Farrah Fawcett: Land of the Farrahs

The night Farrah Fawcett debuted on TV's "Charlie's Angels" in 1976, she transformed pop culture. Her feathery Medusa mane, mile-wide grin, architectural cheekbones and bra-free body made her an instant icon. In a red bathing suit, she became the star of the all-time best-selling poster. She sparked riots wherever she went. She only became more famous when she bolted "Charlie's Angels" after a single season, which resulted in lawsuits that account for her later turning up on the show in guest spots. Her personal life has been endless fodder for the press.

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When her marriage to Lee Majors ("The Six Million Dollar Man") ended in 1982 and when she began cohabitating with Ryan O'Neal (with whom she lived for 17 years and had a son), she made headlines. Whole articles were written about why she chopped her hair off in 1983. In this environment, it was really impossible for her to be taken seriously as an actress. Hollywood producers had chased her for movies when she was an "Angel," but because of her "Charlie's" contract, she lost out on starring in the 1978 megahit Foul Play. The films she did make--Logan's Run, Somebody Killed Her Husband, Sunburn, Saturn 3, The Cannonball Run--were pretty terrible. In a bold move to establish credibility, she took the rate of a woman who exacts revenge on the man who raped her in a 1983 off-Broadway production called Extremities (which in 1986 was made into a feature film, for which she was nominated for a Golden Globe). In 1984, she played a vengeful battered wife in the critically admired TV movie The Burning Bed and was nominated for an Emmy and a Golden Globe. She won more Globe nominations for Nazi Hunter: The Beate Klarsfeld Story (1986) and Poor Little Rich Girl: The Barbara Hutton Story (1987) and another Emmy nod for Small Sacrifices (1989).

In 1995, when it looked as if Fawcett would continue to live a quiet life cranking out respected work in TV movies, things got odd. She posed nude, at 48, for a pictorial in Playboy's Christmas issue. Two years later, she showed up again in Playboy and starred in and coproduced Farrah Fawcett: All of Me, a Playboy pay-per-view special (later released on video) in which she used her naked body as a paintbrush. Then she made a now-infamous appearance on David Letterman's "Late Show," in which her spacey behavior had many believing she was either stoned or drunk. Her personal life was also making news. Months earlier she had split from Ryan O'Neal and started seeing James Orr, the director of her 1995 Chevy Chase comedy Man of the House. But as soon as that relationship began, Fawcett also started a relationship with the LAPD. In May of 1997, Orr's friend Kristen Amber Citron claimed that Fawcett stole $72,000 worth of her clothes from Orr's house (the police investigation failed to substantiate the charge). Things looked up when in early 1998 Fawcett received glowing reviews for her turn in The Apostle, but then she had a scuffle with Orr, which resulted in his arrest. Though today Fawcett, 53, says, "This 'life' stuff just keeps on comin', you know?" her career is back on track. She's currently shooting Jewel, a TV film about a mother dealing with a Down's syndrome child, and Robert Altman's new film Dr. T and the Women, in which she plays a woman who withdraws into childlike behavior because she is loved and watched too much, is due out this fall.

STEPHEN REBELLO: Why did you nix a cameo in the movie version of "Charlie's Angels"?

FARRAH FAWCETT: I only did the show for one year, but pretty much every three years since then they've wanted us to do a movie version or a special Movie of the Week. I just never wanted to. So when they talked about a cameo for this movie I said no right away.

Q: Not even for a sinful amount of cash?

A: That doesn't interest me. To do it, they have to have all three of us girls. [Laughs] We're sort of like a package deal, joined at the hip, and I'm usually the one who's not going to do it.

Q: It was reported in a gossip column that Kate Jackson basically didn't want to work with you and Jaclyn Smith, that she only wanted to cake part in the film if she could play evil and work against the two of you.

A: Oh, I don't believe that. I can't speak for them but what you can't take away from us is that we were and are good friends.

Q: How did you get cast in Dr. T and the Women?

A: Robert Altman saw my Playboy video, called me and sent me the script, which I loved. He told me at my first fining that he had seen the video and he admired my conviction at trying to do something artistic. He wanted me to play this woman who has a Hestia complex, who's loved and adored too much. She regresses and withdraws. Since then [laughs], I say to myself, "OK, I'm just having an attack of Hestia." I do feel that way sometimes. There's too much attention paid to me, whether it be at an airport, a party, a funeral, whatever.

Q: Wasn't there a tabloid report about how you insisted on an open set during your nude scene?

A: Ludicrous. There's a scene at a shopping mall in which my character regresses into this childlike state and thrashes around in a fountain taking her clothes off. It was a closed set. Even when I'm intimate with someone I don't like them to see me without clothes. After 17 years with Ryan [O'Neal], if he walked in on me and I wasn't dressed, I'd pick up a towel and cover myself. I'm basically shy.

Q: When you read about yourself, what really gets your dander up?

A: Anything that says, "Friends are concerned" and goes on from there. [Laughs]

Q: There's often a druggy connotation to the stories.

A: Stories about me make it seem as if I'm holed up in some motel room shooting up or something. Anyone who knows me knows that my time off is spent either at the gym or playing paddle tennis or in the ocean.

Q: What's your favorite story about yourself?

A: Once I read that I was sitting in the front of a gym smoking crack cocaine or doing whatever you do with methamphetamine before going in for a workout. I don't even know if that's physically possible. Don't people reading tabloids stop to ask themselves those questions? There was an article about someone seeing a huge baggie of cocaine being delivered to me. Someone explained to me that even dealers don't carry that much around.

Q: These sorts of stories have followed you around for years.

A: Tell me about it. I remember when I had my Faberge shampoo contract and I was going into Mexico with Jose, my hairdresser. We had a baggie of bleach and another of six lemons because Ryan liked Bloody Marys and you could only get limes in Mexico. They stopped us going into customs. First, they confiscated the lemons--OK, no big deal. Then they thought the bleach was cocaine so they wanted to test it by tasting it and putting it in their noses. My assistant kept saying, "No, don't!" Well, they did. It tasted terrible and my assistant kept saying, "I tried to tell you."

Q: So, the drug stuff is a misconception?

A: Yes. I take no drugs. I don't drink either. I don't like the taste. The only thing I'll have is a glass of champagne, which I like. I will also have a shot of tequila, which I always do when I arrive in a new country. You sec, my body gets attacked by stomach viruses, because I don't drink. It's almost like you get punished for keeping your body too pure.

Q: How do you explain why so many people in the industry say that you act like you're on drugs?

A: I can get giggly. [Laughs] The other night, we shot until five in the morning. Two of my good friends were in town, so the next night we went to dinner and I was so exhausted and giggly that people could have looked at me and said, "My God, what is she on?"

Q: Why did you come off as incoherent during your appearance on "Late Show with David Letterman"?

A: People who know me know that when I'm uncomfortable, I go into a little act. I try to change the subject and get real giggly. I was nervous, and when I went into the theater there were already 150 or so people yelling, "Farrah! We love you!" Of course, you don't hear that when you're watching the show, so even my mother said later, "Why did you keep looking over to the right?" I said, "Because people were screaming and wouldn't even let me finish a story."

Q: What kind of reviews did your family give you?

A: Before I went on the show, I talked with my mother and said I didn't know how I was going to do it because I'd taken a red-eye to New York. My mother said, "Just go out and have fun." So I've since blamed it all on her.

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