Farrah Fawcett, who catapulted to national fame in “Charlie’s Angels” and became a swimsuit poster phenomenon, has died.
Her spokesman, Paul Bloch, said Fawcett died Thursday morning at a Santa Monica hospital.
Fawcett separated herself from her bathing-beauty persona with highly charged, critically acclaimed performances. She received three Emmy noms and six Golden Globe nods and was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award as best supporting female for “The Apostle” (1997).
Fawcett discovered she had anal cancer in 2006 and a year later was diagnosed with a malignant rectal polyp. Last month, she narrated and shot using her camcorder “Farrah’s Story,” which looked at her 2 1/2-year battle with cancer.
Along with Kate Jackson and Jaclyn Smith, Fawcett starred as one of the three private detectives on the cheesecake show that bowed in fall 1976. For her portrayal as, essentially, “the blonde,” Fawcett won a People’s Choice Award as favorite female performer in a new TV program playing Jill Munroe in 1977.
Simultaneous with her newfound TV stardom, Fawcett posed in a red, one-piece swimsuit that galvanized the male public. Her mane of blond hair, toothy effervescent smile and her curvaceous build catapulted her to dorm-poster superstar. The poster sold 12 million copies, making it the top-selling female poster of all time, eclipsing such competition as Betty Grable and the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders.
The actress left “Charlie’s Angels” after 22 episodes, when the program was at its peak, to pursue a movie career. Producer Aaron Spelling threatened her with a breach-of-contract lawsuit, but they reached an agreement wherein she came back for occasional “guest star” roles. Cheryl Ladd replaced her on the series.
Throughout this period, young women emulated her; her feather-blown hairstyle became a national look.
In 1983, Fawcett made a calculated and ambitious change of direction: She set out to do dramatic roles that countered her beauty-queen image. She starred in the miniseries “Murder in Texas” and received good reviews. She followed up by starring off-Broadway in “Extremities,” winning acclaim for her portrayal of a victim of attempted rape who turns the tables on her attacker. She began to be noticed for her acting chops rather than her flowing locks.
Fawcett met Lee Majors on the set of the TV series “The Big Valley” and eventually became a semi-regular on series where Majors starred: “Owen Marshall: Counselor at Law” and “The Six Million Dollar Man.”
They married in 1973, and she went under the name of Farrah Fawcett-Majors. She became known as “The Bionic Wife.” The pair formed Fawcett-Majors Prods.Fawcett parlayed her TV fame into more films, beginning with the sci-fi movie “Logan’s Run” (1976). She followed with “Somebody Killed Her Husband” (1978) with Jeff Bridges, “Sunburn” (1979) with Charles Grodin and 1980’s “Saturn 3,” with Kirk Douglas and a robot. All three were critical and boxoffice disappointments.
In the ’80s, Fawcett divorced Majors and began a relationship with actor Ryan O’Neal. She co-starred with him in “See You in the Morning” (1989), and they had a son, Redmond. In 1991, Fawcett starred with O’Neal in a short-lived sitcom called “Good Sports,” playing cable sportscasters who had been lovers.
She also appeared in the Burt Reynolds vehicle “The Cannonball Run” in 1981. More recently, she won good reviews for performance as an emotionally unbalanced wife of Richard Gere in Robert Altman’s “Dr. T. & the Women” (2000).
At age 48, she posed for “Playboy” in 1995; the issue became the magazine’s best seller of the decade. Ten years later, she starred in a reality series, “Chasing Farrah. ”
Fawcett also performed charitable work with the American Cancer Society and served as a board member of the National Advisory Council for the National Domestic Violence Hot-line.
Farrah played ‘Holly’ in the 1976 Sci-Fi Thriller ‘Logan’s Run’
On behalf of SciFi Mafia, I would like to personally extend our condolences to Ryan O’Neal and all of the loved ones that Farrah leaves behind. She was an icon and an Angel, she will be missed.
