Much like Ed McMahon’s recent death, everyone had to be expecting to hear the news of Farrah Fawcett’s death and today, she became a true angel at the age of 62. The actress had been battling anal cancer.
The Texas born beauty started doing television commercials in the late ‘60s/early ‘70s after a publicist saw her photo in the University of Texas at Austin “Ten Most Beautiful Coeds” photo shoot. She appeared in commercials for Noxema, Ultra Brite, Wella Balsam, and Mercury Cougar. She started landing small spots on television shows such as “I Dream of Jeanie” and “Owen Marshall: Counselor at Law” in the late ‘60s.
In 1976, Pro Arts Inc. did a poster of Fawcett that would exalt her to superstardom. The poster, which featured Fawcett in a red one-piece bathing suit, is reported to have sold close to 12 million copies. No doubt thousands of men today remember having Fawcett on their bedroom wall as a teen.
Right after the success of the poster, Fawcett joined the cast of the Aaron Spelling show “Charlie’s Angels.” She only played character Jill Munroe for a year before leaving. After that, she was nominated for an Emmy for 1985’s “The Burning Bed” about a battered wife. She also appeared in Cannonball Run, The Apostle, and Logan’s Run. In 2006, Fawcett reunited with her fellow angels Kate Jackson and Jaclyn Smith, both of whom are breast cancer survivors.
One of Fawcett’s last “roles” was as a cancer patient as friend Alana Stewart recorded “Farrah’s Story,” which documented her fight with the disease she was diagnosed with in 2006. The special aired on NBC in mid May this year.
Fawcett married actor Lee Majors in 1973 and for a while, was billed as Farrah Fawcett-Majors. However, they separated in 1979 and divorced in 1982. If I remember correctly, Majors was good friends with Ryan O’Neal and when going out of town on time, asked O’Neal to keep an eye on Fawcett. Fawcett and O’Neal were together a long time (the two briefly broke up between 1997 and 2001), they never married. Their relationship produced one child, son Redmond. Earlier this week, O’Neal had reported that Fawcett had finally agreed to marry him.