Charlie’s Angels actress Jaclyn Smith has revealed that she has lived with an “unusual” form of obsessive compulsive disorder since the age of 12.
Smith, now 80, writes about the condition in her memoir, I Once Knew a Guy Named Charlie, which was released on September 8. She told People that her OCD developed after the death of her uncle, who died from the effects of alcoholism aged 54.
“It’s really an unusual form of OCD,” Smith said. “It all revolved around loved ones and prayer and sacrifice and manifesting.”
She said the rituals helped to ease her anxiety and worries about the safety of those closest to her. After her uncle’s death, she began praying obsessively in an attempt to protect other members of her family.
In the book, Smith recalls that the stress began to manifest itself physically, including through a missed period. She said a doctor told her she might have difficulty having children because her hormones were “all messed up”.
“On a purely human level, it felt cruel to tell an anxious, grieving adolescent girl that she could be infertile,” she wrote. “He was the doctor, so I believed him, and my anxiety doubled instantly.”
Smith said she later recognised the disorder while studying psychology at college. Although she found the diagnosis difficult, she also felt relieved to have an explanation for what she had experienced.
“It’s not fun being diagnosed (or self-diagnosing) with a psychiatric disorder, but at the same time I felt relieved,” she wrote. “There was a name for it, and I wasn’t alone!”
Despite the earlier warning about her fertility, Smith went on to have two children with her third husband, cinematographer Anthony B. Richmond. She has described motherhood as “the best part of my life”.
Smith said her children, Gaston, 44, and Spencer-Margaret, 40, had also helped her understand that some things could not be controlled.
“You just want to catch every raindrop, but I’ve learned as I’ve gotten older that you can’t control everything,” she said. “You just can’t.”
Smith, who played Kelly Garrett in Charlie’s Angels, has been married to Brad Allen for more than 28 years. She was previously married to Roger Davis from 1968 until 1975.
