Jaclyn Smith’s Fight for Control: The Making of Nightkill (1980)

In 1980’s Nightkill, Jaclyn Smith went from TV stardom to psychological thriller — fighting off nudity demands, navigating on-set tension, and finding romance with cinematographer Anthony Richmond. Here’s the story behind the cult desert noir.

When audiences tuned in to NBC’s premiere of Nightkill in 1980, they saw Jaclyn Smith stepping out of her Charlie’s Angels fame into something darker. Marketed as a psychological thriller with Robert Mitchum and Mike Connors, the movie promised Hitchcock-style suspense. But the real drama was happening behind the camera — from Smith’s firm refusal to shoot nude, to a romance that began on set, to whispers of tension with director Ted Post.

A Star Draws the Line

One story dominates the lore of Nightkill: the infamous shower sequence. Smith was asked to appear nude for the scene, and she flatly refused.

“I will never take my clothes off in front of the camera,” Smith told reporters. “It’s better when the audience uses their imagination.”

Her decision reshaped how the scene was shot — more suggestion, less exposure — and it set the tone for how Smith wanted to present herself as a movie star. At a time when many actresses were pressured into nudity, Smith’s refusal was bold, and it quickly became the most remembered anecdote from the shoot.

Love Behind the Camera

Nightkill wasn’t just about murder and deception on screen — it was also where Smith found her future husband. While filming in Arizona, she met cinematographer Anthony B. Richmond (Don’t Look Now), and the two began a romance that led to marriage in 1981.

Smith later said she was drawn to Richmond’s “eye for painting with light.” Their relationship was one of the bright spots in an otherwise uneven production.

Trouble in the Desert

Director Ted Post (best known for Magnum Force and Beneath the Planet of the Apes) wasn’t always thrilled with how smoothly things went. In later interviews, Post complained that Richmond sometimes showed up inebriated and fumbled shots. While some fan accounts suggest friction between Smith and Post, what’s clearer is that Smith stayed focused on her role, while Post and Richmond had their own clashes behind the camera.

So, was there an all-out feud? The evidence is thin. What survives is less a legendary star/director blow-up and more a story of small production headaches that colored the film’s atmosphere.

From Feature Film to TV Movie

Avco Embassy originally envisioned Nightkill as a theatrical feature. But by the time it was finished, U.S. distributors lost confidence. Instead, the film premiered on NBC as a Movie of the Week. Internationally, it did play theaters, but in America it slipped into cult status mostly through VHS releases, where artwork leaned heavily on that shower-scene imagery Smith had fought to control.

A Cult Noir Curiosity

Critics have since called Nightkill a mixed bag — moody atmosphere and a committed Smith performance undercut by uneven pacing. But for 1980s film fans, the behind-the-scenes tales give it a mystique all its own.

Smith’s stand on nudity, her romance with Richmond, and the distribution misfire make Nightkill a case study in how image, control, and industry politics shaped careers in the transition from TV fame to movie stardom.

“Jaclyn Smith wasn’t just playing a woman caught in a web of murder,” as one retrospective put it. “She was fighting for control of her image — and she won.”

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