Sleuth has been on a figure-finding mission to Europe over the past three weeks … it’s a tough job but someone—ME—has got to do it … and thus missed the death on Thursday of Farrah Fawcett. Alas, many seem to have missed it, since the demise of singer Michael Jackson just hours later seems to have overshadowed her in the media {like this 10-year-old kiss-off}. Fitting then, that on the day she’s laid to rest in a private ceremony, we publicly note her brave battle and sad passing.
“She’s gone,” sobbed longtime love Ryan O’Neal. “She now belongs to the ages {with apologies to Abraham Lincoln!}. She’s in a better place now.” There are few worse places to get cancer than in the anus, though an article in today’s Washington Post headlined: “Cancer That Killed Fawcett Is Rare but Often Treatable.” In fact, anal cancer strikes only about 5,000 Americans a year—compared to 215,000 cases of lung cancer—and according to the American Cancer Society: “It occurs most often in people who have many sexual partners, have receptive anal intercourse or have a weakened immune system” from drug use {widely rumored after her dazed demeanor with David Letterman in 2004}.
Farrah was just 62—it seems like only yesterday she was halfway there—so we prefer to remember her finer points: the ever-erect duo on her chest! “I can’t really put my finger on why the show is such a big hit,” the sexy starlet said when Charlie’s Angels took off in 1976 … so let’s tweak her memory: “Farrah’s major focal point on the show was her very erect nipples that were always pushing against her too-tight shirts,” notes the AngelsForever.com tribute site. “When the show was number three [in the ratings],” Farrah later quipped, “I figured it was our acting. When we got to be number one I decided it was only because none of us wears a bra.” That should put any other explanation to bed …
Once Farrah’s “very erect nipple” pushed too hard on “her too-tight shirt” … and managed to escape on prime-time television (a broadcast first!) at the same time she and Angels Jaclyn Smith and Kate jackson were escaping from prison in its highest-rated episode ever, 1976’s Angels in Chains. And it also managed to escape the network censors! Admits series producer Leonard Goldberg: “Angels in Chains was my favorite episode. The show got a 56 share {more than half the homes watching TV}! The rerun got a 52 share. I told Aaron Spelling we should just run it every week until it dropped below 40.”
Or in Farrah’s case, 33½ B. “In high school,” Fawcett admitted {her 1964 senior pic from W.B. Ray High in Corpus Christi, Texas}, “the football players all went for the girls with tremendous bosoms, and I was a little flat, if you know what I mean”—as Raquel reveals in Farrah’s Myra Breckinridge debut. So a•pair•ently she decided to remedy the tit•uation, boosting her bust to a 36D. Clearly she was drawn to the enlarged assets, even painting her pert pair in her mid-40s!
Yet her God-given gifts were sufficient to send her 1976 poster over the top: it remains the best-selling wall-hanging of all-time! “The key was Nipples,” her agent Jay Bernstein boasted. “Those nipples reached every guy going through puberty” {rare outtakes from the swimsuit session}. They also reached the Sleuth guy … my Collection includes an extremely hard-to-get original poster signed by Farrah just two months before her death!
We can’t think of a more (form) fitting farewell … as she takes a final bow. R.I.P., FF.