Jaclyn Smith Recalls Chance Run-In with Warren Beatty Before She Was Famous (Exclusive)

Jaclyn Smith is dishing on her confession-packed new memoir “I Once Knew a Guy Named Charlie.” 

“Extra” spoke with Jaclyn, an iconic Hollywood superstar who has been living her life in the spotlight for 50 years. But this world-famous beauty didn‘t start in Hollywood — she was a shy girl from Texas.

“It was a very improbable life for a girl from Houston, Texas, that thought she‘d open a ballet school,” Jaclyn said.

Sharing her childhood dream, she recalled, “I was maybe gonna be in the New York City or American Ballet Theater and study with Balanchine.”

Smith studied at Patrick Swayze’s mom Patty‘s famed studio in Houston. She shared, “I remember he was gorgeous as a kid and talented as a kid. And they were running around the studio — he, his sister, and the other brother.”

She continued, “And then cut to me moving out here and he’s grown and Patsy calls me and says he‘s a contractor, and I hired him to do work on one of my houses that I purchased, and the rest is history.”

Before Jaclyn moved to L.A., she went to New York in the early ‘70s, got married, went on dance auditions, and did commercials.

She had an incredible chance encounter with Hollywood‘s hottest leading man at the time, Warren Beatty.

Smith shared, “He goes, ‘Hey, I know you.’ And I look and it’s this gorgeous man, Warren Beatty. I said, ‘How do you know me? I mean, that’s shocking. How do you know me?‘ And he said, ‘Well, I saw ‘The Adventurers,’ which was a film I had done, a very small part. He said, ‘I stayed till the end of the movie to see your name and read the credits, and you spell it in a very unusual way.‘”

While they were chatting, Jaclyn’s then-husband Roger Davis told Warren, “Oh, she only does commercials.”

She noted, “I was so shy. I didn’t know how to speak up, but I learned a lot from that moment to always speak up.”

It was a lesson she took to Los Angeles, where she landed her first TV role, on “The Partridge Family.”

That role led to an acting gig on “Switch” with Robert Wagner — now one of her dearest friends — who gave her a tip that changed her life!

She revealed, “He said, ‘You know, Aaron Spelling is doing a new show and I suggested you.’ And I said, ‘Oh, well, that sounds great.’”

The show was “Charlie’s Angels,” which became a massive hit and transformed Jaclyn, Farrah Fawcett and Kate Jackson into overnight superstars.

Smith described that kind of “bigger-than-life” fame, saying, “It’s going to follow you into the grocery store. It’s going to change your life and complicate it. It gives and it takes.”

Jaclyn also recalled how the show almost had a different name!

“Originally, it was called ‘Alley Cats,’ and they called Kate in,” Jaclyn said. “We would wear black leather and live off an alley... And she’s talking to Aaron, and her eyes drift to a painting behind him, and it‘s of three angels. And she said, ’It shouldn‘t be called ‘Alley Cats.’”

After “Charlie’s Angels,” Smith became a trailblazing business mogul, one of the first celebrities with her own branded clothing line when Kmart came calling.

Smith said she created her brand “to enhance the lives of ordinary people because my mother always said, ‘Beauty shouldn’t be a privilege. It should be for everyone.’”

Jaclyn’s mom was also there when the actress was battling cancer.

Getting emotional, Smith noted, “I was so happy I was someone’s daughter and I could call my mom. She made it okay.”

Jaclyn has been cancer-free and happily married to her fourth husband, Dr. Brad Allen, for almost 30 years.

She met her future husband when he performed a life-saving surgery on her father’s heart.

She gushed of their first big date, “He was so unfettered with Hollywood and he was so clean and different and we talked until 5 in the morning.”