Circa 2004, Cheryl Ladd is recurring as James Caan's wife — aka Mrs. Big Ed — on NBC's Las Vegas (Mondays at 9 pm/ET). But she'll always be best loved as Kris Munroe from the campy '70s hit Charlie's Angels. Surprisingly, she almost turned down the TV gig that made her famous.

"That is true," Ladd says. "I had come very close to getting the role of the daughter on Family, another of Aaron Spelling's shows. It was a very well-written, prestigious show. I was seeing myself as a serious actress; I didn't see myself in Charlie's Angels. And then, to replace Farrah Fawcett — who you must remember was a phenomenon at that time — I'm thinking, 'Why me?'

"The idea of being this glamour-puss didn't appeal to me," she continues. "Then Aaron suggested, 'What if you were her little sister?' I said if I could take a comedic approach to the character, then it would be fun. And it worked. Kris Munroe got to make all the mistakes, be goofy, try hard and mean well, but she didn't have to be perfect all the time. That was a good choice and made it much more fun for me to act."

NBC recently reimagined the Angels stars' backstage lives in Behind the Camera: The Unauthorized Story of Charlie's Angels. Fawcett has cattily told reporters that Tricia Helfer (who played the feather-haired diva in the film) was "very brave." What was Ladd's take? "I thought the girls did a really terrific job," she says. "They certainly looked the part. I thought [Christina Chambers], the young lady who played Jaclyn Smith, captured her voice beautifully."

And what did Ladd think of her own Unauthorized alter ego, Chelsea Watson, who made a brief appearance in the flick? "I thought she was fine," Ladd giggles, though she wants to correct one tiny misstep in the script. "Although it wasn't in [Spelling's] office, I did wear a T-shirt that said Farrah Fawcett Minor. [That was] on my first day of shooting on the set. One likes to have a sense of humor about these things!"