casting lady only brought up Gifford’s fugly face because she asked.

“Kathie Lee Gifford, she made little children work in sweatshops!”

There has never been a woman so full of herself and so full of shit as Kathie Lee Epstein Johnson Gifford

Thank God for Name That Tune, amirite?

Facts.

Epstein? Is she one of the Epstein Island Epsteins?

No, but I bet Frank was 😉

She looks like Jill Zarin of RHONY. The lady in the photo at OP, I don't know who that is.

[quote] "There has never been a woman so full of herself and so full of shit as Kathie Lee Epstein Johnson Gifford"

R5 = Howard Stern

But he isn't wrong.

@r9, Seriously, I have no idea who that is in Op's photo...

THIS is Kathie Lee Gifford

[quote] “She goes, ‘Let me tell you right now, you’re not right for Charlie’s Angels,'” Gifford said.

[quote]When she asked why, the agent spat, “Because we’re looking for a pretty girl. You know, like Jaclyn Smith: pretty, gorgeous, gorgeous.”

[...]

[quote]Gifford now has some perspective on the incident.

[quote]“I started to see, first of all, [bold] how honest she was. I am now and was then nowhere near as gorgeous as Jaclyn Smith, or Farrah Fawcett, or Cheryl Ladd, nor even as conventionally pretty as Kate Jackson. I was just pretty enough to be a Hee-Haw Honey, of all things, and I let it completely go to my head. I would have been ridiculous as a Charlie's Angel, and no one honest will tell you otherwise. I owe her for telling me the truth so I could set my sights elsewhere. If only someone would have also told me the truth about my singing!"[/bold]

FIFY, Kathie Lee.

[quote] "The fact that I remember her name to this day is because she was so cruel.”

Obviously I succeeded in my goal.

I feel you Kath

Kathie also wrote in one of her books about sharing a bath with her daughter and her daughter asking her "when will I grow grass?"

Now we know why Frank was cheating...he was a city boy and liked playing in vacant lots and not grassy fields.

@r14, that was very funny 😂

Meryl has trotted the King Kong story out for her entire career. i'm sorry, but at that age she just was not as pretty as Jessica Lange was. if that was the type they were going fro, she was not it. It's just liek Mathie lee thinking she was pretty enough to be a Charlie's Angel.

Doesn't everyone know (and didn't they also already know in the 1970s) that casting is a cruel business, and that if you pursue show business as a career, you're going to be told repeatedly you're not pretty enough or sexy enough or whatever enough? I am amazed these women are so sensitive and yet they decided to go into the profession. I have very little sympathy for them. If they wanted to be loved for their minds they should have been lawyers or businesswomen.

She says the agent told her she wasn’t what they were looking for and that she asked why and only then did the agent tell her the reason. Then she goes on to complain that the agent didn’t simply tell her she wasn’t what they were looking for.

She’s an asshole.

Oh please, r17, Meryl's anecdote is funny because she spoke Italian. She's very self-deprecating.

[quote]“I started to see, first of all, what a bitch she was. What an unnecessary bitch she was. She didn’t say ‘Sorry, honey, have a nice life. You’re not what we’re looking for.’ She had to be cruel. She had to be the exact opposite of what my dad taught me to be. The fact that I remember her name to this day is because she was so cruel.”

She was just telling her the truth about what the producers were looking for. It's a business filled with potential rejection, and everyone in it knows this. Kathy Lee wasn't right for the part and when she wanted to know why, the agent told her. As the title of Kathy's new book says: Your Life Is Too Short and Too Precious to Waste...

Dino DeLaurentis was looking for a gorgeous leading lady who was willing to fuck him. Meryl would never.

Did Jessica, r21?

I adore Jess but she was no stranger to the casting couch.

Amazing R12.

She probably tried to convert the casting people to Christianity during the audition and they realized what a pain in the ass she would be.

I'm not sure if he was married to Kathie at the time, but Frank Gifford used to fuck Johnny Carson's wife. In fact, they (Frank and Carson's wife) had a special apartment just for their clandestine meet-ups.

Years later, someone questioned Frank about it and he claimed he couldn't remember anything.

I wish casting agents would go back to casting pretty people.

My God, if ‘Charlie’s Angels’ had been created in 2024, I shudder to think what the "Angels" would look like.

For that photo to be so front-lit-blasted, she must’ve rented a ride on the spacecraft orbiting and photographing the sun, and stared right into a solar flare. Doesn’t even look like a younger version of her own self there. lol

[quote] You are a perfect little cunt

"I am honored," as T'Pring said to Spock under similar circumstances.

You can see it immediately she a pretty girl next door. That's all, dime a dozen…Hun.

From that unrecognizable photo on her new book cover to the sustained bitterness toward that casting agent decades later, seems Kathy Lee has never gotten over the humiliation of Frank's affair with the flight attendant during the heyday of their marriage, and she's been trying to prove she's good (and pretty) enough ever since.

(Her feelings are understandable, but her neediness shows a lack of meaningful growth.)

Jaclyn Smith was not much as an actor, but she was truly beautiful. I remember once reading an interview with a director of photography on the show who said he had never worked with an actress who was so photogenic from every angle as she was. He said all the other Angels always needed to be filmed from one specific side, but with Jaclyn it never mattered.

It would have been a much better show had Angela Lansbury taken Farrah's place instead of that bitch Cheryl Ladd

I didn't think Jaclyn Smith was that beautiful.

I doubt this happened. I think the casting agent told her she wasn’t right for Charlie's Angels, and over the years she’s turned the story into, “she told me I wasn’t attractive enough.”

Kathie Lee looks like a 25 year old thanks to Balance of Nature!

Sometimes you just have to be patient and wait for that part that's right for you. If you're not pretty enough for Charlie's Angels, you just might be pretty enough for Balance of Nature commercials. Good things come to those that wait.

She wasn’t.

[quote]R34 I didn't think Jaclyn Smith was that beautiful.

Smith is conventionally beautiful in a very smoothly symmetrical way that appealed to the average American masses.

She really had no personality or light in her eyes that elevated her above mannequin status, but for the lightweight mini series etc. she did she was fine.

That anecdote is a demented ramble. She blames the agent for being “cruel” because she didn’t “leave it at that” by answering a question she was asked? And then Gifford kicks up her leg and flounces?

I wonder how many times Gifford was called whacky, nutty, or just plain exhausting?

"Carnivals got the fun!"

And one was a singing police chaplain from Tulsa, OK

Bitch would have made them stop the story so she could sing some fuckin' cornball song

All that is fine. More importantly, did Cody ever come out?

Remember that this bitch went to Oral Roberts U. and worked for Anita Bryant.

r34=Bootsy Gumdrops

[quote]and I threw up my leg. ‘When you’re casting a cartoon, let me know.’

Bucky Beaver?

^ Magic snatch bags a halfback

I just knew about this person because Mike Myers in drag as überfan Linda Richman was invited by Barbra Streisand to join her on stage . Making her way through the audience Linda pointed at someone and yelled: "Eat your heart out Kathie Lee!"

Then i found datalounge and got educated.

"Eat your heart out Kathie Lee!"

Well it wasn’t CHARLIE’S GARGOYLES they were casting.

She didn’t look that much different than Kate Jackson back then.

^ Oh, Kathie Lee, honey, don't you have better things to do than hang out on Gay sites defending your faded semi-beauty?

It’s not wrong for an agent to help a client understand which types of roles they are right for.

I mean, if she’d been pushing to be submitted for Dreamgirls, they’d be doing a favor in letting her know she wasn’t a good candidate, right?

That woman at R31 looks so trashy. Frank had basic tastes in women.

[quote] if ‘Charlie’s Angels’ had been created in 2024, I shudder to think what the "Angels" would look like.

Your nightmare is reality., circa 2019:

Sorry but nobody’s thirsty for skim milf.

She certainly can hold a grudge from what was reported over the years.

I remember when she left 'Regis and Kathie Lee' in 2000, it was because of an incident a few years earlier. According to 'sources' at the show, Andrew Lloyd Webber offered the role of 'Norma Desmond' to KLG when Buckley was leaving in September, 1996, for a limited run through December. KLG met with producer Michael Gellman and the big wigs at ABC to see if they would honor her request to take those three months off from the show, and return in January, 1997. They told her no. She felt she lost the opportunity of a lifetime and vowed once her contract was over (in 2000) she would leave the show and never work for ABC again. (Gifford did fill in as an alternate for actress Carol Burnett in the musical revue 'Putting It Together' on Tuesday nights from December, 1999 - February, 2000).

KLG kept her vow - she has never returned to work for ABC over the past 24 years. As a matter of fact, Barbara Walters asked her to step into the moderator's chair on 'The View' to replace Rosie O'Donnell in September, 2007. KLG reminded Walters she would never work for ABC again. A year later, KLG joined the third hour of 'Today' - the competition for 'The View' and lasted 11 seasons.

R34 you are in minority on that one

Sorry but I side with KLG on that one R59. It was only three months, and it was the chance of a lifetime. I don't blame her for being pissed. They could have had co hosts fill in.

Regis and Kelly Ripped one had numerous side projects they worked on when they were doing the show. Gelman and Gifford hated each other, and he was being the petty queen he's long been rumored to be.

I did not know she was still alive.

Kathie Lee sure as shit is no Miss Kate Jackson. I will concede however that she was prettier than David Doyle.

R61 I agree with you. I think they should've given her the time off but Gellman had to prove who's boss. Whether or not she would've been good in 'Sunset Boulevard' I don't know, but I do know the show would've sold out every night with the 'Regis and Kathie Lee' fraus visiting NYC that season. I also think she would've been a much better moderator on 'The View' then Goldberg has been.

[Quote] I did not know she was still alive.

Oh, what a surprise. R62.

They probably didn't mind if she quit the show to be on Broadway. If they really thought she was valuable to the show, they would've subbed in a guest host during her stint.

Producers often are unequal in their treatment of actors.

Sally Struthers asked for a little time off from All in the Family for some big movie opportunity. No. She then asked for a modified schedule for a few weeks, like missing rehearsal days. No.

The next season, the producers gave Rob Reiner time off for an outside project.

The mind boggles at the idea of Kathie Lee as Norma Desmond.

KLG would have been a replacement for a replacement. At that point it's more about making more bank than it is about critical acclaim. Look at Chicago's stunt casting of the week. SB had gotten its raves and won its Tonys with Glenn.

KLG was a big name, although a very polarizing one. But it would have generated buzz. Howard Stern alone would have given it publicity.

Like her or not, Kathie Lee is a pretty woman.

^ Stevie Wonder has spoken 🙄

[quote] Like her or not, Kathie Lee is a pretty woman.

She's attractive, like the lady who lives down the street.

Kathie Lee was eventually in a Broadway show, though. I hear she was a total pro.

She had a annoying tv commercial actress look

I thought that all Balance Of Nature did was give you Jamie Lee grade stools

[quote] Like her or not, Kathie Lee is a pretty woman.

We know you think of yourself that way, Kathie Lee.

R73 It was a Broadway revue of Sondheim songs. It wasn't one where she acted, it was a show where she sang and danced with three other performers. She was only in on Tuesday nights (the deadest night in the theater) as the 'alternate' to star Carol Burnett, who made it clear she wouldn't do eight shows a week when she was offered the role. She did it for two and a half months (December to mid-February).

Gurl that sister is one throbbing bag of anxiety! Can't live without a man! SMH, gurl needs to go to that Adam and Eve website instead of shopping QVC.and TCB with sum vibrating love appliances!

[quote]Kathie Lee was eventually in a Broadway show, though. I hear she was a total pro.

Honey, I WROTE a fucking Broadway show! And don't you queens forget it!

He was right

[quote]R67 Sally Struthers asked for a little time off from All in the Family for some big movie opportunity. No.

Right. It was for “The Day of the Locust” and Karen Black ended up doing the part.

[quote]The next season, the producers gave Rob Reiner time off for an outside project.

Of course when it was one of the male stars who asked, accommodations were made. I think Struthers sued to break her contract over this inequity but lost.

[quote] The mind boggles at the idea of Kathie Lee as Norma Desmond.

Wait, you mean she was going to play Norma? I assumed she was playing Max von Mayerling.

Fuck producers. I COULD HAVE BEEN THE MERYL STREEP!

^ I COULD HAVE BEEN IN KING KONG!

M, dear -- the title role had already been cast.

^ Yeah and you sucked in that monkey suit

And?

^ Well, I guess Dino De Laurentiis got what he was after, a blow job from an ape

Ach!

Amateurs again!

I'm 100% certain Kathy has said very direct and nasty things to people herself. She wants to be immune.

And she looks like Sunny Hostin in that pic.

In the morning in the evening ain’t we got fun?