Farrah Fawcett 1947 – 2009

There comes a time in a young man's life when you hang your first poster of a pretty girl. My first was was Farrah Fawcett. I had the T-Shirt too.

God gave women intuition and femininity. Used properly, the combination easily jumbles the brain of any man I've ever met.

Farrah Fawcett

Farrah Fawcett died this morning at approximately 9:30 a.m. in the intensive care unit of Saint John's Health Center in Santa Monica, California, with Ryan O'Neal and her friend Alana Stewart by her side. She was 62 years old. A lot has been said lately about Farrah's illness and her fighting spirit. Her true legacy has yet to be determined. I'd like to take a little time to look back at the life of my first pin-up girl.

She was born Mary Farrah Leni Fawcett in Corpus Christi, Texas. She said that the name Farrah was made up by her mother because it went well with her last name. From 1966–1969, Farrah attended the University of Texas at Austin and became a sister of Delta Delta Delta Sorority. She appeared in a photo of the "Ten Most Beautiful Coeds" from the university, which ran in Cashbox magazine. A Hollywood publicist saw the photo, called Farrah and urged her to move to Los Angeles, which she did in 1969, leaving after her junior year with her parents' permission to "try her luck" in Hollywood.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Farrah appeared in TV commercials for Noxema shaving cream, Ultra Brite toothpaste, Wella Balsam shampoo, and the 1975 Mercury Cougar (Later in 1978, after achieving TV stardom, she appeared in a series of commercials for her own brand of shampoo, marketed by Fabergé).

Fawcett's first appearance on a TV show was a guest spot on I Dream of Jeannie, this was followed by guest appearances in Owen Marshall: Counselor at Law. She later appeared in The Six Million Dollar Man with Lee Majors, The Dating Game, and several episodes of Harry O alongside the late David Janssen.

Farrah rose to international fame in 1976 when she played private investigator Jill Munroe in the TV series Charlie's Angels (then billed as Farrah Fawcett-Majors) along side Kate Jackson, Jaclyn Smith and John Forsythe as the voice of Charlie. Farrah emerged as a fan favorite in the show, and the actress won a People's Choice Award for Favorite Performer in a New TV Program. Farrah was also a pop culture figure whose hairstyle was emulated by millions of young women and whose poster and T-Shirt sales (See Above) broke records, making her an international sex symbol in the 1970s and 1980s. Farrah left the show after only one season, and as settlement to a lawsuit stemming from her early departure, she appeared three more times as a guest star in each of seasons three and four. Cheryl Ladd replaced her on the show, portraying Jill's younger sister Kris Munroe and Farrah later went on to become a critically acclaimed actress, appearing in highly rated television movies like The Burning Bed, Nazi Hunter: The Beate Klarsfeld Story and Poor Little Rich Girl: The Barbara Hutton Story.

Farrah, who had resisted appearing nude in films or magazines throughout the 1970s and 1980s, caused a major stir by posing nude in the December 1995 issue of Playboy Magazine, which became the best-selling issue of the 1990s, with over four million copies sold worldwide. At the age of 50, she returned to the pages of Playboy with a pictorial for the July 1997 issue, which also became a top seller. That same year, Fawcett was chosen by Robert Duvall to play his wife in an independent feature film he was producing, The Apostle. Farrah received an Independent Spirit Award nomination as Best Actress for the film. Farrah continued to work in television during the period, with well-regarded appearances on popular television series including Ally McBeal and four episodes each of Spin City and The Guardian, her work on the latter show earning her a third Emmy nomination in 2004.

In a 1977 interview with TV Guide, she said: "When the show was number three, I thought it was our acting. When we got to be number one, I decided it could only be because none of us wears a bra".

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Tony Figueroa