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LOS ANGELES – Farrah Fawcett, the
"Charlie's Angels" star whose feathered blond
hair and dazzling smile made her one of the biggest sex symbols of
the 1970s, died Thursday after battling cancer. She was 62.
The pop icon, who in the 1980s set aside the fantasy girl image
to tackle serious roles, died shortly before 9:30 a.m. in a Santa
Monica hospital, spokesman Paul Bloch said.
Ryan O'Neal, the longtime companion who
had reunited with Fawcett as she fought anal cancer, was at her
side, along with close friend Alana Stewart,
Bloch said.
"After a long and brave battle with cancer, our beloved Farrah
has passed away," O'Neal said. "Although this is an extremely
difficult time for her family and friends, we take comfort in the
beautiful times that we shared with Farrah over the years and the
knowledge that her life brought joy to so many people around the
world."
Other "Charlie's Angels" stars paid tribute to her.
"Farrah had courage, she had strength, and she had faith. And
now she has peace as she rests with the real angels," Jaclyn Smith said.
Said Cheryl Ladd: "She was incredibly
brave, and God will be welcoming her with open arms."
Fawcett burst on the scene in 1976 as one-third of the
crime-fighting trio in TV's "Charlie's Angels." A poster of her in
a clingy swimsuit sold in the millions.
Her full, layered hairstyle became all the rage, with girls and
women across America adopting the look.
She left the show after one season but had a flop on the big
screen with "Somebody Killed Her Husband."
She turned to more serious roles in the 1980s and 1990s, winning
praise playing an abused wife in "The Burning
Bed."
She had been diagnosed with cancer in 2006. As she underwent
treatment, she enlisted the help of O'Neal, who was the father of
her now 24-year-old son, Redmond.
This month, O'Neal said he asked Fawcett to marry him and she
agreed. They would wed "as soon as she can say yes," he said.
Her struggle with painful treatments and dispiriting setbacks
was recorded in the television documentary "Farrah's Story."
Fawcett sought cures in Germany as well as the United States,
battling the disease with iron determination even as her body
weakened.
"Her big message to people is don't give up, no matter what they
say to you, keep fighting," her friend Stewart said. NBC estimated the May 15, 2009, broadcast drew nearly 9
million viewers.
In the documentary, Fawcett was seen shaving off most of her
trademark locks before chemotherapy could claim them. Toward the
end, she's seen huddled in bed, barely responding to a visit from
her son.
Fawcett, Kate Jackson and Smith made up
the original "Angels," the sexy, police-trained trio of martial
arts experts who took their assignments from a rich, mysterious
boss named Charlie (John Forsythe, who was never seen on camera but
whose distinctive voice was heard on speaker phone.)
The program debuted in September 1976, the height of what some
critics derisively referred to as television's "jiggle show" era,
and it gave each of the actresses ample opportunity to show off
their figures as they disguised themselves in bathing suits and as
hookers and strippers to solve crimes.
Backed by a clever publicity campaign, Fawcett — then billed as
Farrah Fawcett-Majors because of her marriage
to "The Six Million Dollar Man" star Lee
Majors — quickly became the most popular Angel of all.
Her face helped sell T-shirts, lunch boxes, shampoo, wigs and
even a novelty plumbing device called Farrah's faucet. Her flowing
blond hair, pearly white smile and trim, shapely body made her a
favorite with male viewers in particular.
A poster of her in a dampened red swimsuit sold millions of
copies and became a ubiquitous wall decoration in teenagers'
rooms.
Thus the public and the show's producer, Spelling-Goldberg, were
shocked when she announced after the series' first season that she
was leaving television's No. 5-rated series to star in feature
films. (Ladd became the new "Angel" on the series.)
But the movies turned out to be a platform where Fawcett was
never able to duplicate her TV success. Her first
star vehicle, the comedy-mystery "Somebody
Killed Her Husband," flopped and Hollywood cynics cracked
that it should have been titled "Somebody Killed Her Career."
The actress had also been in line to star in "Foul Play" for
Columbia Pictures. But the studio opted for
Goldie Hawn instead. "Spelling-Goldberg
warned all the studios that that they would be sued for damages if
they employed me," Fawcett told The Associated Press in 1979. "The
studios wouldn't touch me."
She finally reached an agreement to appear in three episodes of
"Charlie's Angels" a season, an experience
she called "painful."
She returned to making movies, including the futuristic thriller
"Logan's Run," the comedy-thriller "Sunburn"
and the strange sci-fi tale "Saturn 3," but
none clicked with the public.
Fawcett fared better with television movies such as
"Murder in Texas," "Poor
Little Rich Girl" and especially as an abused wife in 1984's
"The Burning Bed." The last earned her an
Emmy nomination and the long-denied admission from critics that she
really could act.
As further proof of her acting credentials, Fawcett appeared
off-Broadway in "Extremities" as a woman who is raped in her own
home. She repeated the role in the 1986 film version.
Not content to continue playing victims, she switched type. She
played a murderous mother in the 1989 true-crime story
"Small Sacrifices" and a tough lawyer on the
trail of a thief in 1992's "Criminal Behavior."
She also starred in biographies of Nazi-hunter Beate Klarsfeld
and photographer Margaret Bourke-White.
"I felt that I was doing a disservice to ourselves by portraying
only women as victims," she commented in a 1992 interview.
In 1995, at age 50, Fawcett posed partly nude for Playboy magazine. The following year, she starred in a
Playboy video, "All of Me," in which she was equally unclothed
while she sculpted and painted.
She told an interviewer she considered the experience "a
renaissance," adding, "I no longer feel ... restrictions
emotionally, artistically, creatively or in my everyday life. I
don't feel those borders anymore."
Fawcett's most unfortunate career moment may have been a 1997
appearance on David Letterman's show, when
her disjointed, rambling answers led many to speculate that she was
on drugs. She denied that, blaming her strange behavior on
questionable advice from her mother to be playful and have a good
time.
In September 2006, Fawcett, who at 59 still maintained a strict
regimen of tennis and paddleball, began to feel strangely
exhausted. She underwent two weeks of tests and was told the
devastating news: She had anal cancer.
O'Neal, with whom she had a 17-year relationship, again became
her constant companion, escorting her to the hospital for
chemotherapy.
"She's so strong," the actor told a reporter. "I love her. I
love her all over again."
She struggled to maintain her privacy, but a UCLA
Medical Center employee pleaded guilty in late 2008 to
violating federal medical privacy law for commercial purposes for
selling records of Fawcett and other celebrities to the National
Enquirer.
"It's much easier to go through something and deal with it
without being under a microscope," she told the Los Angeles Times
in an interview in which she also revealed that she helped set up a
sting that led to the hospital worker's arrest.
Her decision to tell her own story through the NBC documentary
was meant as an inspiration to others, friends said. The segments
showing her cancer treatment, including a trip to Germany for
procedures there, were originally shot for a personal, family
record, they said. And although weak, she continued to show flashes
of grit and good humor in the documentary.
"I do not want to die of this disease. So I say to God, `It is
seriously time for a miracle,'" she said at one point.
Born Feb. 2, 1947, in Corpus Christi, Texas, she was named Mary
Farrah Leni Fawcett by her mother, who said she added the Farrah
because it sounded good with Fawcett. She was less than a month old
when she underwent surgery to remove a digestive tract tumor with
which she was born.
After attending Roman Catholic grade school and W.B. Ray High
School, Fawcett enrolled at the University of Texas
at Austin. Fellow students voted her one of the 10 most
beautiful people on the campus and her photos were eventually
spotted by movie publicist David Mirisch, who suggested she pursue
a film career. After overcoming her parents' objections, she
agreed.
Soon she was appearing in such TV shows as "That Girl,"
"The Flying Nun," "I Dream of
Jeannie" and "The Partridge
Family."
Majors became both her boyfriend and her adviser on career
matters, and they married in 1973. She dropped his last name from
hers after they divorced in 1982.
By then she had already begun her long relationship with O'Neal.
Both Redmond and Ryan O'Neal have grappled
with drug and legal problems in recent years.
