Hers was the face that launched a million push pins. A poster of her in a red swimsuit, at once wholesome and lascivious, became required decor on the walls of boys' bedrooms across the country in 1976.
That inescapable image, along with her simultaneous debut in the hit TV series Charlie's Angels, rocketed the lithe Texan to overnight fame.
That overwhelming early fascination continued to follow and, at times, plague the fiercely private Ms. Fawcett until her death four decades later.
In her iconic pose, Ms. Fawcett was all coltish legs, dazzling teeth, and cascading blonde hair. (Her layered and frosted mane became a tonsorial fad, known simply as The Farrah.)
Ms. Fawcett's wall placard, which sold an unprecedented 12 million copies, became the most celebrated bathing suit poster since Betty Grable's.
In Charlie's Angels, she, Kate Jackson and Jaclyn Smith played a trio of sexy undercover investigators for the never-seen Charlie. The unproven Ms. Fawcett was the final Angel cast, primarily to fill the group's blonde quotient.
Derided as "Jiggle TV," the show finished its inaugural season in fifth place in the ratings, besting The Six Million Dollar Man, the series starring Ms. Fawcett's then-husband, Lee Majors. (During her nine-year marriage to Majors, the actress worked as Farrah Fawcett-Majors.)
Ms. Fawcett left the show abruptly after one season, dissatisfied with her $10,000-per-episode salary and determined to find more challenging roles. After a contractual dispute, she was obligated for the next two years to make sporadic guest appearances on Charlie's Angels.
