FARRAH FAWCETT (1947 - ) Biography - Theater, Opera and Movie personalities

 
 

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FARRAH FAWCETT (1947 - )
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Actress. Born Farrah Leni Fawcett, on February 2, 1947, in the coastal city of Corpus Christi, Texas. She was the second daughter of Pauline and Jim Fawcett. From 1962-65, Fawcett attended W.B. Ray High School, where she held the title of “Most Beautiful Student” for all four years.

       

In the fall of 1965, Fawcett enrolled at The University of Texas at Austin, where she planned to major in microbiology. The following year, a celebrity publicist asked her to go to California to work as a model. Initially, her parents forbade her to go, however, in the summer of 1968 they conceded and accompanied Fawcett on her trip out west to Hollywood. Within two weeks of arriving, she landed a modeling contract. Immediately inundated with offers to star in TV commercials and print advertisements, Fawcett’s plan to return to school fell by the wayside.

       

Fawcett remained in Hollywood and began a relationship with actor Lee Majors. The couple dated for five years before marrying in July 1973. That same year, Majors began starring in his own hit TV series, The Six Million Dollar Man, in which Fawcett made several guest appearances. In 1976, Fawcett was cast as former policewoman Jill Monroe in the TV series Charlie’s Angels. Also starring fellow beauties Kate Jackson and Jaclyn Smith, the Aaron Spelling drama premiered to high ratings. However, critics had a dimmer view, classifying Charlie’s Angels as “family style porn” and “jiggle TV.”

       

During the show’s first season, a poster of Fawcett dressed in a seemingly innocent red bathing suit sold 12 million copies.

       

The image, which catapulted Fawcett to superstardom, epitomized her perfect combination of girl-next-door innocence and blonde bombshell sexuality. Furthermore, the layered hairstyle that she sported became such an overwhelming trend with American women that a Farrah Fawcett shampoo was launched.

       

Despite her overwhelming popularity, Fawcett didn’t return for the second season of Charlie’s Angels. Spelling, who wielded a large amount of power in Hollywood, sued the actress for breech of contract. Faced with a $7 million lawsuit, Fawcett settled out of court by agreeing to make periodic guest appearances on the show over the next few years.

       

Fawcett turned her attention toward film roles, appearing in Logan’s Run (1976), Sunburn (1979), and Saturn 3 (1980), which all failed at the box office. The subsequent roles she was offered reflected the industry’s doubts about her talent as a serious actress. Although Fawcett was praised for her first dramatic television performance in the 1981 miniseries Murder in Texas, her appearance as a ditsy blonde in the film Cannonball Run (1981) was more typical of the scripts that came her way.

       

Fawcett and Majors divorced in 1982, ending their 9-year marriage. Fawcett began dating actor and notorious womanizer Ryan O’Neal. The following year, she fought for and won the starring role in the off-Broadway play Extremities. The production received rave reviews and Fawcett’s performance as a vengeful rape victim was heralded as her greatest achievement to date.

       

In 1984, Fawcett produced and starred in the made-for-TV movie The Burning Bed, which was a searing portrait of domestic violence. For her compelling performance as a woman driven to kill her husband after suffering for years under his physical abuse, Fawcett earned national recognition, as well as an Emmy nomination.

       

Throughout the late 1980s and early 1990s, Fawcett’s projects were predominantly TV movies. Her credits included: Poor Little Rich Girl: The Barbara Hutton Story (1987), Double Exposure: The Story of Margaret Bourge-White (1989), Criminal Behavior (1992), and The Substitute Wife (1994). In 1995, the 48-year-old actress posed topless in Playboy magazine; the issue quickly became one of the most popular in the magazine’s history. Two years later, Fawcett once again graced the pages of Playboy.

       

In 1997, Fawcett’s significant role in the acclaimed religious drama The Apostle, opposite Robert Duvall, introduced her to a new generation of moviegoers. Most recently, she starred alongside Richard Gere and Helen Hunt in the Robert Altman comedy Dr.T and the Women (2000).

       

Fawcett and O’Neal had a son in 1985, before breaking up in 1997. Fawcett and Hollywood director James Orr began dating later that year. In January 1998, Orr was arrested for physically attacking Fawcett; he was later tried and convicted of assault and battery.


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