Farrah Fawcett, who died today at the age of 62 was the ultimate Angel. Although she played one of Charlie’s Angels for only one out of the show’s five seasons, hers was the face that came to be identified with the show. She defined the era of ‘It Girl’ and the pinnacle of voyeurism with her bottle blonde feathery hair (she is an original brunette), sultry looks and bombshell body.
Before her 1976 Charlie’s Angels performance, Fawcett was an icon of TV commercials. In the same year came the above poster whcih made Farrah Fawcett a staple of every college dorm room in the 70s and the 80s. The ‘jaw-dropping’ poster–as Access Hollywood called it–of Farrah was an immediate best-seller. Eight million copies were sold in a year; with 12 million sales to date, it is not only the decade’s but also history’s best-selling poster.
The shoot and the poses were entirely Fawcett’s idea. Farrah who had a scar on her stomach from a childhood injury was reluctant to pose in a bikini (she never owned any) and instead posed in a one-piece bathing suit. The photographer, Bruce McBroom, recalls the shoot in TIME magazine.
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