Jaclyn Smith has described the moment she discovered that her first husband, actor Roger Davis, had allegedly been having an affair with the couple’s real estate agent.
The Charlie’s Angels star, now 80, recounts the episode in her memoir, I Once Knew a Guy Named Charlie, recalling how a chance encounter with Warren Beatty became entwined with the painful revelation.
Smith married Davis in 1968 after meeting him at a casting call. She wrote that they had initially appeared to be perfectly matched, sharing an abstinence from alcohol, a love of architecture and similar tastes in food.
“We both didn’t drink, we loved architecture, we were both actors, we were both from the South, we liked the same food,” she told People. “We liked everything the same, but boy, did I have a lot to learn.”
According to Smith’s account, she was having lunch with a friend in New York when she suggested they visit an apartment she and Davis were close to renting.
On the way there, they encountered Beatty, whom Smith described as “the leading man at the time”. He invited her to audition for a forthcoming film, but she wrote that Davis soon appeared and told the actor she “only does commercials”.
Smith said she later learned that Davis had been upstairs in the apartment with the estate agent, a woman identified in the book as Laura.
The revelation came after Laura’s husband allegedly propositioned Smith. When she rejected him, Smith wrote, he told her that his wife and Davis had been having an affair.
Smith said she then confronted Laura, who confirmed the allegation. She recalled being unable to accept that two people she trusted had betrayed her.
“Laura was telling me to my face what she’d done, but I still couldn’t believe it,” Smith wrote.
She said Davis denied the infidelity and claimed Laura was merely jealous of her. Smith nevertheless described the discovery as the point at which she realised the marriage was unlikely to survive.
“I mean, I was pretty naive and in love with love, but there’s a line,” she told People. “When the paint starts to peel, get out, because it doesn’t change.”
Smith wrote that she remained in the marriage for years, choosing to believe Davis rather than leave immediately. The couple ultimately divorced in 1975.
She later played Kelly Garrett in Charlie’s Angels from 1976 to 1981 and has been married to Brad Allen since 1997.
