Farrah Fawcett star Lee Majors, were frequent tennis partners with producer Aaron Spelling. Spelling and his business partner eventually chose Fawcett to play Jill Munroe in their upcoming made-for-TV movie, "Charlie's Angels", a movie of the week which aired on March 21, 1976, on ABC. The movie starred Fawcett (then billed as Farrah Fawcett-Majors), Kate Jackson, and Jaclyn Smith as private investigators for Townsend Associates, a detective agency run by a reclusive multimillionaire whom the women had never met. Voiced by John Forsythe, the Charles Townsend character presented cases and dispensed advice via a speakerphone to his core team of three female
Charlie's Angels (season 1) #5 in the Nielsen ratings. The pilot film featured actor David Ogden Stiers as the character Scott Woodville, a male liaison to Charlie. Woodville was dropped for the series as it was felt the character was too severe and that it was unnecessary for Charlie to have two male liaisons. Fellow liaison Bosley (played by Doyle) was kept as someone the writers could use to add humor to the episodes. The show's three female leads were launched to greater heights in their careers, with Fawcett-Majors proving to be the most popular of the trio. Although Jackson and Smith were overshadowed