A Late Night Call Led To Charlie’s Signature Voice On Charlie’s Angels

John Forsythe was not originally intended to be the voice of the titular Charlie from the 1976 show “Charlie’s Angels,” and it was a late-night call that got the actor to get involved. In an interview with the Archive of American Television, Forsythe brings up how, while reading well into midnight, he got a call from producer Aaron Spelling. Spelling, who needed to get “Angels” to air that Monday, despite knowing the show would be successful, no longer had a Charlie. The producer convinced Forsythe, who had recently finished the series “To Rome with Love,” to come over to the studio and record the lines for the show. Forsythe would do so while wearing a trench coat over his pajamas. Not long after, he was offered the chance to be in the rest of the series and agreed, as he was able to record his lines remotely while working on other productions. 

As for what happened to the original actor who played Charlie before Forsythe — in an interview on “Larry King Live,” Forsythe, talking about his time on “Charlie’s Angels,” says, “I did it because Aaron Spelling was my friend and he had some difficulty with an actor that had to be replaced because of some drinking problem.” Forsythe would go on to play Charlie throughout the entire series, as well as the 2000 film adaptation and its 2003 sequel, which would also be the actor’s final film role (via NY Times).