PEOPLE Farrah Fawcett: 10 Years Later

By The Editors of PEOPLE

PEOPLE Magazine presents Farrah Fawcett: 10 Years Later.

• Language: English
• Publisher: People
• Release date: Jun 14, 2019
• ISBN: 9781547848966

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FARRAH FAWCETT

HER BEAUTIFUL LIFE CELEBRATED IN PICTURES, 10 YEARS AFTER HER PASSING

SURPRISED A persuasive publicist started it all by urging her to try Hollywood. Said Fawcett: I didn’t come to Los Angeles expecting to be anything.

ON SEPT. 22, 1976, Charlie’s Angels premiered on ABC, and Farrah Fawcett, 29, one of the show’s three stars, became an overnight pop-culture sensation. A poster with her image sold more than 12 million copies—still a record. Her magnificent hair sparked a nationwide trend. People bought Farrah shampoo, toothbrushes and dolls in droves. At the height of Farrah mania, her manager Jay Bernstein claimed to have turned down a seven-figure offer to market water from Farrah’s own faucet. What was going on? Yes, she was a sex symbol of the ’70s, but both men and women found her effortlessly likable. She never enjoyed (or endured) that kind of white-hot attention again, but when she would pop back on the radar—in a serious film like 1997’s The Apostle or at the 2006 Emmys, reunited with her Charlie’s Angels costars—she was received warmly. So it was all the more dispiriting that her final performance was in Farrah’s Story, a documentary about the treatment for the anal cancer that ultimately took her life at age 62. Her death turned attention on a seldom-discussed disease, and her foundation continues to fight it. (See page 88). On the 10th anniversary of her loss, People is celebrating the life and career of a woman who was a phenomenon and today remains an icon.

DRESSED TO FIGHT CRIME One week the Angels (from left, Kate Jackson, Fawcett and Jaclyn Smith in a publicity shot), scantily clad, took a trip to Mexico to infiltrate a drug ring. A week later, scantily clad, they would go undercover to investigate the murder of a beautiful fashion model. Some critics complained that the plots seemed unbelievable. Of course they were unbelievable! sputtered coproducer Aaron Spelling. We had a hoot doing it!

‘MEN WATCH THE GIRLS, WOMEN WATCH THE CLOTHES’

—DESIGNER NOLAN MILLER

FLASH BAIT Fawcett couldn’t avoid paparazzi at the Cannes Film Festival in 1978. A year later she had a cameo playing herself in An Almost Perfect Affair, set at the event.

‘YOU’RE ALWAYS UNDER PRESSURE TO LOOK AND FEEL AND BE GOOD. HOW WOULD YOU LIKE TO BE PHOTOGRAPHED EVERY DAY OF YOUR LIFE?’

—FARRAH FAWCETT

GLAM SANDWICH Sonny Bono found himself caught between Farrah and his wife, Cher, in a 1977 episode of The Sonny & Cher Show.

‘WE WOULD GO TO [THE RESTAURANT] MR. CHOW, AND A RIOT WOULD BREAK OUT OVER HER IN THE STREETS. THEY’D HAVE TO CALL THE POLICE’

—FRIEND JOAN DANGERFIELD

DRENCHED Bruce McBroom, the photographer who snapped Farrah’s poster picture, also shot her as she posed with a hose ca. 1977.

‘I DON’T WANT TO SPEND MY