'Angel' Fawcett dies of cancer

MANILA, Philippines – 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 a long, TV- documented battle with cancer. She was 62.

Fawcett’s last piece of work was the self produced “Farrah’s Story,” broadcast on US television, documenting her battle with anal then liver cancer.

Arguably, it was her appearance in an iconic poster in 1976 wearing a red bathing suit, just as “Charlie’s Angels” was launched, that accounted for the popularity of the show and her own rise to pop culture icon.

The poster went on to sell an astonishing 12 million copies and saw women the world over flock to hairdressers seeking to emulate the actress’ distinctive layered, tumbling tresses, which came to be known as “Farrah Hair.”

In 2007 GQ magazine named the poster “the most influential piece of men’s art of the last 50 years.”

Although she later took on serious acting roles and received an Emmy nomination for her role as a battered wife in the television movie “The Burning Bed,” it is for her one season as the sexy crime-busting “Angel” that she will be most famously remembered.

She was “embedded in American hearts and consciousness” as a symbol of the era, said Robert Thompson, professor of popular culture at Syracuse University in New York.

The series, created by legendary television mogul Aaron Spelling, become one of the most successful shows of the decade and broke new ground in featuring crime-fighting women in the lead roles.

However, Fawcett, Kate Jackson and Jaclyn Smith who made up the original “Angels” – a sexy police-trained trio of martial arts experts who took their assignments from a rich, mysterious boss named

Charlie – can hardly be described as feminist archetypes.

The show debuted in 1976 at the height of what some critics have derisively called television’s “jiggle show” era, referring to the numerous shots of naked bouncing flesh which appeared, and the actresses had ample opportunity to show off their figures as they disguised themselves in bathing suits and as prostitutes and strippers to solve crimes.

Farrah left the series after 29 episodes.

Her personal life almost received as much media attention as her on-screen roles.

During the 1970s she was married to “Six Million Dollar Man” star Lee Majors, from whom she separated in 1979.

In 1982 she began her long romance with Ryan O’Neal, 68, who despite their separation in the 1990s returned to her side and became her constant companion after she was first diagnosed with anal cancer in 2006.

“She’s so strong,” the actor told a reporter, “I love her. I love her all over again.”

O’Neal was at her bedside when she died shortly before 9.30 a.m. in a Santa Monica hospital, spokesman Paul Bloch said.

The couple was never married but have a son, Redmond O’Neal, who is currently serving time in a Californian jail for drug offenses. It is a drug habit which his father has also grappled with. He was able to speak to his mother on the phone before she died, Ryan O’Neal said. O’Neal also revealed that earlier in the week the couple had decided to marry as soon as they could.

During her split with O’Neal, Fawcett had dated producer-director James Orr, but it seemed that life was imitating art when, just as in her acclaimed movie “The Burning Bed,” she became the victim of domestic abuse and Orr was given three years probation for beating up the actress at his Bel Air mansion in 1997.

That same year speculation over Fawcett’s personal life reached fever pitch when she made a rambling incoherent appearance on David Letterman’s talk show. She denied that it had anything to do with drugs, blaming her strange behavior on questionable advice from her mother to be playful and have a good time.

She continued to work, however, appearing in David Altman’s 2000 comedy “Dr. T and the Women” in a star-studded cast that included Richard Gere, Helen Hunt, Laura Dern and Kate Hudson.

In 1995 at age 50 she posed partially nude for Playboy magazine.

After initial diagnosis in 2006, Fawcett declared in 2007 that months of grueling chemotherapy had seen her beat the cancer despite “excruciating pain and uncertainty, it never occurred to me to stop fighting – not ever,” she said.

However, in April this year the cancer had returned and the actress was gravely ill.

In an interview with the Los Angeles Times published in May, Fawcett criticized the media frenzy over her health, saying she would have preferred to keep the details of her illness private.

She helped to convict a UCLA Medical Center employee for violating federal medical privacy law for commercial purposes for selling the records of Fawcett and other celebrities to the National Enquirer.

Thompson said of her TV diary: “It was a grueling painful thing to watch. Farrah Fawcett managed to get on the air something that looked into the heart of darkness in way that a lot of TV and film has never managed to do.” - AP