Kate Jackson will be seen as an angel on ABC, Friday, but it won’t be in an episode of the top-rated Charlie’s Angels series. Instead, Kate and her husband, Andrew Stevens, star with Jack Warden and Rue McClanahan in “Topper,” a modern retelling of the classic 1937 movie about two brand new angels who have a devil of a time getting into heaven. 

The movie airs at 9PM on The ABC Friday Night Movie. “Topper” is the first feature from Cosmo Productions which Kate and Andrew activated soon after she left Charlie’s Angels. She had earlier started trying to get rights to do a new version of the all-time favorite story, a fantasy written by Thorne Smith which became a smash hit movie in 1937 with Cary Grand and Constance Bennett as its stars. “I must have first seen the movie on television when I was a child, ” Kate said. “I’ve loved it ever since. When Andrew and I were first talking, I asked him about ‘Topper’. Although he had never seen the movie, he was very familiar with the television series.”

The “Topper” movie spawned two sequels, “Topper Takes a Trip” and “Topper Returns,” and then resulted in a major TV series of the same name. The series was very popular in the 1953-56 seasons. It starred Anne Jeffreys and Robert Sterling.

In their new version, Kate stars as Marion Kerby and Andrew stars as George Kerby, a carefree and rich young couple whose dedication to the good life is cut short when they crash their car on their way home from a night of parting. To their great surprise, the Kerbys discover they never got around to doing enough good deeds to qualify them for heaven. And, if they don’t do one real quick, they will simply fade away!

Rue McClanahan stars as Carla, Topper’s stuffy wife who is mystified by the changes suddenly taking place in her husband. Carla doesn’t know Topper is trying to cope with two beings who are only visible to him and who are determined to do him a good deed and become full-fledged angels.

For Kate, the role was a delight after eight years in series television. “One of our big hopes,” says Andrew, “the thing we talked about trying to do after we were married was to control our own work and we knew we had to produce in order to do that.”

As a result, Kate and Andrew served as executive producers of “Topper” with Robert A. Papazian as producer. Charles S. Dubin directed the teleplay which was written by George Kirgo, Maryanne Kasica and Michael Scheff.

The young couple are delighted with the results of their efforts, but say that, if “Topper” is successful enough to produce interest in a series, they will not star in it. “I’d love to help produce it,” says Kate, “But I’ve had enough of series TV for a while.”

A native of Birmingham, Ala., she became interested in acting when she appeared in high school plays. After a season as an apprentice in summer stock at Stowe, Vermont, she moved to New York City and enrolled in the famous American Academy of Dramatic Arts. She starred for a year in the daytime series, “Dark Shadows,” for four years on “The Rookies,” and for three years on “Charlie’s Angels.”