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. (Cheryl 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.
Related: Farrah Fawcett Remembered 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. The couple
never married. Both Redmond and Ryan O'Neal have grappled with drug and legal
problems in recent years.
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2009 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be
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