Shelley Hack

Hack was born in Greenwich, Connecticut,[1] the eldest of six children. Her father was a Wall Street financial analyst, and her mother was a former Conover model. She graduated from Greenwich Academy and Smith College, where she spent her junior year studying archeology at the University of Sydney.[2]

Hack began her career as a teen fashion model and became the face of Revlon's "Charlie" perfume from the mid-1970s until the early 1980s. Life proclaimed her one of the "million-dollar faces" in the beauty industry able to negotiate previously unheard-of lucrative and exclusive deals with giant cosmetics companies, were instantly recognizable, and whose names became known to the general public. Hack ranked among a handful of 1970s "supermodels".[3]

Hack's feature-film debut was a bit part in Woody Allen's Academy Award-winning film Annie Hall (1977), as "Street Stranger". In Hack's second film appearance, she was the leading lady in the Joe Brooks romance drama If Ever I See You Again. Shortly thereafter she was cast as Kate Jackson's replacement on the television series Charlie's Angels for one season (1979–1980), playing the sophisticated character Tiffany Welles. She beat out many competitors for the role, including Michelle Pfeiffer and Barbara Bach.[2] ABC released Hack from her contract in February 1980. A statement later issued by Spelling-Goldberg read: "When she signed her contract for the series, Miss Hack had a personal agreement that she could review her continuation with the show at the end of her first season since series television represented an enormous change in her career and lifestyle,"[4] implying that Hack was included in the decision to exit Charlie's Angels. In an interview, Hack said, "They can say I didn't work out, but it isn't true. What happened was a network war. A business decision was made. Change the timeslot or bring on some new publicity. How to get publicity? A new Angel hunt. Who is the obvious person to replace? I am — the new kid on the block."[5] Hack later said she "never expected to be there more than a year and I wasn't. I did my year and I moved on."[6]

Hack thereafter played a variety of supporting roles. Hack received positive reviews in Martin Scorsese's film The King of Comedy (1983), in which she played Cathy Long. She starred with Annette O'Toole and Meredith Baxter Birney in Vanities (1981), part of Standing Room Only, an HBO series of adaptations of stage plays. She had a leading role in the cult horror film The Stepfather and was a regular on two short-lived TV series of the 1980s, Cutter to Houston (1983) and Jack and Mike (1986–87). She had several more notable guest appearances in film and television up until 1997. Hack narrated the audiobook The Lord of Hawkfell Island, for which AudioFile stated "Shelley Hack's mellifluous voice brings this Viking tale alive."[7]

In 1987, Hack, a former smoker, was named the national chairperson for the National Lung Association's and American Medical Association's campaign to educate young women on the dangers of cigarette smoking.

Hack completed a master's degree in business administration from New York Institute of Technology[8] and shortly afterwards retired from acting. Hack became a voting registration and polling station supervisor in the 1997 elections in Bosnia-Herzegovina and produced the first-ever televised presidential debates there as well. She also produced the debates in Sarajevo, Mostar, and the two in Banja Luka. In 1997, Hack founded the Shelley Hack Media Consultancy (SHMC). Hack also worked for two years with the largest media conglomerate in Eastern Europe.[8] Hack worked in the television sector for 10 years, creating ethnically diverse television programs in Eastern Europe. Additionally, she became a member of the Pacific Council on International Policy (PCIP).[9]

In October 2000, appearing as herself, Hack returned to the Charlie's Angels Townsend Agency office as a guest host on Biography, which featured profiles of several Charlie's Angels stars during '"Hello Angels Week". In January 2008, Hack appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show. The episode, "Classic Americana",[10] featured Hack as Revlon's Charlie perfume model in a 1976 television ad with Bobby Short at the piano.[11][12] "It was a time when women were changing", Hack said; "women looked at [the ad] and said 'I want to be like that.'" [10]

Hack and her husband Harry Winer are co-presidents of the production company Smash Media, which develops and produces content for motion pictures, television and new media.[8]

Hack has been married to Harry Winer since 1990. The couple have one child, daughter Devon Rose Winer (b. 1990).[13][14]

• Shelley Hack at IMDb