With her huge blond hair and gleaming toothpaste-ad teeth, Farrah Fawcett was one of the defining pop culture figures of the 1970s - the Pamela Anderson of her day, if you like, a phenomenon. So how did she find such massive fame, and what has she been up to in the years since she left Charlie's Angels?

Angel: Jill Munroe Farrah Fawcett (or Farrah Fawcett-Majors, as she was known at the time) played Jill Munroe, the only blonde in the original line-up of Angels. Jill was the sporty, athletic one, a skateboarding, roller-skating, basketball playing dynamo who charmed and dazzled everyone she met, particularly the male of the species. Farrah's flip hairdo was copied by millions of girls and women at the time. While fellow Angel Sabrina Duncan was probably the "leader" of the trio, it was Jill who caught everyone's eye - thanks in no small part to her radiant, endlessly cheerful appearance. A trained cop, she eventually left the team to pursue a career as a champion racing car driver, although she would return to help the other Angels out occasionally.

Farrah Fawcett Profile

Born in  the coastal city of Corpus Christi, Texas on 2 February 1947, Farrah Fawcett was – like her alter-ego Jill Munroe – a natural athlete from a young age.  She was the second daughter of Pauline and Jim Fawcett. The "IT" girl of the '70's, Farrah Fawcett's all-American good looks got her noticed at an early age. She was voted 'Most Beautiful Girl in School' by her Corpus Christi, Texas high school every year she attended. Still, there was more to Farrah than looks.  A brilliant student, she was accepted by a university to study microbiology, but her real burning desire was to be an actress.  It was a dream that would be fulfilled after she was spotted by an agent and offered a modeling contract in Hollywood, where she was eventually picked up for TV ads and programs like  "The Partridge Family" (as eye candy for Danny) and "I Dream of Jeannie" (as Roger Healey's love interest). She had arrived.

The Birth of a Pop Icon

Farrah's life changed in 1968 when she met the more established TV actor Lee Majors, who would later become a huge star in the classic sci-fi series The Six Million Dollar Man. Majors used his influence to get more roles for Farrah, who became his wife in 1973. She actually starred in The Six Million Dollar Man herself for a time, but true fame came thanks to a now-famous bathing suit poster she released. It sold several million copies across America, making her one of the best-known faces in the country. It was this that led to her being selected for a new TV show called Charlie's Angels – the series that made her a phenomenon.

The Farrah Phenomenon Charlie's Angels became one of the most popular TV shows of its day, and all three actresses became famous overnight. But it was Farrah who was the undisputed super star of the show, garnering endless media coverage just as Pamela Anderson would for Baywatch many years later. During the show’s first season, a poster of Fawcett dressed in a seemingly innocent red bathing suit sold 12 million copies. The image, which catapulted Fawcett to superstardom, epitomized her perfect combination of girl-next-door innocence and blonde bombshell sexuality. Furthermore, the layered hairstyle that she sported became such an overwhelming trend with American women that a Farrah Fawcett shampoo was launched.

Everyone was stunned when Farrah decided to leave Charlie's Angels following the very first smash-hit season. She was keen to capitalize on her success and explore a film career, but her decision was made so suddenly that even series producer Leonard Goldberg apparently had no idea until he saw it mentioned on the evening news. She left Charlie's Angels after its first year despite her $10,000 per episode salary.  Aaron Spelling, who wielded a large amount of power in Hollywood, sued the actress for breech of contract. Faced with a $7 million lawsuit, Fawcett settled out of court by agreeing to make periodic guest appearances on the show over the next few years. Although she did leave Charlie's Angels after the first season, it wasn't the last viewers would see of her character Jill Munroe, as Farrah made fairly regular guest appearances in future seasons. Life after the Angels Fawcett turned her attention toward film roles, appearing in Sunburn (1979) and Saturn 3 (1980), which all failed at the box office. The subsequent roles she was offered reflected the industry’s doubts about her talent as a serious actress. Although Fawcett was praised for her first dramatic television performance in the 1981 miniseries Murder in Texas, her appearance as a ditsy blonde in the film Cannonball Run (1981) was more typical of the scripts that came her way. Fawcett and Majors divorced in 1982, ending their 9-year marriage. Fawcett began dating actor and notorious womanizer Ryan O’Neal. It was not really until 1983 that Fawcett, having cut her hair and left both her business manager and her husband, began to take greater charge of her own career, determined to shed the superficialities of her star persona.

Playing a woman who turns the tables on an attempted rapist and torments him in the Off-Broadway play "Extremities", Fawcett, though cast in a role and play of limited (if highly potent) emotional range and development, thoroughly impressed the critics with her displays of rage, craftiness and desire for revenge.

Having split with Lee Majors in 1982, Fawcett (since then billed simply as Farrah Fawcett) began a long-term relationship with actor Ryan O'Neal, with whom she had a son in 1985. The two returned to series TV after a long absence to co-star in the CBS sitcom, "Good Sports" (1991). While the show was not a popular success, Fawcett, older, wiser but still stylish, brought to the series a relaxed quality not often seen in her work and a confidence which was doubtless the result of her quest for dignity and respect.

And she was again involved in scandal in 1998 when charges of abuse arose in her relationship with director James Orr. It has been whispered that Fawcett was out of control, maybe having a mid-life breakdown or suffering from a substance-abuse problem, which she has vehemently and often denied.

" I think she's wiser," says loyal pal Tina Sinatra, of Fawcett's past troubles. "It's not a fun arena to cross, but she did it, and she's better for it." Farrah also scored a critical triumph as Robert Duvall's straying wife in "The Apostle." Most who have worked with Fawcett praise her performances. Rob Carliner, producer of Robert Duvall's 1997 drama "The Apostle", which won Fawcett universal critical praise for her portrayal of an evangelist's estranged wife, says, "If you want to judge her on anything, judge her onscreen. I would hold her performance in "The Apostle" against any actress working today."

New Millennium

Fawcett turned in a nicely modulated turn as Richard Gere's mentally disturbed wife in Robert Altman's "Dr. T & the Women" (2000), and delivered solid performances in a pair of telepics, "Baby" (2001), as the matriarch of a scarred family enlivened when they take in an abandoned baby, and "Jewel" (2001), as a 1940s-era forty-year-old mother battling for more for her child with Down's Syndrome. Less stellar was the tawdry TV miniseries "Hollywood Wives: The New Generation" (2003), based on author Jackie Collins' potboiler, with Fawcett as a Hollywood star fed up with her philandering hubby. The actress then resurfaced in the Queen Latifah-produced urban comedy "The Cookout" (2004) before revealing herself with her own reality series, "Chasing Farrah" (TV Land, 2005), with the requisite cameras following Fawcett throughout her daily life.

"Chasing Farrah" chronicles a day in the life of the sex symbol. It also showed her relationship with Ryan O'Neal, father of her son, Redmond. She was also seen with Keith Carradine and Jean Stapleton in the TNT Original film "Baby" and again put in a touching and outstanding performance. The film tells the story of a mother whose infant died years before, who now finds an abandoned infant on her doorstep. The film is based on the best selling novel by Patricia MacLachlan and was executive-produced by Academy-Award-Nominated actress Glenn Close.

In 2004, she received her third Emmy nomination for her performance in The Guardian (2003), but has experienced tragedy since then. Fawcett suffered a series of personal losses in 2006, including the deaths of her agent Jay Bernstein, mentor Aaron Spelling and her beloved mother, “Polly.” In 2006, Fawcett reunited with Kate Jackson and Jaclyn Smith at the Primetime Emmy Awards for a tribute to Spelling, who'd died earlier that summer.

"The three of us didn't experience the Charlie's Angels phenomenon like the rest of the world did," a tearful Fawcett told the audience. "We experienced it from the inside—the eye of that televised storm—together."

In 2008 Fawcett's battle took her to Germany, where she underwent treatment before returning to Los Angeles and being admitted to a Los Angeles hospital in early April. While some reports at the time described Fawcett's condition as grave, her doctor said the actress was being treated for bleeding unrelated to the cancer. And while Fawcett headed home on April 10, there was not much to celebrate: Her doctor also noted the cancer had spread to her liver.

Later that month, Fawcett's troubled 24-year-old son, Redmond O'Neal, who'd been arrested on drug charges April 5 while Fawcett was still hospitalized, was temporarily released from custody and, in leg shackles, allowed to visit his mother's bedside in Malibu. Jail officials allowed the younger O'Neal to speak to his mother by telephone before her passing. Farrah Fawcett sadly passed away on the 25 June 2009 at 9:28 a.m. Ryan O'Neal, Fawcett's longtime leading man, and friend Alana Stewart were with her at St. John's Health Center in Santa Monica, per a rep at Rogers & Cowan, Fawcett's publicity firm. Farrah will always stay in our hearts and in our minds as one of the most beautiful, vibrant and wonderful actresses and persons in the world. We love you Farrah.