Actress Farrah Fawcett dies of cancer

LOS ANGELES - Actress Farrah Fawcett died Thursday in a southern California hospital after a three-year battle with cancer. She was 62.

Her long-time companion Ryan O’Neal, who earlier this week announced their intention to marry, said that Fawcett died at 9.28 a.m. (1628 GMT) at St John’s Health Centre in Santa Monica with her friends and family at her side.

“After a long and grave battle with cancer our beloved Farrah has passed away,” said O’Neal in a statement.

“Though this is an extremely difficult time for her family and friends, we take comfort in the beautiful times we shared with Farrah over the years, and the knowledge that her life brought joy to so many people around the world.”

Fawcett was a major star in the 1970s and 1980s, thanks largely to her most famous role as a female detective on the hit TV show Charlie’s Angels. But she was equally famous for her iconic poster, which featured her in a red bathing suit, with her extravagant blonde locks, flashing a million-dollar smile.

“Farrah had courage, she had strength and she had faith. And now she has peace as she rests with the real angels,” said Jaclyn Smith, who co-starred with Fawcett in Charlie’s Angels.

Fawcett dropped out of Charlie’s Angel after just one season to pursue more serious acting roles. But though she never regained the acclaim she had in that show, she remained a fixture on the American pop culture scene. In 1995, she surprised her fans by posing for Playboy at the age of 48, and it became the magazine’s best-selling issue of that decade.

Born in February 1947 in Corpus Christi, Texas, Fawcett died just six weeks after the broadcast of Farrah’s Story, a documentary she made about her battle with cancer, which included a brief period of remission and experimental treatments in Europe. Fawcett shaved off her famous hair last year, when it began falling because of her cancer treatments.

O’Neal had been Fawcett’s companion since 1982, and the couple had a son together, Redmond, 24, who is currently serving time for drug offences. Previously she had been married to US television star Lee Majors.