Farrah Fawcett fact file

Farrah Fawcett was born on 2 February 1947 and grew up in Corpus Christi, Texas.

* Millions of teenage boys in the 1970s decorated their bedrooms with the poster of Fawcett clad in a red one-piece bathing suit and flashing a dazzling smile while playing with her tousled blond mane. Sales of the poster and her role as a crime-fighter on the television show "Charlie's Angels" made her one of the most recognized women in the United States at the time.

* Despite the show's popularity, Fawcett tried to leave "Charlie's Angels" after its first season. As a result of a lawsuit by the producers, she agreed to return for six guest appearances in the next two seasons.

* In 1985 she had a son with long-time companion Ryan O'Neal and the couple starred in a short-lived sitcom, "Good Sports," in the early '90s. Fawcett's struggle with cancer brought them back together and O'Neal had said this month that he had asked asked Fawcett to marry him and that she had agreed.

* Fawcett chronicled her fight against cancer in a 90-minute television documentary titled "Farrah's Story." It drew 9 million viewers and included footage of her shaving off her hair, as well as scenes in which she was bedridden and heavily medicated.

* Fawcett married Lee Majors in 1974 and they appeared together in his television show, "The Six Million Dollar Man," before divorcing in the early 1980s.

* After "Charlie's Angels," Fawcett wanted to show her range and some of her best work featured characters who were victims or caught in domestic turmoil. She was a battered wife in "The Burning Bed," a rape victim in "Extremities," the unfaithful wife of a preacher in "The Apostle" and a mentally unstable woman in "Dr. T and the Women."

* Fawcett's hair set a fashion trend and was one of the most talked-about styles in Hollywood. The New York Times called it "a work of art that looked as if it had just come out of the sea and been tossed by the wind into a state of careless perfection" and was "emblematic of women in the first stage of liberation - strong, confident and joyous."

* Fawcett was nominated for three Emmys and six Golden Globes but never won.

* Before stardom, Fawcett had small roles in 1960s and '70s television shows such as "Mayberry, R.F.D.," "Three's a Crowd," "I Dream of Jeannie," "Marcus Welby," "McCloud," "The Flying Nun" and "The Partridge Family."