wow. It’s a sad week, isn’t it? First with the death of Hollywood icon, Ed McMahon, and now with the death of another Hollywood icon, Miss Farrah Fawcett, who died early this morning in a Santa Monica hospital after a 2 1/2 year battle with anal cancer. She was 62.
Farrah made the news in both her professional and personal life.
It all started with a poster. Photographer Bruce McBroom came to her home and took a photo of her in a red bathing suit against an old Indian patterned blanket backdrop.
The poster sold 12 million copies. and sold Fawcett to Americans everywhere. She spent a year on Charlie’s Angels. She went on to earn three Emmy nominations for her work on the TV movie The Burning Bed, in which she played a
battered wife. The others were for the miniseries Small Sacrifices
(1989) and The Guardian (2001).
In her personal life, she was married to Lee Majors for 6 years, before beginning a
relationship with actor Ryan O’Neal, with whom she had a son, Redmond O’Neal, and reunited with recently. He was by her side when she passed away. “After a long and brave battle with cancer, our beloved Farrah has
passed away,” O’Neal said. “Although this is an extremely difficult
time for her family and friends, we take comfort in the beautiful times
that we shared with Farrah over the years and the knowledge that her
life brought joy to so many people around the world.”
It wasn’t a good week.