Kathie Lee Gifford was told she wasn’t “pretty” enough to be an actress.
Kathie Lee Gifford was once told by a casting agent that she wasn’t pretty enough
The 70-year-old star – who is best known for career hosting TV shows such as ‘Today’ and ‘Live with Regis and Kathie Lee’ – explained that she had heard that ‘Charlie’s Angels’ producers were looking for a new star in the late 1970s and she wanted to be a part of it, but a casting agent at the time told her she wasn’t “right” for the hit crime drama series because of her looks.
She told People: “She goes, ‘Let me tell you right now, you’re not right for ‘Charlie’s Angels’…because we’re looking for a pretty girl. You know, like Jaclyn Smith pretty, gorgeous, gorgeous’.”
“It was like kicking me to the gut. I started to think it was funny. I really did.”
The TV star then explained that she quickly learned to see the incident in good humour and made a joke to the casting director on her way out.
She said: “And as I’m walking out, I looked at her and I said, ‘Okay, well, thank you so much.
“I said, ‘When you’re casting a cartoon,’ and I threw up my leg. ‘When you’re casting a cartoon, let me know,'” she continues. “I left thanking God that I could laugh about it.”
Kathie alleged that the “cruel” agent did not apologise for her comments and still remembers her name all these years later.
She said: “I started to see, first of all, what a bitch she was. What an unnecessary b***** she was. She didn’t say ‘Sorry, honey, have a nice life. You’re not what we’re looking for.’
“She had to be cruel. She had to be the exact opposite of what my dad taught me to be. The fact that I remember her name to this day is because she was so cruel.”
