Kathie Lee Gifford Reveals She Auditioned for “Charlie's Angels” but Was Rejected for This Reason (Exclusive)
Kathie Lee Gifford Reveals She Auditioned for “Charlie's Angels” but Was Rejected for This Reason (Exclusive)
Charlotte Triggs, Brianne TracyWed, July 1, 2026 at 3:00 PM UTC
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Kathie Lee Gifford at her home outside of Nashville on June 9Credit: John Shearer -
Kathie Lee Gifford recalls being rejected for Charlie's Angels and told she wasn't “Jaclyn Smith gorgeous”
Gifford reflects on her career highlights, including co-hosting Live! with Regis and Kathie Lee and Today with Hoda Kotb
Now living in Tennessee, Gifford focuses on writing religious nonfiction and is releasing a documentary about her life
Before her morning show career, Kathie Lee Gifford nearly answered Charlie's call.
In this week's PEOPLE cover story, on newsstands Friday, Gifford, 72, recalls getting an opportunity to audition for the TV series Charlie's Angels, after Kate Jackson's departure from the show in 1979.
"My agent called me and said, 'You've got to get down to Aaron Spelling Productions. They want to see you for Charlie's Angels,'" she recalls. "I had the flu, but he said, 'You've got to, Kathie.'"
When she arrived at the audition, Gifford got a cold greeting from the casting agent.
"[She] looks me up and down, and she goes, 'You're not right for Charlie's Angels,'" she says. "I said, 'Okay, why?' And she goes, 'We're looking for a pretty girl. And, well, you're not Farrah [Fawcett]. You're not Jaclyn Smith gorgeous. That's what we're looking for.' I started to laugh inside because it got meaner and meaner. I opened the door to leave, and I went, 'When you're casting a cartoon, let me know!' And I thought, 'I'm going to be just fine in this business.'"
Kathie Lee Gifford on ABC's 'Constantinople' in 1977Credit: ABC/Getty
Gifford remembers being told by another casting agent once that she was "the worst actress I have ever seen," but she didn't let that stop her.
"You just can't let other people define you," she says. "I never was the prettiest at a casting call. I never had the best body. I never was the best singer or actress, but I had the hardest work ethic of everybody, and I made people laugh, even on auditions. And it served me very, very well."
Kathie Lee Gifford in 1981Credit: Harry Langdon/Getty
After her big break on Name That Tune in 1977, Gifford did a stint substitute anchoring Good Morning America in the early '80s. Then, in 1985, she began co-hosting Live! with Regis and Kathie Lee — then called The Morning Show — with Regis Philbin, and the two became great friends.
"Regis would tease everybody he liked, and if he wasn't happy, he'd go, 'Quickly and efficiently!' And I would go, 'Aging!'" she says. "Oh, I loved him. He was so much fun. We never had a cross word in 15 years. I miss him every day."
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Eight years after she left Live! in 2000, the Today show asked Gifford to co-host its fourth hour with Hoda Kotb.
"She was a trained journalist, and I didn't ever want to be," she says. "I didn't want an IFB [earpiece], and I didn't want to have cards. One day we were out on Rockefeller Plaza, and all the cards flew away, and I go, 'It's a miracle!' And finally she got rid of the IFB, and that's when our show took off."
Gifford left Today in 2019 to pursue other passions.
"I missed being an artist and writing," she says. "People come up to me all the time and say, 'How could you leave your dream job twice? At the height of all your success you left Regis and then you left Today with Hoda.' I always smile at them, and I go, 'You're just assuming it was my dream job.' The Today show was never my dream job, but I did it well."
Next, Gifford — who has spent the past seven years living in Tennessee and writing religious nonfiction, including her newest release, Nero and Paul— is set to release a documentary about her life.
“The stuff that made all the tabloids, the really painful stuff? You can't ignore it,” she says. “There are a lot of things that people believe about me. They're not true!”
Kathie Lee Gifford at her home outside of Nashville on June 9Credit: John Shearer
Through it all, Gifford is proud to say she's "never been a different person on camera."
"I've never separated my spiritual life and my secular life," she says. "It's all the same, and I don't try to be everything to all people. I used to say, 'I'm not everybody's cup of tea, but I'm a lot of people's Sangria or Pinot Grigio or Chardonnay.'"
Credit: John Shearer
For more from Kathie Lee Gifford, pick up the new issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands Friday.
on People
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
