THE HAT SQUAD: FARRAH

The poster to the right is how many of us will remember Farrah Fawcett: I think it's the way we should remember her, rather than as the frail, gentle lady who was wasting away this last year. Nor should her antics on Letterman's show back in 1997 serve to blot out the memory of Farrah as the pin-up dreamgirl for so many lads back in the mid-70's. Jill Munroe, one of the first of 'Charlie's Angels', will always come first to mind when we think of her roles in TV and the movies; but she also made important contributions to Toobworld - like the abused wife who stood up for herself in "The Burning Bed".

I liked that poster as well, not that I had it but I know it was hanging in several dorm rooms at T-House. But it was these two pictures of Farrah that I liked more:

It's something about that full-on gaze framed by that hair....

Like I said, she contributed plenty of characters to Toobworld besides Jill Munroe. I think the one that first put her into the public's mind was that of Sue Ingham on 'Harry O'. In this last decade, two of her recurring roles were of Mary Gressler on 'The Guardian' (and I'll frankly confess I never even heard of the show before today), and as Judge Claire Simmons in the alternate TV dimension for 'Spin City'.

And then there's her tele-version, that Farrah Fawcett of the League of Themselves who did things the real life Farrah never did.....

"So noTORIous"
- Plucky (Pilot) (2006)

"The Larry Sanders Show"
- Eight (1995)

"The Fall Guy"
- The Fall Guy (1981)

"The Brady Bunch Hour"
- Episode #1.1 (1977)

That last one is a variety show, but everybody else on the show was fictional, transplanted from an earlier sitcom. (The splainin for the one recastaway among the Brady Bunch is too lengthy to go into here. And this is a tribute to Farrah.....)

There was another TV credit among those in which she was supposedly playing an actual character.....

"Mayberry R.F.D.".... Show Girl #1
- Millie, the Model (1969)

In this episode, Millie goes to New York thinking that she's going to have a career as a model. Sam Jones finally went up to the Big Apple to check on her and find out why he hadn't heard from her in two weeks.....

Farrah played the first show girl; that's all we know the character as.

So I'm thinking.... everything else about the tele-version of Farrah Fawcett has been fictionalized; why not the early days of her career when she was just starting out and hoping to make her big break?

Why couldn't "Show Girl #1" actually be Farrah Fawcett as herself?

She even had a version of herself over in the Tooniverse. Like many other celebrities, her animated self was related to a fictional TV character. In Farrah's case, it was the little girl who lived next door to 'Johnny Bravo'.

And as a cartoon, Farrah Fawcett was still angelic.....

She really is with the angels now. As Red Skelton would say (and maybe Charlie Townsend as well):

"Good night, and may God bless....."

BCnU....