I wouldn't be surprised if some stylists have had to field requests for the Jheri curl. (Note to beauticians: Don't give in, no matter how much the customer is willing to pay.)
"They represented a huge part of our culture," said David Baron, chair of the psychiatry department at Temple University's School of Medicine. "They were visual symbols of a generation. It was more than what they did, it was how we connected to them."
Jackson and Fawcett were hallmarks of my carefree childhood. For the last week, their images have been fixed in my mind's eye.
Back then, it was much harder to get our hands on celebrity pictures - and even more difficult to get pics of black stars - so the posters of Michael Jackson dressed in all white with a yellow button-up vest were cherished almost to the point of worship.
The image of Fawcett wearing a red/orange bathing suit, her head playfully cocked backward, leaves the strongest impression. In those days, we couldn't pick up an OK! or Us magazine to see Fawcett buying coffee, shopping, or building a house; still, her hairstyle ruled, crossing over to Chaka Khan and Clair Huxtable, who sported a 1980s fluffy version.
"In the 1970s and '80s when Michael and Farrah were at the top of their form, we only got the images that were given to us," said Richard Laermer, author of Punk Marketing (Harper Collins, 2009) and entertainment blogger for Huffington Post.
"If Epic wanted to show us Michael at home, that's what we got. If ABC wanted to show Farrah with her hair up, that's what we got."
