Age, Biography and Wiki
Farrah Leni Fawcett was born on February 2, 1947, in Corpus Christi, Texas, and passed away on June 25, 2009, at the age of 62. She rose to international fame as a leading actress, best known for her role as Jill Munroe in the hit TV series Charlie’s Angels (1976–1980). TV Guide once ranked her the #26 greatest TV star of all time. Fawcett was also a notable artist and model, with a highly publicized battle against cancer in her later years.
| Occupation | Stage Actress |
|---|---|
| Date of Birth | 2 February 1947 |
| Age | 78 Years |
| Birth Place | Corpus Christi, Texas, U.S. |
| Horoscope | Aquarius |
| Country | U.S |
| Date of death | 25 June, 2009 |
| Died Place | Santa Monica, California, U.S. |
Height, Weight & Measurements
- Height: 5 feet 7 inches (170 cm)
- Weight: Approximately 125 lbs (57 kg) during her peak fame
- Measurements: While exact measurements varied, at the height of her modeling career, Fawcett’s measurements were reported as approximately 35-23-35 inches (89-58-89 cm).
Note: Details on weight and measurements may vary by source, but these figures are widely cited in vintage interviews and magazine features.
| Height | 5 feet 7 inches |
| Weight | 125 lbs |
| Body Measurements | |
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Dating & Relationship Status
Farrah Fawcett was married to actor Lee Majors from 1973 to 1982, after which they divorced. She was in a long-term relationship with actor Ryan O’Neal, with whom she had a son, Redmond O’Neal. Despite O’Neal’s claims of being almost married multiple times, Fawcett’s will and trust did not include him as a beneficiary. Instead, the bulk of her assets, including artwork, were designated for charitable causes and her alma mater.
Fawcett began her career in the 1960s appearing in commercials and guest roles on television. During the 1970s, she appeared in numerous television series, including recurring roles on Harry O (1974–1976), and The Six Million Dollar Man (1974–1978) with her then-husband, film and television star Lee Majors. Her iconic red swimsuit poster sold six million copies in its first year in print. With co-stars Kate Jackson and Jaclyn Smith, she starred in the television series Charlie's Angels, playing private investigator Jill Munroe. However, she left at the conclusion of the first season in 1976, returning as a guest star in six episodes during the show's third and fourth seasons (1978–1980). She received her first Golden Globe nomination for her work in the show.
In 1983, Fawcett received positive reviews for her performance in the Off-Broadway play Extremities. She was subsequently cast in the 1986 film version and received a Golden Globe nomination. She received Emmy Award nominations for her role as a battered wife in The Burning Bed (1984) and for her portrayal of real-life murderer Diane Downs in Small Sacrifices (1989). Her 1980s work in TV movies earned her four additional Golden Globe nominations. Although Fawcett weathered some negative press for a rambling appearance on The Late Show with David Letterman in 1997, she garnered strong reviews that year for her role in the film The Apostle with Robert Duvall. 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). For the latter, she received her third Emmy nomination. Fawcett's film credits include Love Is a Funny Thing (1969), Myra Breckinridge (1970), Logan's Run (1976), Sunburn (1979), Saturn 3 (1980), The Cannonball Run (1981), Extremities (1986), The Apostle (1997), and Dr. T & the Women (2000), & The Cookout (2004).
Her mother, Pauline Alice Fawcett (née Evans; 1914–2005), was a homemaker and her father, James William Fawcett (1917–2010), was an oil field contractor. She was of Irish, French, English and Choctaw Native American ancestry. Fawcett once said the name "Ferrah" was "made up" by her mother, because it went well with their last name.
Between 1965 and 1968, she attended the University of Texas, where she studied microbiology before switching her major to art, studying under Charles Umlauf, her "favorite professor" with whom she had a close mentoring relationship; in 2017, works by Fawcett were shown at the Umlauf Sculpture Garden and Museum in Austin in the exhibit Mentoring a Muse. She lived at the Mayfair House on Pearl Street, west of the campus, and was a member of Delta Delta Delta sorority.
In her freshman year of college, she was named one of the "ten most beautiful coeds on campus", and it was the first time that a freshman had been chosen for the honor. Her photos were sent to various agencies in Hollywood. David Mirisch, a Hollywood agent, called her and urged her to come to Los Angeles. She turned him down, but he continued for the next two years. Finally, in the summer of 1968, Fawcett moved to Los Angeles, initially staying at the Hollywood Studio Club, with her parents' permission to "try her luck" in the entertainment industry.
When Fawcett arrived in Hollywood at age 21 in 1968, Screen Gems signed her to a $350-a-week contract. She began to appear in commercials for such products as Ultra Brite toothpaste, Noxzema skin cream, Max Factor cosmetics, Mercury Cougar automobiles, and Beautyrest mattresses, among others. Her earliest acting appearances were guest spots on The Flying Nun (1969) and I Dream of Jeannie (1969–70). She made numerous other television appearances, including Getting Together, Owen Marshall: Counselor at Law, Mayberry R.F.D., and The Partridge Family. She appeared in four episodes of The Six Million Dollar Man with husband Lee Majors, on The Dating Game and S.W.A.T, and had a recurring role on Harry O alongside David Janssen as the title character's girlfriend, Sue. She had a sizable part in the 1969 French romantic-drama Love Is a Funny Thing. She played the role of Mary Ann Pringle in Myra Breckinridge (1970).
Fawcett earned a supporting role in Michael Anderson's science-fiction film Logan's Run (1976) with Michael York. She and her husband, television star Lee Majors, were frequent tennis partners with producer Aaron Spelling. Spelling and his business partner eventually chose Fawcett to play Jill Munroe in their upcoming made-for-TV movie, Charlie's Angels, a movie of the week which aired on March 21, 1976, on ABC. The movie starred Fawcett (then billed as Farrah Fawcett-Majors), Kate Jackson, and Jaclyn Smith as private investigators for Townsend Associates, a detective agency run by a reclusive multimillionaire whom the women had never met. Voiced by John Forsythe, the Charles Townsend character presented cases and dispensed advice via a speakerphone to his core team of three female employees, whom he referred to as "Angels". They were aided in the office and occasionally in the field by two male associates, played by character actors David Doyle and David Ogden Stiers. The program quickly earned a huge following, leading the network to air it a second time and approve production for a series, with the pilot's principal cast minus Ogden Stiers.
In the spring of 1977, Fawcett left Charlie's Angels after only one season. After a series of legal battles over her contract with ABC, Cheryl Ladd replaced her on the show, portraying Jill Munroe's younger sister Kris Munroe. Over the years, numerous explanations were offered for Fawcett's precipitous withdrawal from the show. Because her husband, Lee Majors, was the star of an established television show as well (ABC's Six Million Dollar Man, which aired from 1974 to 1978), the strain on her marriage due to filming schedules that kept them apart for long periods was frequently cited, but her ambition to broaden her acting abilities in films has also been given as an explanation. She never officially signed her series contract with Spelling, owing to protracted negotiations over royalties from her image's use in peripheral products, which led to an even more protracted lawsuit filed by Spelling and his company when she left the show. As a result of leaving her contract four years early, she reluctantly signed a new contract with ABC, stating that she would make six guest appearances on the series over a two-year period (1978–1980).
In 2004, the television film Behind the Camera: The Unauthorized Story of Charlie's Angels dramatized the events from the show, with supermodel and actress Tricia Helfer portraying Fawcett and Ben Browder portraying Lee Majors, Fawcett's then-husband.
In 1978, Fawcett's first post-Angels movie, Somebody Killed Her Husband, was released to adverse reviews (some critics referred to the film as Somebody Killed Her Career ) and a poor box-office. The 1979 release of Sunburn, co-starring Charles Grodin and Art Carney, was met by equally unfavorable reviews. In 1980, Fawcett starred with Kirk Douglas in Stanley Donen's science-fiction film Saturn 3; the film earned unfavorable reviews from critics and experienced poor box office sales. The following year she starred alongside an ensemble cast, which included Burt Reynolds, Dean Martin, and Sammy Davis Jr. in the comedy The Cannonball Run (1981). Later that year, she co-starred with Katharine Ross, Sam Elliott, and Andy Griffith in the television movie Murder in Texas.
The following year, her role as battered wife Francine Hughes in the fact-based television movie The Burning Bed (1984) earned her the first of her four Emmy Award nominations. The project was the first television movie to provide a nationwide 800 number that offered help for others in the situation, in this case victims of domestic abuse. It was the highest-rated television movie of the season.
Also in 1997, Robert Duvall chose Fawcett to play the role of his wife in The Apostle, which was an independent feature film that he was producing. She received an Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best Supporting Female for the film. In 2000, she worked with director Robert Altman in the feature film Dr. T & the Women, as the wife of Richard Gere. (Her character has a mental breakdown, leading to Fawcett's first fully nude appearance.)
Fawcett began dating Lee Majors in the late 1960s. She was married to Majors from 1973 to 1982, although the couple separated in 1979. They had no children. Throughout her marriage (and despite the separation) she used the name Farrah Fawcett-Majors in her screen credits.
In 1994, Fawcett told TV Guide that their relationship had some troubles. "Sometimes Ryan breaks my heart, but he's also responsible for giving me confidence in myself," she said. After their split, O'Neal's daughter Tatum O'Neal alleged that he physically abused Fawcett. "He had a terrible temper and was very violent. He beat her up", she said. Fawcett and O'Neal rekindled their relationship in 2001. On June 22, 2009, The Los Angeles Times and Reuters reported that Ryan O'Neal had said that Fawcett had agreed to marry him as soon as she felt strong enough.
From 1997 to 1998, Fawcett was in a relationship with Canadian filmmaker James Orr, who was the writer and producer of Man of the House, the Disney feature film in which she co-starred with Chevy Chase and Jonathan Taylor Thomas. The relationship ended when Orr was arrested, charged, and later convicted of beating Fawcett during a 1998 fight.
Fawcett dated Longhorn football star Greg Lott while they were undergrads at the University of Texas. Lott said they rekindled their romance in 1998 and had a "a loving, consensual, one-on-one relationship" until she died in 2009. He claimed Ryan O'Neal kept him from seeing Fawcett in her final days. "He kept me from seeing the love of my life before she died", he told ABC News. In Fawcett's living trust she left nothing to O'Neal, but she left $100,000 to Lott. Lott insisted Fawcett's relationship with O'Neal was just for show. "Everything she did with Ryan, including all of those so-called reality shows they made together, was just Hollywood fantasy, something she had to do to keep up her image", he said.
Fawcett's older sister Diane Fawcett Walls died of lung cancer just before her 63rd birthday on October 16, 2001. The fifth episode of her 2005 Chasing Farrah series followed the actress home to Texas to visit her father, James, and mother, Pauline. Pauline Fawcett died on March 4, 2005, at the age of 91.
A month later on May 7, Fawcett was reported as being critically ill, with Ryan O'Neal quoted as saying she was spending her days at home on an IV and often asleep. The Los Angeles Times reported that she was in the last stages of terminal cancer and had seen her son Redmond in April 2009, although he was shackled and under supervision because he was then incarcerated. Her 91-year-old father, James, flew to Los Angeles to visit her.
Fawcett did not name long-time partner Ryan O'Neal in her living trust, which she had last amended in 2007. She left most of her estate, $4.5 million, to their son Redmond in a trust overseen by her business manager, Richard Francis. While Redmond is permitted to collect interest on the trust, the principal of the trust is available only for matters relating to Redmond's health care. Fawcett also left $500,000 to her nephew, Gregory Walls; $500,000 to her father, James Fawcett; and $100,000 to her college boyfriend, Gregory Lott.
The song "Midnight Train to Georgia" had initially been inspired by Fawcett and Lee Majors. Songwriter James Dawn "Jim" Weatherly phoned Majors, who was one of his friends, but it was Fawcett who actually answered the call. Weatherly and Fawcett chatted briefly and she told him she was going to visit her mother and was taking "the midnight plane to Houston". Although Majors and Fawcett were both successful by that time, Weatherly used them as "characters" in his song, about a failed actress who leaves Los Angeles and is followed by her boyfriend who cannot live without her. Eventually the genders were swapped to a failed actor who leaves Los Angeles and is followed by his girlfriend, a train replaced the plane, and Houston was changed to Georgia. The recording by Gladys Knight & the Pips attained the number 1 position on the Billboard chart in 1973.
| Parents | |
| Husband | Lee Majors (m. 1973-1982) |
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Net Worth and Salary
- Net Worth at Death: Estimated between $20 million and $25 million. Some outlier sources mention a value as high as $70 million, but most credible reports settle around the $20–25 million mark at the time of her death in 2009.
- Warhol Artwork: Her art collection included at least two Andy Warhol portraits of herself, one of which was valued at over $12 million. Disputes arose posthumously over ownership of these pieces.
- Salary Highlights:
- Charlie’s Angels: Initially $5,000 per episode, later renegotiated to $100,000 per episode.
- Silk Hope (1998): $750,000 for the TV movie.
- Merchandising: She famously signed her own deal for a red bathing suit poster, which sold millions of copies.
- 2025 Net Worth Estimate: Since her death in 2009, there is no “current” net worth. Her estate remains referenced for its value at the time of her passing, adjusted only by the fate of her art and ongoing legal matters.
The Charlie's Angels series proper formally debuted on September 22, 1976. Each of the three actresses was propelled to stardom, but Fawcett dominated popularity polls. She subsequently won a People's Choice Award for Favorite Performer in a New TV Program. In a 1977 interview with TV Guide, she said, "When the show was number three, I thought it was our acting. When we got to be number one, I decided it could only be because none of us wears a bra." Fawcett's appearance in the television show boosted sales of her poster, and she earned far more in royalties from poster sales than from her salary for appearing in Charlie's Angels. Her hairstyle went on to become an international trend, with women sporting a "Farrah-do", a "Farrah-flip", or simply "Farrah hair". Iterations of her hair style predominated among American women's hairstyles well into the 1980s.
Career, Business and Investments
- Acting Career: Fawcett’s breakthrough role was on Charlie’s Angels, which made her an international superstar. She also appeared in significant TV roles (Harry O, The Six Million Dollar Man) and films (The Burning Bed, Extremities).
- Modeling: Before acting, she was a sought-after model, starring in Wella Balsam shampoo ads and other campaigns.
- Art: Fawcett studied art at the University of Texas and pursued painting as a passion. Her artwork was significant enough to be included in her estate planning, with her alma mater as a beneficiary.
- Merchandising & Business: She leveraged her image for merchandising, including dolls and posters, and negotiated deals directly to maximize her earnings.
- Investments: Details of her investments are private, but her estate included valuable art, real estate, and provisions for family and charitable causes.
In 1976, Pro Arts Inc. pitched the idea of a poster of Fawcett to her agent. A photo shoot was then arranged with photographer Bruce McBroom, who was hired by the poster company. According to friend Nels Van Patten, Fawcett styled her own hair and did her makeup without the aid of a mirror. Her blonde highlights were further heightened by a squeeze of lemon juice. Fawcett selected her six favorite pictures from 40 rolls of film, and the choice was eventually narrowed to the one that made her famous. The resulting image of Fawcett in a one-piece red bathing suit is the best-selling poster in history.
Charlie's Angels was a global success, maintaining its appeal in syndication and spawning, particularly in the show's first three seasons, a cottage industry of peripheral products, including several series of bubble gum cards, two sets of fashion dolls, numerous posters, puzzles, and school supplies, novelizations of episodes, toy vans, and a board game, all featuring Fawcett's likeness. The "Angels" also appeared on the covers of magazines around the world, from countless fan magazines to TV Guide (four times) to Time.
In 1983, Fawcett won critical acclaim for her role in the Off-Broadway stage production of the controversial play Extremities, written by William Mastrosimone. Replacing Susan Sarandon, she played the role of an attempted rape victim who turns the tables on her attacker. She described the role as "the most grueling, the most intense, the most physically demanding and emotionally exhausting" of her career. During one performance, a stalker in the audience disrupted the show by asking Fawcett if she had received the photos and letters he had mailed her. Police removed the man and were able to issue him a summons only for disorderly conduct.
Social Network
Farrah Fawcett was active in the entertainment industry and maintained a high public profile through her TV and film work. She was not active on social media as it did not exist during her lifetime.
- Legacy: Her image and contributions are celebrated on fan pages, memorial sites, and through documentaries such as Farrah’s Story (2009).
- Posthumous Recognition: Her influence endures, with ongoing interest in her life, career, and iconic image.
Fawcett was diagnosed with anal cancer in 2006 and died three years later at age 62. The 2009 NBC documentary Farrah's Story chronicled her battle with the disease. She posthumously earned her fourth Emmy nomination for her work as a producer on Farrah's Story.
In 1986, Fawcett appeared in the movie version of Extremities, which performed well financially. For her performance she received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama. She appeared in Jon Avnet's Between Two Women with Colleen Dewhurst, and took several more dramatic roles as either infamous or renowned women. She was nominated for Golden Globe awards for roles as Beate Klarsfeld in Nazi Hunter: The Beate Klarsfeld Story and troubled Woolworth heiress Barbara Hutton in Poor Little Rich Girl: The Barbara Hutton Story, and won a CableACE Award for her 1989 portrayal of groundbreaking LIFE magazine photojournalist Margaret Bourke-White in Double Exposure: The Story of Margaret Bourke-White.
Farrah's Story, a two-hour documentary filmed by Fawcett and Alana Stewart, aired on NBC on May 15, 2009. At its premiere airing, the documentary was watched by nearly nine million people, and it was re-aired on the broadcast network's cable stations MSNBC, Bravo and Oxygen. Controversy surrounded the aired version of the documentary. Her initial producing partner—who had worked with her four years earlier on her reality series, Chasing Farrah—alleged that the editing of the program by O'Neal and Stewart was not in keeping with Fawcett's wishes to more thoroughly explore alternative methods of treatment of rare types of cancers such as her own. Fawcett posthumously earned her fourth Emmy nomination as the producer of Farrah's Story.
News of Fawcett's death was largely overshadowed by media coverage of the death of Michael Jackson, which occurred a few hours later on the same day. On the night of her death, ABC aired an hour-long special episode of 20/20 featuring clips from several of Barbara Walters' past interviews with Fawcett, as well as new interviews with Ryan O'Neal, Jaclyn Smith, Alana Stewart, and Dr. Lawrence Piro. Walters followed up on the story on Friday's episode of 20/20. CNN's Larry King Live planned a show exclusively about Fawcett that evening until Jackson's death caused the program to shift to cover both stories. Cher, a longtime friend of Fawcett, and Suzanne de Passe, executive producer of Fawcett's Small Sacrifices mini-series, both paid tribute to Fawcett on the program. Coincidentally, de Passe had worked for Motown Records in the 1960s and '70s, and she had also played a major part in the development of the Jackson 5, which included Michael Jackson. NBC aired a Dateline NBC special "Farrah Fawcett: The Life and Death of an Angel" the following evening, June 26, preceded by a rebroadcast of Farrah's Story in prime time.
That weekend and the following week, television tributes continued. MSNBC aired back-to-back episodes of its Headliners and Legends episodes featuring Fawcett and Jackson. TV Land aired a mini-marathon of Charlie's Angels and Chasing Farrah episodes. E! aired Michael & Farrah: Lost Icons and The Biography Channel aired Bio Remembers: Farrah Fawcett. The documentary Farrah's Story re-aired on the Oxygen Network and MSNBC. BET aired the 2004 movie The Cookout, in which Fawcett had appeared.
Larry King said of the Fawcett phenomenon:TV had much more impact back in the '70s than it does today. Charlie's Angels got huge numbers every week – nothing really dominates the television landscape like that today. Maybe American Idol comes close, but now there are so many channels and so many more shows it's hard for anything to get the audience, or amount of attention, that Charlie's Angels got. She was a major TV star when the medium was clearly dominant.
Education
- High School: W.B. Ray High School, Corpus Christi, Texas
- College: University of Texas at Austin (studied art, though she did not graduate)
Fawcett initially pursued a career in art before transitioning to modeling and acting, where she found enduring success and acclaim.
A Roman Catholic, Fawcett began her early education at the parish school of the church her family attended, St. Patrick's Roman Catholic Church in Corpus Christi. She graduated from W. B. Ray High School in Corpus Christi, where she was voted "most beautiful" by her classmates in her freshman, sophomore, junior, and senior years of high school.
Not wanting to undergo a colostomy, Fawcett traveled to Germany for treatments described variously in the press as "aggressive" and "alternative". There, Ursula Jacob prescribed a treatment including surgery to remove the anal tumor, a course of perfusion and embolization for her liver cancer by Claus Kiehling and Thomas Vogl in Germany, and chemotherapy in the US. Although initially the tumors were regressing, their reappearance a few months later necessitated a new course that included laser ablation therapy and chemoembolization. Aided by friend Alana Stewart, Fawcett documented her battle with the disease.
Fawcett's art collection was bequeathed to the University of Texas. When the university received it, one of her Andy Warhol portraits was missing. In 2011, after discovering that O'Neal had retained the portrait, the University filed a lawsuit. O'Neal claimed that Fawcett had given the painting to him. Lott alleged that Fawcett never gave up ownership of the portrait and that it was her wish to bequeath all her artwork to her alma mater. In December 2013, a Los Angeles court ruled that the portrait belonged to O'Neal.
She was a selfless person who loved her family and friends with all her heart, and what a big heart it was. Farrah showed immense courage and grace throughout her illness and was an inspiration to those around her... I well remember her kindness, her cutting dry wit and, of course, her beautiful smile...when you think of Farrah, remember her smiling because that is exactly how she wanted to be remembered: smiling.
In 1980, O'Neal facilitated a meeting between Fawcett and artist Andy Warhol, who created two portraits of Fawcett during their time together. Fawcett later lent the portraits to The Andy Warhol Museum. Following a 2013 court case between O'Neal and the University of Texas, which had been named by Fawcett as the recipient of all of her artwork, one of the portraits was deemed the property of O'Neal. The portrait was valued at between $800,000 and $12 million during the court case.
Conclusion
Farrah Fawcett remains an icon of American television and pop culture, remembered for her beauty, talent, and business acumen. At the time of her death, her net worth was estimated between $20 and $25 million, with a legacy that includes not only her acting and modeling career but also her passion for art and charitable giving.
