Farrah Fawcett dies after cancer battle
By Verne Gay Newsday
(MCT) — Farrah Fawcett, a reigning symbol of American pop culture who never quite managed to escape the one electrifying role that made her that symbol — as one of “Charlie’s Angels” — has died. She was 62, and had been suffering from anal cancer, which had recently spread to her liver.
A near-mythic figure of ‘70s TV screen and pinup-poster fame, with her radiant grin and bounteous hair, Fawcett became a cultural star — at one time adored, then mimicked by fans, and mobbed by paparazzi.
Fawcett also had a mythic battle with the industry. That conflict resonates to this day as well. At the instigation of her agent at the time, she walked out on her contract for “Charlie’s Angels,” precipitating a war with some of the industry’s major powers.
Veteran producer Barney Rosenzweig (“Cagney & Lacey”) was show-runner the first year of “Angels.” “I never held it against Farrah but the industry did. It was really going to teach her a lesson and she was going to be the object lesson that they were going to use — partly because she was up against someone as powerful as Aaron Spelling and his connections with the ABC network were so strong.”
Indeed, Fawcett — whom Rosenzweig called “lovely and talented and bright and funny” — didn’t work on an ABC series until a couple of decades later.
Born in Corpus Christi, Texas, in 1947, Fawcett moved to Los Angeles after high school, and was cast in small roles in series such as “I Dream of Jeannie” and “The Flying Nun.” After marrying TV star Lee Majors in 1973, she guest-starred in four episodes of his hit series “The Six Million Dollar Man” and began doing ads for Wella Balsam hair products. That led to a poster company inquiring about taking her picture.
A deal was struck, and the Fawcett pinup — featuring the star in a red bathing suit that didn’t hide much at all — became a worldwide best-seller. It remains her iconic image: A picture that for some still recalls an entire decade.
Despite later attempts at serious TV movies and stage work, it was just one role that defined Fawcett for the past 30 years, for better or worse.
When it bowed on Sept. 22, 1976, “Charlie’s Angels” was seen by nearly 59 percent of the viewing audience. In 2009, only Super Bowls manage that kind of viewership.
Fawcett quit after one season to pursue a movie career, which led to a sensational breach-of-contract suit. She never starred in a series for ABC again, and in the then tight-knit world of network TV, earned a reputation as “troublesome.”
Her battle with cancer was made public in 2006, and she subsequently signed a deal with a California TV producer to create a show that would follow her on her tireless rounds of treatments for a disease she was certain she would beat. The program aired May 15 on NBC.
