European Film Star Postcards: Farrah Fawcett

22 May 2025

Farrah Fawcett

American actress Farrah Fawcett (1947-2009) became known as Jill Munroe in the television series Charlie's Angels (1976-1981). In the 1970s, she was considered a sex symbol. Later, her reputation as a serious actress grew, and Fawcett was nominated four times for the Emmy and six times for the Golden Globe but was never honoured.

Romanian postcard by Casa Filmului Acin.

West German collector card by Bravo. Farrah Fawcett, Kate Jackson and Jaclyn Smith in Charlie's Angels (1976–1981).

The best-selling poster to date

Farrah Fawcett was born Mary Ferrah Leni Fawcett in Corpus Christi, Texas, in 1947. She was the younger daughter of Pauline Alice and James William Fawcett, who worked in the oil business. Her mother came up with the name ‘Ferrah’ because she thought it fit the surname so well. Fawcett later changed it to Farrah. As a child, she showed sporting ability, which her father encouraged. She attended John J. Pershing Middle School in Houston and graduated from W.B. Ray High School in 1965.

She studied at the University of Texas at Austin and was a member of the Delta Delta Delta sorority. She graduated with a degree in Microbiology, but she only wanted to be an actress. Winning a campus beauty contest got her noticed by an agent. She moved to Los Angeles, and her healthy, all-American blond beauty was immediately noticed. In 1968, she met another Southerner, actor Lee Majors, star of the popular TV series The Big Valley (1965), on a blind date set up by their publicists. He became very taken with her and also used his standing to promote her career.

Fawcett started her career in commercials, including Noxema shaving soap, Ultra Bright toothpaste, Wella and the Mercury Cougar. Her earliest acting appearances were guest spots on The Flying Nun (1969) and I Dream of Jeannie (1969–1970). She also appeared in the French romantic-drama Un homme qui me plaît / Love Is a Funny Thing (Claude Lelouch, 1969) with Jean-Paul Belmondo and Annie Girardot and played Mary-Jane Phelbs in the cult film Myra Breckinridge (Michael Sarne, 1970) with Raquel Welch, John Huston and Mae West. The controversial picture follows the exploits of a transgender woman who has undergone a sex change operation.

She won a recurring role in the crime series, Harry O (1973). Fawcett married Lee Majors in 1973 and was, from then on, known as Farrah Fawcett-Majors. She played in four episodes of his popular TV series, The Six Million Dollar Man (1974), about a cyborg. Farrah also had a supporting part in the successful Science-Fiction film Logan's Run (Michael Anderson, 1976) starring Michael York.

Farrah Fawcett-Majors became a star through the series Charlie's Angels (1976-1977), with co-stars Kate Jackson and Jaclyn Smith. The series was about three female detectives working for an investigative agency called Charles Townsend Agency. Charlie's Angels was a global success. Each of the three actresses was propelled to stardom, but Fawcett dominated the popularity polls. She received her first Golden Globe nomination for her work in the show. Her hairstyle was copied by millions of women, and a poster of her in a red swimming suit sold six million copies in its first year in print and became the best-selling poster to date. Fawcett left Charlie's Angels after the first season to pursue more challenging roles in feature films. Fawcett was sued by Aaron Spelling, the show's producer, for breach of contract. The settlement stipulated, among other things, that Fawcett had to make six guest appearances in seasons three and four of the series until 1980. In 1979, she separated from Majors, and the couple divorced in 1982.

French postcard by Travelling Editions, Paris, no. CP 125.

An attempted rape victim who turns the tables on her attacker

After Charlie's Angels ended, Farrah Fawcett starred in several film flops. In 1979, People magazine called her ‘box office poison’ in an article. The British Sci-Fi thriller Saturn 3 (Stanley Donen, 1980) with Kirk Douglas was even nominated for three Razzie Awards, but the comedy The Cannonball Run (Hal Needham, 1981) with Burt Reynolds fared better and grossed over 70 million dollars in the USA. The mini-series Murder in Texas (William Hale, 1981), based on a true murder case, was also favourably received in the same year.

Fawcett remained true to the true crime genre in the following years. She also made several very successful biopics and dramas based on true stories for television. In 1982, Farrah Fawcett got into a relationship with film star Ryan O'Neal. They never married, despite several marriage proposals. With O'Neal, she had a son, Redmond O'Neal. In 1983, Fawcett received positive reviews for her performance in the controversial Off-Broadway play 'Extremities'. She played the role of an attempted rape victim who turns the tables on her attacker.

Highly acclaimed was her performance in the television film The Burning Bed (Paul Greenwald, 1985) with Paul Le Mat. It tells the true story of Francine Hughes, who killed her husband after years of domestic violence. The Burning Bed was the highest-rated television movie of the season. She received both an Emmy and a Golden Globe nomination for her work. Fawcett was again nominated for an Emmy for the TV adaptation of Extremities (Robert M. Young, 1986). She was nominated for Golden Globe awards for roles as Beate Klarsfeld in Nazi Hunter: The Beate Klarsfeld Story (Michael Lindsay-Hogg, 1986) and troubled Woolworth heiress Barbara Hutton in the biopic Poor Little Rich Girl: The Barbara Hutton Story (Charles Jarrott, 1987). Fawcett's reputation as a serious actress grew further with her roles as real-life murderer Diane Downs in the true-crime drama Small Sacrifices (David Greene, 1989) and groundbreaking LIFE magazine photojournalist Margaret Bourke-White in Double Exposure: The Story of Margaret Bourke-White (Lawrence Schiller, 1989).

In 1995, she received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for her television work. In December of that year, she posed nude for Playboy, helping the magazine achieve its highest circulation in the 1990s. In 1997, at the age of 50, she took her clothes off again. Fawcett garnered strong reviews for her role opposite Robert Duvall in the film The Apostle (Robert Duvall, 1997). That year, her relationship with O'Neal ended. In 1998, she was seriously hurt by her new partner, filmmaker James Orr, when he proposed to her and she refused. The relationship ended when Orr was arrested, charged, and later convicted of beating her. Fawcett and O'Neal rekindled their relationship in 2001. One of her later films was the romantic comedy Dr T & the Women (Robert Altman, 2000), starring Richard Gere in the title role and Fawcett as his wife.

In the 21st century, she continued acting on television, holding recurring roles on the sitcom Spin City (2001) and the drama The Guardian (2002–2003). Her final film was the comedy The Cookout (Lance Rivera, 2004). In late 2006, Fawcett discovered that she suffered from anus cancer. The cancer later metastasised to her liver. During her treatments, she was filmed at her request for the documentary Farrah's Story (Farrah Fawcett, Alana Stewart, 2009). Farrah Fawcett died of the disease in 2009 at the age of 62. Shortly before her death, Ryan O'Neal had proposed to her. They wanted to get married as soon as possible. The wedding never took place. Fawcett was buried at Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Westwood, Los Angeles. At its premiere airing, the documentary Farrah's Story was watched by nearly nine million people. Fawcett posthumously earned her fourth Emmy nomination as the producer. In 2011, the red one-piece bathing suit Farrah Fawcett wore in her famous 1976 poster was donated to the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History (NMAH).