'Charlie's Angel' Farrah Fawcett dies at 62

Fawcett, 62, died Thursday morning at St. John's Health Center in Santa Monica, after being diagnosed with anal cancer in 2006.

The news came just a month after the airing of "Farrah's Story," a documentary in which she made public her painful treatments and dispiriting setbacks - from shaving her golden locks before chemotherapy could claim them to undergoing experimental treatments in Germany.

"Her big message to people is don't give up. No matter what they say to you, keep fighting," Alana Stewart, who filmed Fawcett as she underwent treatment, said last month. NBC estimated the May 15, 2009, broadcast drew nearly 9 million viewers.

On Thursday, Fawcett was with Ryan O'Neal, her longtime companion who returned to her side when she became ill. He is the father of her 24-year-old son, Redmond. This month, O'Neal said he asked Fawcett to marry him and she agreed. They would wed "as soon as she can say yes," he said, but it never happened.

"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," O'Neal said in a statement.

Fawcett became a sensation in 1976 as one-third of the crime-fighting trio in "Charlie's Angels." A poster of her in a clingy, red swimsuit sold in the millions and her full, layered hairstyle became all the rage, with girls and women across America mimicking the look.

She had a flop on the big screen with "Somebody Killed Her Husband." She turned to more roles that are serious in the 1980s and 1990s, winning praise playing an abused wife in "The Burning Bed."

Fawcett, Jackson and Smith made up the original "Angels," the sexy, police-trained trio of martial arts experts who took their assignments from a rich, mysterious boss named Charlie (John Forsythe, who was never seen on camera.

The program debuted in September 1976, the height of what some critics derisively referred to as television's "jiggle show" era. It gave each of the actresses many opportunities to show off their figures as they disguised themselves as hookers and strippers to solve crimes.

Her face helped sell T-shirts, lunch boxes, shampoo, wigs and even a novelty-plumbing device called Farrah's faucet. Her flowing blond hair, pearly white smile and trim, shapely body made her a favorite with male viewers in particular.

The public and the show's producer, Spelling-Goldberg, were shocked when she announced after the series' first season that she was leaving television's No. 5-rated series to star in feature films. (Ladd became the new "Angel" on the series.)

But Fawcett was never able to duplicate her TV success on film. Her first star vehicle, the comedy mystery "Somebody Killed Her Husband," flopped. The actress had also been in line to star in "Foul Play" for Columbia Pictures. But the studio opted for Goldie Hawn instead. Fawcett told The Associated Press in 1979 that Spelling-Goldberg sabotaged her, warning "all the studios that that they would be sued for damages if they employed me."

She finally reached an agreement to appear in three episodes of "Charlie's Angels" a season, an experience she called "painful."

After a short string of unsuccessful movies, Fawcett found critical success in the 1984 television movie "The Burning Bed," which earned her an Emmy nomination.

As further proof of her acting credentials, Fawcett appeared off- Broadway in "Extremities," playing a woman who seeks revenge against her attacker after being raped in her own home. She repeated the role in the 1986 film version.

Not content to continue playing victims, she switched type to take on roles as a murderous mother in the 1989 true-crime story "Small Sacrifices" and a tough lawyer on the trail of a thief in 1992's "Criminal Behavior."

She also starred in biographies of Nazi-hunter Beate Klarsfeld and photographer Margaret Bourke-White.

In 1995, at age 50, Fawcett stirred controversy posing partly nude for Playboy magazine. The following year, she starred in a Playboy video, "All of Me," in which she was equally unclothed while she sculpted and painted.

In September 2006, Fawcett, who at 59 still maintained a strict regimen of tennis and paddleball, began to feel strangely exhausted. She underwent two weeks of tests that revealed the cancer.

"I do not want to die of this disease. So I say to God, `It is seriously time for a miracle,'" she said in "Farrah's Story."