What a shame! She fought the good fight. Now she's at peace.

Fawcett, who skyrocketed to fame as one of a trio of impossibly glamorous private eyes on TV's Charlie's Angels, has died after a long battle with cancer. She was 62.

Fawcett died at 9:28 a.m. PST at St. John’s Heath Center in Santa Monica, Calif. She had recently returned to St. John's for treatment of complications from anal cancer, first diagnosed three years ago. Her longtime partner Ryan O'Neal was at her side throughout her final days.

Like so much about Fawcett's life – including her bumpy relationship with O'Neal – her heroic struggle to beat the disease was closely followed by her legion of fans.

"I've watched her this past year fight with such courage and so valiantly, but with such humor," Fawcett's Charlie's Angels costar Kate Jackson told PEOPLE in November 2007.

O'Neal, in particular, remained a steadfast supporter of Fawcett, who, despite her frailty, spent the last months of her life filming a TV documentary chronicling her illness, including several trips to Germany to undergo experimental treatment. Fawcett is survived by her son with O'Neal, Redmond, 24, who is currently serving a prison term in California after repeated drug offenses.

Texas Charmer
Blonde, blue-eyed and petite – and with a trademark mane as flowing and famous as the M.G.M. lion's – the Corpus Christi, Texas, native was born Feb. 2, 1947, the younger daughter of an oil-field contractor and his homemaker wife.

A magnet for male students at the University of Texas at Austin, Fawcett eventually set off for Hollywood. Quickly noticed by casting agents, she began landing small parts in forgettable movies, such as 1970's Myra Breckinridge, based on a gender-bending novel by Gore Vidal. Her role: an ingenuous blonde.

In 1973, Fawcett married actor Lee Majors, forever known as Col. Steve Austin on TV's The Six Million Dollar Man. Three years later, she appeared in the cult sci-fi film Logan's Run and began her stint with costars Jackson and Jaclyn Smith on Charlie's Angels. Well-coiffed and scantily-clad, the threesome created an instant sensation, with a weekly following of 23 million fans.

Farrah Fawcett's 1976 poster

Photo by: Everett Collection
Fawcett moved on after just one season. By then, she was already a phenomenon, having donned a one-piece red bathing suit and a perfect smile for her legendary pin-up poster, which sold a still-record 12 million copies.

"I became famous almost before I had a craft," Fawcett told The New York Times in 1986, four years after her divorce from Majors. (By then, she was already involved with Ryan O'Neal.) "I didn't study drama at school. I was an art major. Suddenly, when I was doing Charlie's Angels, I was getting all this fan mail, and I didn't really know why. I don't think anybody else did, either."


Bumpy Film Career
Though she left TV for what was assumed to be greener pastures – feature films – Fawcett's initial three big-screen vehicles all crash-landed. Her first, 1978's Somebody Killed Her Husband, was lampooned in MAD magazine under the title, Somebody Killed Her Career.

It took some serious dramatic TV roles, including that of a battered wife in 1984's The Burning Bed (which earned her an Emmy nomination), as well as starring in small-screen biopics about pioneering photojournalist Margaret Bourke-White and ill-fated Woolworth heiress Barbara Hutton, for Fawcett to bounce back.

"What would you do if someone said to you, 'You're so popular right now that you can be on the cover of every magazine, but if you do that, you might get overexposed and a backlash will develop'?" Fawcett told The Times after she had emerged from one of the valleys of her career.

Still, she said of fighting for survival in Hollywood, "That's life. Everything has positive and negative consequences."

CNN reports he passed away this morning. R.I.P.

I did a thread in the tv section.

RIP...god this is a terrible year

Sad to see her go. She was a huge star of the 70s and had an enormous impact. Her poster in the bathing suit may be the most famous pin-up in history, and as an idiot hitting puberty, I don't know how long I spent ogling it.

She'll be missed.

R.I.P., Farrah ...

And thank you for having the guts to share with the world your incredibly brave battle.

AppleOnYa

When are we going to defeat cancer? As a cancer survvivor, by far my largest annual charity donation is to the American Cancer Society. I would encourage the President to propose a ten year effort to find a cure for cancer that would parallel JFK's proposal to send a man to the moon by the end of the 60s. It is the most insidious disease and noone is immune.

Farrah was a gentle soul and she deserved to live a longer life. We've got to beat this thing.

Actually, Richard Nixon launched a 'Cure for Cancer' campaign back in the 1970's. There have definitely been MANY advances and the survival rate is much higher than years ago.

But true, it remains a problem and Farrah had to go to Germany for treatments that aren't even allowed here (which was one of the underlying messages in her recent tv special).

He also started the EPA and Legal Aid for the indigent. By today's standards he'd be a flaming liberal.

Quite possibly true.

And also by today's standards, JFK would probably be a Conservative Republican.

its sad that george bush put more money into the war in iraq than anything that involves finding a cure to this. idk if obama had even said anything about cancer while as president.

We knew this was coming, but it still is very sad. Maybe because she was around my age, but this affects me to a degree or some reason. Gosh, I remember in the 70's wearing the "feathered" hairdue look. I remember the very popular poster of Farrah that could well be the most popular poster ever. And, of course Charlie's Angels, which btw, did you guys know she was only in one season?

I did liked The Burning Bed, but liked another one better, where she is attacked in her house and turns the table on the attacker. :lol Title escapes me now.

TIS

"The Burning Bed" showed that Farrah had very decent acting skills, and was not just a pretty face.

I saw the Noxzema tv commercial she did (before "Charlie's Angels") with Joe Namath and her. She was HOTTT!!!!

I think that poster was probably one of the most sold ever! I didn't have one (I was already in my 20s and married) but I think every single guy I knew had one.

R.I.P. Farrah

YEESH...now there's a bulletin that Michael Jackson has been RUSHED to a hospital and may have been in cardiac arrest!!

I'm sure that the Bush Administration spent no money whatsoever on medical research. No money at all.

OT: yea and i sure hope he gets what coming to him in the end because that is something you have to do. if anything though i hope donald rumsfeld goes to hell for his investment in aspartame.

She was also good in the made for tv movie, "Small sacrifices" where she plays the mom who shot her 3 kids, one of them died. Ryan played her boyfriend in that movie. She had a great range in her acting ability.

Oh yea, I saw that one too.

The one I was trying to think of was: Extremities. Have you seen it?

TIS

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091024/

I know of it, but I never saw the whole thing.

It seems all the Charlie's Angels gals became queens of Lifetime made for tv movies.

Poor Farrah got shoved to the bottom of the news cycle. At least her family has more privacy. And yet, I suspect had MJ not passed away, she'd be the headline at least for a while today.


TIS

Yeah, she really got pushed back to around page 10 today. But she was hardly the pop icon that Jackson was, so it's understandable. Hell, her family should be relieved. Grieving in front of the whole world ain't easy.

I always liked her, though. Rest in peace, Farrah.

i think larry king was going to do something of remembering her, but since jackson's sudden death they had to do it.

Yesterday they said Barbara Walters had a special planned with or about Farrah which was to air I believe tonight. However, they said Walters wanted and agreed for it to air yesterday, the day of her death. Then, Jackson passed and I have no idea if it was even shown. I doubt it though. They would be better off to wait a bit.


TIS

TIS, as far as I know, the Walters special was scheduled to air yesterday (Thursday). The events of the day (Farrah's and MJ's deaths) had no bearing on the schedule.

tv land is planning on showing chasing farrah saturday

I was very saddened to hear this yesterday. Actually, I am still quite sad. I am certainly more than old enough to remember her in her heyday, when just about everyone watched Charlie's Angels and/or had the famous poster of her on their walls. And then there were all the women who copied her hairstyle...

Also, it has been incredibly heartbreaking to see Ryan O'Neal on television being so open and candid about his grief. As someone who's been there, I truly feel for the man. I don't think I'd have been able to have been so public about what seems so private a matter.

Farrah was a very brave woman. What a tragedy she lost this fight.

Signor V.

One of the best looking women ever on television hands down. The poster is iconic and one of the first I ever purchased - and the first my mother made me take down! It found its way to the back wall in my closet. I remember her in "Logan's Run" with Michael York...she was very young and very gorgeous. RIP, Farrah.