The camera loved her. Men drooled over her and women wanted to look like her. She was the pin-up girl of the '70s—the blonde bombshell whose lovely visage hung on the walls of teenage boys across North America in one of the most famous posters of the decade. The classic image of Farrah Fawcett wearing a red swimsuit (pictured at left) sold 12 million copies around the world. But today, the woman who entered our collective consciousness 35 years ago as a lovely television pop idol, is dead at 62 after a fierce and much-publicized battle with cancer.

Fawcett was catapulted to worldwide fame in 1976 when she starred alongside Kate Jackson and Jaclyn Smith in the Aaron Spelling series Charlie's Angels. Fawcett played Jill Munroe, who, together with Sabrina Duncan (Kate Jackson) and Kelly Garrett (Jaclyn Smith), worked for a detective agency and received their assignments via speaker-phone from an unseen boss, the wealthy Charlie Townsend (voiced by John Forsythe, prior to his appearance as Blake Carrington on another Spelling series, Dynasty).

Fawcett left the show after just one season. The series cashed in on her sensational popularity with an array of merchandise, including Farrah dolls, T-shirts, wigs and posters. Fawcett is said to have demanded a percentage. The show’s executives called her bluff and she walked out to pursue a movie career.

At the time, she was known as Farrah Fawcett-Majors, married to television's Six Million Dollar Man, Lee Majors—together, the two were Hollywood's A-list television celebrity couple, until the fairytale marriage became strained behind the scenes, marked by Majors' admitted drinking problem and jealousy when Farrah's fame began to eclipse his own.

Fawcett then went from Majors to the arms of one of his best friends, Ryan O’Neal, with whom she maintained an on again/off again relationship until her death.

To her dismay, critics didn't take Fawcett seriously as an actress. Initial movie roles in Sunburn and The Cannonball Run did little to change the minds of critics, but she later redeemed herself with riveting performances as a battered wife in The Burning Bed (1984), and her role as a rape victim in the movie Extremities (1986), which also had a successful off-Broadway run.

Fawcett was diagnosed with cancer in 2006. As she underwent treatment, she enlisted the help of O'Neal, who was the father of her now 24-year-old son, Redmond. This month, O'Neal said he asked Fawcett to marry him and she agreed. They would wed "as soon as she can say yes," he said.

Her protracted battle with cancer and her treatment was featured in a recent NBC television documentary, Farrah's Story. An NBC spokeswoman confirmed today that the network will air a follow-up to Farrah's Story.

In the end, both Lee Majors and Ryan O’Neal lent support to Fawcett in her final days, with O’Neal acting as spokesperson to break the news earlier this month that Fawcett had opted to cease receiving cancer treatment.

Lee Majors' representative released a statement after Fawcett's death, saying, "Lee and his wife Faith were saddened by the news. She fought a tremendous battle against a terrible disease."

In a note sent to her 91-year-old father, Fawcett reportedly wrote, "I’ve lived a full and wonderful life. I’ve loved and been loved. I’m happy. I’m ready."

Godspeed, Farrah...you will be missed by many, and forgotten by few.