Charlie's Angels
In 1975, she met with Rookies producers Aaron Spelling and Leonard Goldberg to discuss her contractual obligation to star in another television series for Spelling/Goldberg Productions upon that show's cancellation. Goldberg told her of a series that was available—because "every network has passed on it", The Alley Cats. Spelling said that when he told Jackson the title of the series had to be changed and asked her what she would like to call it, she replied, Charlie's Angels, pointing to a picture of three female angels on the wall behind Spelling.
At the beginning of the third season of Charlie's Angels, Jackson was offered the Meryl Streep role in the feature film Kramer vs Kramer (1979), but was forced to turn it down because Spelling told her that they were unable to rearrange the hit show's shooting schedule to give her time off to do the film. At the end of the third season, Jackson left the show saying, "I served it well and it served me well, now it's time to go."
In 1982, Jackson starred opposite her Rookies co-star, Michael Ontkean, and Harry Hamlin in the feature film Making Love, directed by Arthur Hiller. It was a movie some considered to be ahead of its time, and attempted to deal sensitively with the issue of homosexuality. However, it received tepid reviews and did poorly at the box office.
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