Today I want to salute T.V. BABES of yesteryear : what with today’s crop of young and rising starlets, its easy to forget the women who paved the way for them. When I was a kid in the 80′s, these actresses, for better or for worse, as small or large their roles or star-power – were the prominent women on prime time television; gracing shows like DALLAS, THREE’S COMPANY, CHARLiE’S ANGELS, WONDER WOMAN, DUKES of HAZARD, WKRP in CiNCiNATTi etc etc. Some may be familiar, others ‘forgotten’ – and ALL of them exhibited great big hair, teeny-tiny waists, shoulder-pads and smiles that could light up a stadium! Just for today I encourage you to interrupt your regular programming and take a moment to enjoy these visuals!
To this day I’m saddened by the loss of FARRAH FAWCETT – and its not difficult to recall June 25th, 2009, as it was a double hit with the loss of legendary MiCHAEL JACKSON as well. There are many of us who will remember that day with a great sense of loss. I’ve loved FARRAH since as early as I can remember and she will always remain my FAVORiTE of ‘CHARLiE’S ANGELS’ – despite the beauty and graces of KATE JACKSON, JACLYN SMiTH, CHERYL LADD, SHELLEY HACK, and TANYA ROBERTS. FARRAH’S legacy will always burn stronger than any of those woman combined, and there is good reason for it. FARRAH was a beautiful paradox.
There really aren’t enough words for me to describe FARRAH’S legacy – but when I think of her overall impact on pop culture I see a puzzle of sorts – and I like it. She was undoubtedly a vision of beauty far superior to any other television star of her time; hair cascading down, that mega-watt smile, that body – & that poster that sold over 12 million dollars. She was every man’s desire and every young girls friend, thanks in part to her role as athletic private detective JiLL MUNROE on AARON SPELLiNG’S ‘CHARLiE’S ANGELS’; a serendipitous mix of action, fashion and camp. As JiLL she represented a ‘golden girl’, someone you could picture as your best friend and confident – someone strong and capable of fighting crime and kicking ass with the best of them. The thing that I could never get past, even as a youth soaking in the glory that was CHARLiE’S ANGELS, was that there was also something very fragile, vulnerable and strangely tragic about her as well. Even in her prime. I get a similar feeling when I think of MARiLYN MONROE - that rare mixture of ‘little girl lost’ meets goddess. And like MONROE, FAWCETT represents those actresses whom you could sense had so much more to offer than they ever really got the chance. There was a potential there that over the years became muddled; yet on the outside looking in I never doubted that she felt desitined for bigger things. As a gay boy I even felt compelled to protect her – in a similar way I would feel compelled to protect my beautiful sisters or girlfriends from the lecherous hands of the world. I felt this way instinctively – although I never could understand how a television actress could evoke such sentiments. Today I understand it as a touching aspect of her character in real life – despite the countless struggles she faced as an actress, wife, mother and WOMAN – she was also a fierce fighter in a painful world.
THE BURNiNG BED (1984) was indeed the closest thing I think FARRAH ever got to proving herself as much more than a beautiful angel. Her role as a battered wife in the fact-based television movie earned her the first of her four EMMY AWARD NOMiNATiONS and the project is noted as being 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 that season. FAWCETT quoted what network execs once had to say about THE BURNiNG BED as they initially rejected the idea: “Nobody wants to see any woman – especially FARRAH FAWCETT being beaten for two hours”, yet her determination to break free of JiLL MONROE proved to be successful. It was a difficult film to watch and it serves as part of the puzzle that was FARRAH FAWCETT: the fragile fighter. If you watch the youtube clip of THE BURNiNG BED below, one can’t deny that she emerged as an actress.
FARRAH never really did become the full mega movie star I’m sure she aspired to be. Despite all of the tabloid fodder, the loopy interviews on late night television, and the seemingly desperate nudie-art spreads in PLAYBOY, I can’t help but want to embrace and protect my favorite angel even to this day, in spite of the fact that she was a capable fighter of her own battles until the day she passed. A person can still want to protect the fiercest of fighters – and so for today I share with you these selected FARRAH images and videos in tribute to one of my all-time favorites.
