Kate Jackson is an American actress, director, and producer. She was born in Birmingham, Alabama as Lucy Kate Jackson, the daughter of Ruth and Hogan Jackson, a business executive. She attended The Brooke Hill School for Girls and then went on to the University of Mississippi, but during her sophomore year at the University of Mississippi, she moved to New York City to study acting at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. Kate worked as an NBC page at the network's Rockefeller Center studios and did summer stock in Vermont before landing a small role as the mysterious, silent ghost Daphne Harridge on the 1960s supernatural daytime quasi-soap opera Dark Shadows. In 1971, Jackson had a starring role as Tracy Collins in Night of Dark Shadows, the second feature film based on the daytime serial.
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, Kate 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, she left Charlie's Angels saying, "I served it well and it served me well, now it's time to go."
Kate made what was for the time a whopping $6,000,000 deal with CBS to star in a comedy series. She elected instead to accept the starring role in Scarecrow and Mrs. King, a one-hour action drama in which she played housewife Amanda King opposite Bruce Boxleitner's spy, code-named "Scarecrow". She also co-produced the series with Warner Brothers Television through her production company, Shoot the Moon Enterprises. It was during this series that she developed a keen interest in directing. When asked on the set one afternoon "What do you do tomorrow?", Kate replied, "I don't work, I just direct."
During filming of the show's fourth season, in January 1987, Kate elected to receive a mammogram for the first time, a test which led to the diagnosis of a small malignant tumor. This time, her series' producer — the only person she told about the diagnosis—worked with her to reschedule her work on the show. Checking into a hospital under an alias, her course of action was to undergo a lumpectomy. Kate returned to the series a week later, working with the aid of painkillers through five weeks of radiation treatments.
Receiving a "clean bill of health", she followed up the cancelled Scarecrow and Mrs. King by taking on the main role in Baby Boom, a 1988 TV sitcom version of the original movie starring Diane Keaton, but it lasted only one season.
In September 1989, another mammogram indicated residual breast cancer which the previous operation had missed. This time the course of action was a partial mastectomy and reconstructive surgery. “The range of emotions you go through is amazing”, she says. “But I made a conscious decision to be positive.” Jaclyn Smith cancelled a trip to New York City, meeting Jackson at her doctor’s office before she checked into the hospital. “I’d been crying before I got there,” says Smith. “Then I saw Kate, and she had a smile on her face. She said, 'We've gotten through other things, like divorces, and we'll get though this.' And we did.” When Kate awoke after surgery, “The first thing I heard was good news. My lymph nodes were clean.” Back at home she read medical journals, switched to a macrobiotic diet and came to terms with her reconstructive surgery. “I'm never going to have the perfect body”, she says. “I'm not into facelifts and lip poufs. But I can wear a strapless evening gown, a bustier or whatever is required for a part.”
Kate starred in several TV movies over the next several years, while working for breast cancer awareness. In 1995, on the heels of a night filming schedule on location, she checked herself into an Alabama hospital for tests due to a feeling of malaise and an inability to sleep. After several tests, Dr. Gerald Pohost, now head of cardiology at U.S.C., diagnosed that Jackson had been born with an atrial septal defect, a tiny hole in her heart which had previously gone undetected despite Jackson's active lifestyle. She underwent open heart surgery to correct the defect, although as cardiologist Dr. P. K. Shah related in a February 3, 2006, appearance with Jackson on Larry King Live, the current treatment no longer involves surgery. Kate has dedicated herself to speaking out on the subjects of breast cancer and heart health and in 2003, was awarded the "Power of Love" award by the American Heart Association for her work.
Since then she has appeared in TV movies and has made numerous guest appearances on TV. However, she dialed down her professional pursuits when her son, Charles Taylor Jackson, was adopted in 1995. She stated at the time, "I don't see how I can go about a directing career and be a good mom at the same time. And if I'm not a good mom, I don't think it matters much what else I do well." Kate has a recurring role on Criminal Minds. In August 2008, she was a guest judge on an episode of fellow Angel Jaclyn Smith's Bravoreality series Shear Genius, presiding over a hairdressing competition to update the original trio's signature hairdos.
On August 3, 2010, it was announced that Jackson would be writing a memoir, to be published by Gallery Books, an imprint of Simon and Schuster. Titled The Smart One, the book is scheduled be released on May 3, 2011.
Couldn't find anything on Kate's spiritual beliefs. Please pray, this week, for Kate. Pray that God will reach specifically into her life to draw her into a relationship with His Son, Jesus Christ.
--Heidi
