Jackson began her career in the late 1960s in summer stock, before landing her first major television roles in Dark Shadows (1970 - 71) and The Rookies (1972 -76). She also appeared in the film Night of Dark Shadows (1971). The huge success of her role as Sabrina Duncan saw her appear on the front cover of Time magazine, alongside co-stars Farrah Fawcett and Jaclyn Smith, while her role as Mrs. King won her Germany's Bravo Golden Otto Award for Best Female TV Star three times (1986 - 88). She went on to star in the short-lived television adaptation of the film Baby Boom (1988 - 89). She has continued to star in numerous TV movies, including Quiet Killer (1992), Empty Cradle (1993) and Satan's School for Girls (2000), a remake of the 1973 TV movie of the same name in which she also starred.

Jackson was born in Birmingham, Alabama, the daughter of Ruth (Shepherd) and Hogan Jackson, a business executive. She attended The Brooke Hill School for Girls while residing in Mountain Brook and then went on to the University of Mississippi, where she was a member of the Delta Rho chapter of the Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority, 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.

Jackson worked as an NBC page at the network's Rockefeller Center studios and did summer stock at the Stowe Playhouse in Stowe, Vermont before landing a 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. She was joined by her Dark Shadows castmates Lara Parker, David Selby, Grayson Hall, Nancy Barrett, John Karlen, and Thayer David. This movie was more loosely based on the series than House of Dark Shadows was, and it did not fare as well at the box office as the first film did. The same year, she worked with James Stewart in two episodes of the short-lived sitcom, The Jimmy Stewart Show.

She then appeared as nurse Jill Danko, wife of a character played by Sam Melville, for four seasons on the 1970s crime drama The Rookies. A supporting cast member, Jackson filled her free time by studying directing and editing. She also appeared in several TV films during this period. Jackson's performance was well received in the 1972 independent film Limbo, one of the first theatrical films to address the Vietnam War and the wives of soldiers who were POWs, MIA or killed in action (KIA). She also appeared in an all-star ensemble cast in Death Scream, a 1975 television dramatization of the circumstances surrounding a real-life 1964 murder as reported in a sensational article in The New York Times. Jackson hosted the thirteenth episode of season four of Saturday Night Live which aired in February 1979. During her monologue, she referred to being an NBC page ten years earlier where she did tours of the studio.

In 1975, Jackson 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. Jackson was originally cast as Kelly Garrett (which ultimately went to her co-star Jaclyn Smith), but decided upon Sabrina Duncan instead. The huge success of the show saw Jackson, Smith and Farrah Fawcett-Majors (who played Jill Munroe) appear on the front cover of Time magazine. The show aired as a movie of the week on March 21, 1976 before debuting as a series on September 22, 1976.

At the beginning of the third season of Charlie's Angels, Jackson 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, Jackson left the show saying, "I served it well and it served me well, now it's time to go." She was replaced by Shelley Hack.

Jackson starred opposite her Rookies co-star, Michael Ontkean, and Harry Hamlin in the feature film Making Love (1982), directed by Arthur Hiller. It was a movie some considered to be ahead of its time, and attempted to deal sensitively with the topic of homosexuality. However, it received tepid reviews and did poorly at the box office.

In 1983, Jackson accepted 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". Jackson 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?", Jackson replied, "I don't work, I just direct." Scarecrow and Mrs. King was on the air from 1983- 87.

During filming of the show's fourth season, in January 1987, Jackson elected to receive a mammogram for the first time, a test which led to the diagnosis of a small malignant tumor.

Receiving a "clean bill of health", Jackson 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 1989, she starred in the film Loverboy playing Patrick Dempsey's mother. She had taken the job in order to work with the director, Joan Micklin Silver, having admired the work Silver had done on the film Hester Street.

Jackson 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.

Jackson 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.

In 2004, the television film Behind the Camera: The Unauthorized Story of Charlie's Angels aired, with actress Lauren Stamile portraying Jackson. In August 2006, Jackson, Farrah Fawcett and Jaclyn Smith, the three original Angels, appeared together in a surprise appearance at the 58th Primetime Emmy Awards in a tribute to the recently deceased Angels creator, Aaron Spelling, Shrine Auditorium.

In 2007, Jackson played Elizabeth Prentiss, the mother of FBI Agent Emily Prentiss (played by Paget Brewster) on Criminal Minds. In August 2008, she was a guest judge on an episode of Jaclyn Smith's Bravo reality 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 was originally scheduled to be released on October 11, 2011, was delayed to February 1, 2015, and delayed yet again to December 30, 2020.

MORE INFO ON JACLYN SMITH:  Jaclyn Smith was born Jacquelyn Ellen Smith on October 26, 1945 in Houston, Texas. She graduated from high school and originally aspired to be a famous ballerina. In 1973, she landed a job as a Breck shampoo model. In 1976, she was offered a chance to star in a new pilot for a planned television series, entitled "Charlie's Angels" (1976). The pilot was slick and the show was an instant hit when it debuted on September 22, 1976 on ABC. Smith has the distinct honor of being the only Angel *not* to leave the show in its entire five-season run (1976-1981). After "Charlie's Angels" (1976), she went the TV-movie route and starred in such TV films as Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy (1981) (TV), and such miniseries as The Bourne Identity (1988) (TV), Rage of Angels (1983) (TV) and Windmills of the Gods (1988) (TV). She has had her own extremely successful clothing line at KMart since 1985, and is often a spokesperson. She has two children from her third marriage to Anthony B. Richmond (they divorced in 1989).

MORE INFO ON CHERYL LADD:  Cheryl Ladd (born Cheryl Jean Stoppelmoor; July 12, 1951) is an American actress, singer, and author. Ladd is best known for her role as Kris Munroe in the ABC television series Charlie's Angels, hired amid a swirl of publicity prior to its second season in 1977 to replace the departing Farrah Fawcett-Majors. Ladd remained with the show until its cancellation in 1981.

Ladd was born Cheryl Jean Stoppelmoor in Huron, South Dakota, the second daughter of Dolores (Katz), a waitress, and Marion Stoppelmoor (1929 -2001), a railroad engineer. She married fellow actor David Ladd, with whom she had a daughter, Jordan. She took his surname as her own, which she kept after their divorce.
She has been married to music producer Brian Russell since 1981, and has a stepdaughter, Lindsay Russell. Ladd is a celebrity ambassador for the child abuse prevention and treatment non-profit Childhelp.

Ladd initially came to Hollywood in 1970 to begin a career in music (she was known as "Cherie Moor" when she was the singing voice of Melody on Hanna-Barbera's Josie and the Pussycats animated series).  She soon began to land non-singing roles in commercials and episodic television—including guest appearances on shows such as The Rookies, The Partridge Family and Happy Days. The Charlie's Angels series made her an overnight star, and Ladd took the opportunity of her sudden popularity to further pursue her musical interests, guest-starring in musical-comedy variety series and specials, performing the National Anthem at the Super Bowl XIV in January 1980, and releasing three albums, enjoying a Top 40 Billboard Hot 100 single and a Gold record. In September 2000, Ladd starred on Broadway, taking over the title role from Bernadette Peters in a revival of Irving Berlin's Annie Get Your Gun. She played the role until January 2001, when Reba McEntire took over.

Following Charlie's Angels, Ladd remained a familiar face on television and has starred in more than 30 made for television films, including as Grace Kelly, the Philadelphia heiress who became a Hollywood glamour girl and then a European princess, in a biopic that was begun shortly before Kelly's death. She also starred in feature films such as Purple Hearts, Millennium, Poison Ivy and Permanent Midnight. Ladd had the lead role in the television series One West Waikiki (1994–96), and made guest appearances in other TV shows such as Charmed, Hope and Faith and CSI: Miami. From 2003 until the show's cancellation in 2008, Ladd played Jillian Deline, the wife of the lead character Ed Deline (James Caan), in 29 episodes of the television drama Las Vegas.

In 1996, Ladd published a children's book, The Adventures of Little Nettie Windship. In 2005, she published Token Chick: A Woman’s Guide to Golfing With the Boys, an autobiographical book which focused on her love of golf. For several years, Ladd hosted a golf tournament sponsored by Buick.

On April 17, 2010, Ladd, along with her co-angel, Jaclyn Smith, accepted the "2010 TV Land Pop Culture Award" for Charlie's Angels.

In 2010, Ladd filmed a TV movie titled Love's Everlasting Courage for the Hallmark Channel, which aired on October 1, 2011. That same month, she guest starred on NCIS in the show's ninth season episode "Thirst" as the love interest of medical examiner Dr. Donald "Ducky" Mallard. In December 2011, she guest starred in an episode of Chuck, playing Sarah Walker's mother.