Farrah Fawcett, Actress: 1947 – 2009
By Craig Kennedy - June 25th, 2009; 11:03 am
Assorted outlets are reporting that Farrah Fawcett has succumbed to her long battle with cancer.
Best known for her TV appearances (Charlie’s Angels) and this poster which hung on the wall next to my bed throughout the late ’70s, she also had a film career comprised of many movies that won’t be making a lot of top 10 lists, but that occupied a disproportionate part of my childhood including films like Logan’s Run, Saturn 3 and The Cannonball Run.
In 1986, she received a Golden Globe nomination for her role in the drama Extremities and she was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for her 1995 role as Robert Duvall’s wife in The Apostle.
Filed under: Obituaries
Tags: Farrah Fawcett
RIP.
I enjoyed her in Logan’s Run and thought she was quite winning in The Apostle.
Hey, Cannonball Run may not have been a masterpiece but as kids we had a great time at the movie. She was definitely part of my childhood as well. We all had girl-crushes on her.
So sad. She had the same type of cancer that my grandmother had (she died at 68). It’s sad to see her go but I’m glad she’s not suffering anymore – that is a really nasty and painful cancer.
RIP, Angel. :(
Yeah I look back at Cannonball Run now with a smirk, but I LOVED that movie when I was a kid. It makes me sad to think about it now.
Wow, that is sad news. I remember her as the female icon of the 70’s even though I never found her incredibly attractive myself. Even her name, Farrah, seemed to set her apart from other actresses.
I’m sorry to hear that about your grandmother, Alison.
Cancer is perhaps the greatest proof that we live in a fallen world.
She was fantastic in The Apostle.
So sad to hear this.
I always wanted to be her when I was a kid! And I could have killed for that hair!!
I remember her most from the movie The Burning Bed. I watch it every time it’s on tv.
RIP, Farrah.
It’s funny, I’d sort of outgrown her in terms of as a sex symbol by then, but I remember when she did Burning Bed and it turned out she wasn’t just cheesecake and everyone was surprised.
Just attempting to catch up in the limited time that I have…
Farrah’s passing saddened me deeply – even though I knew that it was coming.
She really got an exceedingly raw deal from the industry. Her enormous fame and the world wide phenomenon that she was translated into an incredibly dificult double edged sword.
She wasn’t an unattainable va va va voom chick. Farrah was athletic and exuded an authentic air. She was a head turner. But she seemed completely approachable and down to earth.
But after nearly a decade of trying to make inroads in the Hollywood hierarchy, in the late 70s her star rose so fast and her notoriety became so great that the industry refused to take her seriously. Her physical appearance helped open those doors. But it made her goal of respected actor a much more difficult road. It also didn’t help that the show that launched her was obviously mindless TV fluff.
So Farrah left Charlie’s Angels and worked her ass off.
It’s a tragedy that she never had the film career that she should have had. She was extraordinarily talented. The best roles that she had were in TV miniseries and movies: MURDER IN TEXAS, THE BURNING BED, THE BARBARA HUTTON STORY,. MARGARET BOURKE WHIITE, SMALL SACRIFICES…
Most of the films she made were crap. But I think that the ACADEMY made a big mistake when they didn’t nominate her for EXTREMITIES. She was a force of nature in that.
She was nodded for three Emmys and six Golden Globes. She never won any major awards.
I’m sure that in the 70s and 80s when she was the biggest deal in the entire world no one ever expected that it would eventually shake out like this.
Even EW focused on nonissues like her David Letterman appearance and the Playboy stuff in her career highlights package instead of showcasing the exceptional television work that she did.
It’s a wicked shame. Poor Farrah.
Believe it or not, I’m not even really a fan. It’s just that she had the potential to be so much more. It’s clear from what she accomplished that she had the goods. They just wouldn’t allow her to get to the level she should’ve been at all along.
I hope she finally is at peace.
Farewell, gorgeous angel. She was much too good for them.
It’s not fair to milk her scattered Letterman appearance. Didn’t she come back a bit later and she was just fine?
I’m almost positive, yeah.
I think (if I’m not mistaken) that she appeared on LATE NIGHT at least two more times before she passed away.
Craig, I wish that people would just shut their pieholes about something so stupid and inconsequential.
As human beings, we’ve ALL had off nights where we’ve been silly, verbally reckless, hurt someone else’s feelings inadvertently or said something that we wish we could take back after the fact.
But because she happened to have this experience in public on Dave’s show no one is ever going to forget it???
I think people should just move on.
Farrah was a world wide phenomenon and a gorgeous talented woman.
And this is what they’re going to focus on now that she’s gone…?
That’s pretty damn sad.