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A Charlie's Angel Finally Bares All

Cheryl Ladd on her revealing 'Charlie's Angels' days.

By Lynette Rice in Entertainment Weekly

o celebrate the 40th anniversary of Charlie's Angels on September 22nd, we asked Cheryl Ladd (she played Kris Munroe from 1977 to 1981) to expose the (nearly) naked truth about a very revealing moment from the iconic series.

It seems like you wore bikinis way more than your costars did.

That is absolutely correct.

Were you ever given the option of a one-piece, or was it strictly bikini, bikini, bikini?

I always tried to put a one-piece on and the producers would say, "No, Aaron [Spelling, the Executive Producer] loves your tummy." They had me in these crop tops and everything because Aaron said, "She's got the cutest belly button in the history of belly buttons."

In the 1978 episode "Angel on High," you're wearing a particularly revealing bikini to meet Kelly (Jaclyn Smith) for breakfast by a pool. Who picked that out?

Me! That was my rebellion. I had been a good sport up until then, but I was pretty fed up with running around in a bikini all the time. I was someone's mother! I had to protest, and that was the only way I knew how, because I had already [complained] to Aaron. So I found the tiniest bikini -- it was not approved for TV. I looked almost naked in it! The director didn't know about it, so when I dropped the robe he gasped and said, "Cheryl, we can't film that bathing suit." I said, "Well, Aaron wants me in a bikini so this is what he's going to get. We're running late and we gotta shoot the scene. Let's go, I'm not changing." He filmed the whole scene.

That took a lot of guts.

The show was ranked five in the first season, and when I came on, we were numbers one and two. So I felt I had a little power in that conversation.

Did your bikini make the cut for broadcast?

If you watch the episode, one of the close-ups is blurred out because so much of me is pouring out of the suit. It wouldn't pass muster on TV at the time.

How did Aaron respond?

He sent me a note through the wardrobe department that said, "Tell the little rebel I got the message and that it won't happen again, right?" He was mad, but he got the message. He didn't ask nearly as much after that.

Cheryl Ladd will be costarring in the thriller Unforgettable in April.  

Ron Howard Meets the Beatles

The 'Happy Days' star and Oscar-winning director on his new Fab Four doc.

By Eric Renner Brown in Entertainment Weekly

he Oscar-winning director re-creates Beatlemania with The Beatles: Eight Days a Week: The Touring Years (available on Amazon and for streaming on Hulu), a documentary look at the Fab Four as they revolutionized popular music.

The Beatles' story has been told countless times. How did you make it fresh?

RON HOWARD When I began to delve into it, I began to see the makings of an ensemble survival story -- where they're all sort of trapped in this world together and all they have is each other.

What makes a film like this resonant half a century later?

HOWARD I was excited by that we can offer audiences who think they know something about the Beatles but don't really have any idea. Maybe I'm talking about millennials here, who have heard all the songs and love the music and know there was a thing called Beatlemania but have no way of grasping the context and the intensity of their impact and the fact that they were pioneering a lot of what has become standard in terms of popular culture.

Growing up in the '60s, what was your connection to the Beatles?

HOWARD I saw that first Ed Sullivan show, along with most of America. That was February 9, and my birthday is March 1. I was so excited about it that I wanted a Beatle wig for my 10th birthday. I also wanted Beatle boots, but my parents couldn't find those. But I did get a Beatle wig, which I wore through my entire 10th birthday party -- and then got tossed out with my invaluable Pete Rose rookie card when I went to college.

To what extent were the surviving Beatles, and George Harrison's and John Lennon's widows, involved in the doc?

HOWARD If there was any request that was really significant in my mind, it came from Paul [McCartney] in my first phone conversation with him. He said, "So much has been talked about in terms of the conflict and so forth. All that conflict, that's all true.... But when you look at this particular period, John and I were really close. We were working together well. We loved the band and we loved each other.... That is true, and if the movie could ever convey that, I'd love that." That was his only request.

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WHEN THE BEATLES RULED THE WORLD

By Peter Travers in Rolling Stone

Eight Days a Week
Directed by Ron Howard

othing revelatory here. But director Ron Howard catches the exhilarating kick of Beatlemania as the band toured 15 countries from 1963 to 1966. "By the end, it became quite complicated, but at the beginning, things were really simple," says Paul McCartney. True, that. In fresh interviews, McCartney and Ringo Starr offer comments that Howard joins to archival observations from John Lennon and George Harrison. There are hints at what soured the Beatles on live performance (crowd frenzy, crappy amplification) and pushed them toward in-studio experimentation. The Fab Four claim their bond got them through, wondering how Elvis did it alone. Sweet trumps bitter as we revel in the youthful sights and sounds that peaked at Shea Stadium in 1965. Howard backgrounds the doc in an era of civil rights, but he keeps coming back to the music, and the band's delight in making it. Good move. It's a joy forever. * * *  

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