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Farrah Fawcett dead at 62

Farrah Fawcett died early this morning (9:28 am PST) after a three year battle with cancer.

She was in St. John’s Heath Center in Santa Monica, Calif when she passed away. She was with longtime partner Ryan O’Neal, friend Alana Stewart, friend and hairdresser Mela Murphy and her doctor Lawrence Piro. She had recently returned to St. John’s for treatment of complications from anal cancer, first diagnosed three years ago.

Ryan O’Neal, her long time companion stated “She’s gone. She now belongs to the ages,” he also confirmed that she received the last rites of the Catholic Church. “She’s now with her mother and sister and her God. I loved her with all my heart. I will miss her so very, very much. She was in and out of consciousness. I talked to her all through the night. I told her how very much I loved her. She’s in a better place now. She was with her team when she passed … Her eyes were open, but she didn’t say anything. But you could see in her eyes that she recognized us.”

Just a few days ago there were reports that Ryan and Fawcett had planned to wed before she died however, in the end, there just wasn’t time.

Friends and family plan to honor Fawcett with a funeral service at a Catholic cathedral in Los Angeles in the next few days.

A little background on Farrah Fawcett from People Magazine:

In 1973, Fawcett married actor Lee Majors, forever known as Col. Steve Austin on TV’s The Six Million Dollar Man. Three years later, she appeared in the cult sci-fi film Logan’s Run and began her stint with costars Jackson and Jaclyn Smith on Charlie’s Angels. Well-coiffed and scantily clad, the threesome created an instant sensation, with a weekly following of 23 million fans.

Farrah Fawcett’s 1976 poster Photo by: Pie InternationalFarrah Fawcett Dies of Cancer at 62| Farrah Fawcett, Ryan O’Neal
Fawcett moved on after just one season. By then, she was already a phenomenon, having donned a one-piece red bathing suit and a perfect smile for her legendary pin-up poster, which sold a still-record 12 million copies.

“I became famous almost before I had a craft,” Fawcett told The New York Times in 1986, four years after her divorce from Majors. (By then, she was already involved with Ryan O’Neal.) “I didn’t study drama at school. I was an art major. Suddenly, when I was doing Charlie’s Angels, I was getting all this fan mail, and I didn’t really know why. I don’t think anybody else did, either.”

Bumpy Film Career
Though she left TV for what was assumed to be greener pastures â€“ feature films â€“ Fawcett’s initial three big-screen vehicles all crash-landed. Her first, 1978’s Somebody Killed Her Husband, was lampooned in MAD magazine under the title, Somebody Killed Her Career.

It took some serious dramatic TV roles, including that of a battered wife in 1984’s The Burning Bed (which earned her an Emmy nomination), as well as starring in small-screen biopics about pioneering photojournalist Margaret Bourke-White and ill-fated Woolworth heiress Barbara Hutton, for Fawcett to bounce back.

“What would you do if someone said to you, ‘You’re so popular right now that you can be on the cover of every magazine, but if you do that, you might get overexposed and a backlash will develop’?” Fawcett told The Times after she had emerged from one of the valleys of her career.

Still, she said of fighting for survival in Hollywood, “That’s life. Everything has positive and negative consequences.”

We’ll miss you Farrah.

Screen legend dead at 83

by Tricia

I was saddened to learn that early this morning actor and screen legend, Paul Newman, died in his farmhouse near Westport Conn.. He was 83.

The actor, who’d had a long battle with cancer, died surrounded by his family and close friends.

Newman’s long career on the stage, screen and television included nine Oscar nominations and a win for The Color of Money. He truly was one of his generations greatest leading men. Newman remained in demand as an actor from the 1950’s through the 2000’s. His final on screen role was as a conflicted mob boss in Road to Perdition.

In later years his interests turned to philanthropy and racing cars.

Here’s a brief bio of his life and acting career from TVguide.com

Newman was born in 1925 in Cleveland, Ohio, and grew up as the son of a successful sporting goods store owner in Shaker Heights. He acted in grade school and high school plays, then joined the Navy, serving in the Pacific in World War II. After his discharge he enrolled at Kenyon College, then spent a year at the Yale Drama School. He finally headed to New York, where he attended the famed New York Actors Studio.

He married his first wife, Jackie, in 1950. They had three children â€” Scott, Susan and Stephanie â€” before divorcing in 1958. In the same year Newman met and fell in love with his future wife, Joanne Woodward, when they filmed the The Long, Hot Summer. They married in Las Vegas, and went on to have three daughters, Elinor, Melissa and Claire.

The couple celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary in January. He was often asked how a Hollywood marriage could persevere so successfully.

“I have steak at home,” he once explained. “Why should I go out for hamburger?”

In the decade after his marriage he made some of the most important films of his career. Newmanâ€™s rebels meshed perfectly with the mood of the 1960s, when he made such box office and critical hits such as The Hustler, Hud, Cool Hand Luke, and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

In 1968 he directed his first feature, Rachel, Rachel. The film earned a Best Picture Oscar nomination and a Best Actress nomination for Woodward.

After his only son, Scott, died of an accidental overdose in 1978, Newman started the Scott Newman Center for drug abuse prevention. He later started The Hole in the Wall Gang Camps, an organization for terminally ill children that took its name from Butch Cassidy.

Perhaps the most recognizable effort by the Newman clan is their food company Newman’s Own, which produces all-natural food, with proceeds going to charity.

An avid and passionate race car driver, he became co-owner of Newman-Haas racing in 1982.

He earned his Academy Award for his portrayal of The Hustler’s Fast Eddie Felson, now middle-aged, in The Color of Money.

After a public appearance in which Newman looked weak and gaunt, family friend A.E. Hotchner confirmed in June that Newman had a form of cancer, but said the actor was â€œdealing with it nicely.â€ More recent reports have said the actor decided to end treatments so he could die peacefully at home.

photo by: x-ray delta one

Luciano Pavarotti passed away

by Tricia

I think I’m still a little shocked by the sudden death of Luciano Pavarotti.

Pavarotti was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer last year, and at 5 a.m. local time on Thursday September 6th he passed away in his Modena, Italy home. His manager, Terri Robson had this to say –

“The Maestro fought a long, tough battle against the pancreatic cancer which eventually took his life. In fitting with the approach that characterized his life and work, he remained positive until finally succumbing to the last stages of his illness,” the statement said.

Pavarotti was arguably the most famous opera singer in the world for the past 35 years.

Nicoletta Mantovani, Luciano’s second wife, survives him, as does his three daughters by his first wife Adua. Pavarotti also had a daughter with Mantovani in 2003 who survives him as well.

Anna Nicole Smith has died

by Tricia

Anna Nicole Smith has died, She was 39.

Anna collapsed at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Hollywood, Florida at approximately 2 pm this afternoon. CPR was performed on route by paramedics to the Memorial Regional Hospital but Anna Nicole Smith did not survive. She was pronounced dead at around 3:45 pm.

She’d been found unresponsive in her hotel room. Local streets were closed off as she was rushed to the hospital 3 miles away. Anna’s body guard had apparently started CPR before paramedics arrived.

She’d been hospitalized for a week last November with pneumomia. Her daughter Dannielynn is in the bahamas and is being cared for by the mother of Shane Gibson, a high-ranking Bahamian official who is a close friend of Smith’s.

It’s not know at this time whether drugs or alcohol played a role in her untimely death.

Updates to follow as they come in.

Angelina Jolies mother has died

by Tricia

On Saturday, Marcheline Bertrand, the mother of Angelina Jolie passed away at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.

Bertrand, 56, had battled cancer for over 7.5 years. She was surrounded by her children, Angelina and her son James Haven, as well as Brad Pitt when she died.

“Marcheline was beautiful, caring and totally devoted to her children. I never saw her upset or sad, even after she was diagnosed with cancer,” Lea Hunter, who once dated Haven, tells PEOPLE. “She always treated me like a member of her family.”

Marcheline Bertrand had her two children with Oscar winning actor Jon Voight, but raised the two kids alone after the divorce. She had many small roles in movies, including 1983’s “The Man who Loved Women”.

She was overjoyed with her granddaugher Shiloh was born last May and she told People Magazine “My heart is overflowing with joy with the new arrival of Brad and Angelina’s third child. Maddox, Zahara and Shiloh are deeply loved children. They have very kind and caring parents who love and support each other in every way.”

A private funeral will be planned, but at this time there is no word when the memorial will take place. The family has requested that in lieu of flowers or gifts that donations be made to the Women’s Cancer Research Institute at Cedars-Sinai.

Farrah Fawcett dead at 62

Screen legend dead at 83

Luciano Pavarotti passed away

Anna Nicole Smith has died

Angelina Jolies mother has died

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