Farrah Fawcett
Based on Wikipedia: Farrah Fawcett
The Poster That Changed Everything
In 1976, a photograph became the best-selling poster in history. Six million copies flew off the shelves in the first year alone. The image was simple: a woman in a red one-piece swimsuit, smiling at the camera, her feathered blonde hair catching the light. The woman was Farrah Fawcett, and that single photograph would define—and in some ways confine—her career for decades to come.
What makes a photograph become an icon? The shoot itself was almost casual. Fawcett did her own hair and makeup, without even using a mirror. She squeezed lemon juice into her blonde highlights to make them pop. The photographer, Bruce McBroom, shot forty rolls of film. From those hundreds of images, Fawcett picked her six favorites, and the team eventually narrowed it down to one.
That one image would hang on more bedroom walls than any poster before or since.
A Name Her Mother Made Up
She was born Mary Ferrah Leni Fawcett on February 2, 1947, in Corpus Christi, Texas. Her mother, Pauline, had invented the name "Ferrah" simply because it sounded good with their last name. Later, she would change the spelling to "Farrah"—a small modification that would eventually become one of the most recognizable names in American entertainment.
Corpus Christi sits on the Texas Gulf Coast, a city of oil refineries and shrimp boats. Fawcett's father, James, worked as an oil field contractor. The family was Catholic, and young Farrah attended St. Patrick's parish school before moving on to W. B. Ray High School. At Ray High, her classmates voted her "most beautiful" four years running—freshman, sophomore, junior, and senior year. This wasn't a harbinger of things to come so much as an early recognition of what everyone could already see.
She enrolled at the University of Texas in 1965, initially studying microbiology. It's worth pausing on that detail. The woman who would become synonymous with California glamour started out wanting to be a scientist. She eventually switched her major to art, studying sculpture under Charles Umlauf, a professor she remained close to for years. In 2017, eight years after her death, an exhibit at the Umlauf Sculpture Garden and Museum in Austin showcased her own artwork—a reminder that she had always been more than the image on that poster.
During her freshman year, she was named one of the ten most beautiful coeds on campus. It was the first time a freshman had ever received that honor. Photographs were sent to Hollywood agents. One of them, David Mirisch, called her repeatedly over the next two years, urging her to come to Los Angeles.
She kept saying no.
Finally, in the summer of 1968, with her parents' blessing to "try her luck," she headed west.
The Long Road to Overnight Success
Hollywood success stories often get compressed in the retelling. We remember the breakthrough and forget the years of grinding that preceded it. Fawcett arrived in Los Angeles at twenty-one and signed a contract with Screen Gems for three hundred fifty dollars a week—modest money, but steady. She moved into the Hollywood Studio Club, a chaperoned residence for young women trying to break into the entertainment industry.
For the next several years, her face became familiar through the most ubiquitous medium of the era: television commercials. Ultra Brite toothpaste. Noxzema skin cream. Max Factor cosmetics. Mercury Cougar automobiles. Beautyrest mattresses. If you watched television in the early 1970s, you saw Farrah Fawcett, even if you didn't know her name yet.
Her acting work consisted of guest spots on shows like "The Flying Nun," "I Dream of Jeannie," "The Partridge Family," and "Mayberry R.F.D."—the kind of one-episode appearances that paid the bills and built experience but rarely led anywhere. She had a recurring role on "Harry O," a detective series starring David Janssen, playing the title character's girlfriend. She appeared in four episodes of "The Six Million Dollar Man" alongside her husband, Lee Majors, whom she had married in 1973.
Majors was already a television star when they met. Their marriage made them one of the most glamorous couples in Hollywood—a status that would later create its own complications.
Angels in Prime Time
Aaron Spelling was one of the most prolific television producers of his generation. Along with his business partner Leonard Goldberg, he had a knack for creating shows that captured the cultural moment. Spelling knew Fawcett socially—she and Majors were frequent tennis partners with the producer and his wife.
In 1976, Spelling and Goldberg were developing a made-for-television movie about three female private investigators working for a mysterious boss they had never met. The character of Charlie Townsend would communicate with his "Angels" only through a speakerphone, his voice provided by actor John Forsythe. It was a gimmick, but an effective one.
The movie aired on March 21, 1976, with Fawcett—billed as Farrah Fawcett-Majors—alongside Kate Jackson and Jaclyn Smith. The ratings were strong enough that ABC ordered a full series.
When "Charlie's Angels" debuted as a weekly series on September 22, 1976, all three leads became stars. But Fawcett became something more. She dominated popularity polls. She won a People's Choice Award. The poster, released around the same time, was selling millions of copies. Her hairstyle—the "Farrah-do," the "Farrah-flip," or simply "Farrah hair"—became an international phenomenon. Women across America walked into salons with pictures torn from magazines, asking for those feathered layers.
In a 1977 interview with TV Guide, Fawcett displayed the self-deprecating humor that often got lost in her glamorous image. "When the show was number three," she said, "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."
The money from the poster dwarfed her television salary. The merchandising empire that grew up around the show—bubble gum cards, fashion dolls, board games, toy vans, novelizations, school supplies—all featured her likeness prominently. The Angels appeared on magazine covers around the world, including Time magazine and four separate TV Guide covers.
And then, after just one season, she walked away.
The Price of Leaving
Why did Farrah Fawcett leave "Charlie's Angels" at the height of its popularity? The question generated endless speculation at the time and has never been definitively answered. Various explanations have been offered over the years: the strain on her marriage to Lee Majors, since both were stars of demanding television shows with conflicting schedules; her ambition to prove herself as a serious actress in films; disputes over royalties from the merchandising bonanza that used her image.
What we know for certain is that she never officially signed her series contract. Negotiations over image rights had dragged on, and when she left, Aaron Spelling's production company sued. The legal battle resulted in a compromise: Fawcett agreed to return for six guest appearances over two years, appearing in episodes during the show's third and fourth seasons.
Cheryl Ladd replaced her as a series regular, playing Jill Munroe's younger sister Kris. The show continued successfully, but something ineffable had shifted. The original cultural lightning strike of that first season could never quite be recaptured.
The Wilderness Years
Fawcett's post-Angels film career started badly. Her first movie, "Somebody Killed Her Husband" (1978), was so poorly received that critics rechristened it "Somebody Killed Her Career." "Sunburn" (1979), co-starring Charles Grodin and Art Carney, fared no better. "Saturn 3" (1980), a science fiction film with Kirk Douglas directed by Stanley Donen, bombed both critically and commercially.
These failures seemed to confirm what skeptics had suspected: that Fawcett was a television phenomenon who couldn't translate to the big screen. The pattern was familiar in Hollywood history—small-screen stars who couldn't make the leap to movies, trapped by the very success that had made them famous.
She did have one commercial success during this period: "The Cannonball Run" (1981), an ensemble comedy with Burt Reynolds, Dean Martin, and Sammy Davis Jr. But it was exactly the kind of lightweight entertainment that wouldn't help her reputation as a serious actress.
The Reinvention
The transformation of Farrah Fawcett's career happened on a New York stage. In 1983, she took over the lead role in "Extremities," an Off-Broadway play by William Mastrosimone. She replaced Susan Sarandon in the part of a woman who is attacked by a rapist and then turns the tables on him, holding him captive.
It was about as far from Jill Munroe as a role could get. Fawcett later described it as "the most grueling, the most intense, the most physically demanding and emotionally exhausting" work of her career. The play generated controversy, acclaim, and something Fawcett badly needed: critical respect.
During one performance, a stalker in the audience interrupted the show, asking Fawcett if she had received the photos and letters he had mailed her. Police removed him but could only charge him with disorderly conduct. It was a disturbing reminder of the strange intimacy that fame creates between celebrities and disturbed admirers.
The following year brought "The Burning Bed" (1984), a television movie based on the true story of Francine Hughes, a battered wife who set her abusive husband on fire while he slept. Fawcett's performance earned her first Emmy nomination. The movie was the highest-rated television film of the season and broke new ground by providing a nationwide 800 number for victims of domestic abuse—the first television movie to do so.
She had found her niche: intense dramatic roles, often based on true stories, often involving women in extreme circumstances. In 1986, she appeared in the film version of "Extremities," earning a Golden Globe nomination. She played Nazi hunter Beate Klarsfeld, troubled heiress Barbara Hutton, and pioneering photojournalist Margaret Bourke-White in various television productions, earning Golden Globe nominations and a CableACE Award.
Her 1989 portrayal of convicted murderer Diane Downs in the miniseries "Small Sacrifices" brought her second Emmy nomination and a Peabody Award for the production. The Peabody organization specifically praised Fawcett's performance, noting that she brought "a sense of realism rarely seen in television miniseries."
The former poster girl had become one of the most respected actresses in television movies.
The Playboy Chapters
Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Fawcett had consistently refused to sign releases for nude photographs, even though she had appeared briefly topless in "Saturn 3." Then, in December 1995, at age forty-eight, she posed semi-nude for Playboy magazine. The issue was a sensation.
She returned to Playboy in July 1997, at age fifty. This time, the pictorial and accompanying video featured something unusual: Fawcett using her own body as a paintbrush, creating abstract art on canvas. It was performance art as much as it was a nude pictorial, and it reflected her longtime interest in visual art—an interest that dated back to her days studying sculpture at the University of Texas.
The July 1997 issue became one of Playboy's top sellers.
The Letterman Incident
On June 5, 1997, Farrah Fawcett appeared on the "Late Show with David Letterman" to promote her Playboy pictorial. The interview went badly. She seemed distracted, gave rambling answers, and appeared to be looking around the theater randomly while Letterman tried to conduct a coherent conversation.
The appearance generated mockery and speculation. Was she on drugs? Having a breakdown? The incident became fodder for jokes and cemented a narrative of Fawcett as a troubled former star.
She later explained on "The Howard Stern Show" that she had been deliberately joking around with Letterman, that her apparent random looks were reactions to fans in the audience. Whether this explanation was true or face-saving, she returned to Letterman's show in 1999 without incident.
Years later, in February 2009, when Letterman conducted a disastrous interview with an unresponsive Joaquin Phoenix, he ended the segment by saying, "We owe an apology to Farrah Fawcett."
The Later Work
Despite the negative press from the Letterman appearance, 1997 also brought one of Fawcett's strongest film performances. Robert Duvall personally chose her to play his wife in "The Apostle," an independent film he was producing. The role earned her an Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best Supporting Female.
In 2000, she worked with director Robert Altman in "Dr. T & the Women," playing the wife of Richard Gere's character. The role required her first fully nude appearance in a mainstream film—her character has a mental breakdown—and she handled the vulnerability the part required.
She continued working in television as well, with recurring roles on the sitcom "Spin City" (2001) and the drama "The Guardian" (2002-2003). Her performance in "The Guardian" earned her third Emmy nomination.
Throughout this later period, Fawcett also pursued her interests in visual art. She befriended artist and designer Christopher Ciccone—Madonna's brother—who later wrote about her inviting him to view her abstract paintings and sculptures. In 2002, her collaboration with sculptor Keith Edmier was exhibited at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
She had built something like the career she seemed to want all along: varied, respected, creative on multiple fronts.
The Final Chapter
In 2006, Farrah Fawcett was diagnosed with anal cancer. She was fifty-nine years old.
Anal cancer is relatively rare, accounting for only about two percent of digestive system cancers. It's often associated with the human papillomavirus, or HPV, and is frequently curable when caught early. Fawcett's case proved more difficult. The cancer spread, retreated with treatment, and then returned.
She documented her battle in an NBC documentary, "Farrah's Story," which aired in 2009. The film showed her undergoing treatment, traveling to Germany for alternative therapies, and confronting her mortality with remarkable candor. It was the opposite of the glamorous image that had made her famous—raw, painful, and deeply human.
Farrah Fawcett died on June 25, 2009, at the age of sixty-two. Posthumously, she earned her fourth Emmy nomination for her work as a producer on "Farrah's Story."
Her death was largely overshadowed in the media by the death of Michael Jackson, which occurred the same day. It seemed somehow fitting—and unfair—that even in death, the woman behind the poster would be competing for attention with other, larger cultural phenomena.
The Woman Behind the Image
What do we make of Farrah Fawcett's life and career? She was, by any measure, a genuine phenomenon. That poster. That hairstyle. That smile. For a moment in the mid-1970s, she was as famous as anyone in America.
But she spent much of her career fighting against the image that made her famous. She wanted to be taken seriously as an actress, and eventually she was—though the serious recognition came in television movies rather than theatrical films, and it never quite erased the poster in the public imagination.
She was also an artist, a fact that tends to get lost in discussions of her career. She studied sculpture in college, created abstract paintings throughout her life, and collaborated with established artists on museum exhibitions. The Playboy pictorials where she used her body as a paintbrush were, whatever else they were, an expression of this artistic impulse.
Her personal life was complicated. Her marriage to Lee Majors ended in 1982. She had a long relationship with actor Ryan O'Neal that produced a son, Redmond, in 1985. The relationship was tumultuous—they broke up and reconciled multiple times over the decades. O'Neal was with her when she died.
Perhaps the most remarkable thing about Farrah Fawcett is how hard she worked to be more than one thing. The poster made her a sex symbol. "Charlie's Angels" made her a television star. But she kept pushing—into theater, into dramatic television, into art—looking for something the poster couldn't give her.
She found it, at least partially. The Emmy nominations, the Peabody Award recognition, the Independent Spirit nomination—these came from work that had nothing to do with red swimsuits or feathered hair. They came from performances of genuine depth and courage.
The poster still exists, of course. You can still buy it. It remains the best-selling poster in history, a piece of 1970s Americana as recognizable as any cultural artifact of its era. But the woman who posed for it was always more complicated than the image suggested—a Texas girl who studied microbiology, an artist who worked in sculpture and paint, an actress who fought for respect and eventually earned it.
She was Farrah Fawcett, and she was never just the poster.