Farrah Fawcett.
Say her name and there’s a good chance millions of Paris Hilton, Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan wannabes will scratch their heads and mutter: “What’s the big deal?”
I’m here to enlighten them.
 Fawcett seen in Wella Balsam print ad |
You see, boys and girls, Farrah Fawcett was a big deal. In fact, she wasn’t just a big deal. Farrah Fawcett was huge.
I understand. I remember. I was there.
I’m convinced you had to be alive in 1976 to understand the phenomenon that was Farrah Fawcett.
To put it simply, Farrah Fawcett was “It.”
Let’s start at the beginning and call her by her once-proper name: Farrah Fawcett-Majors.
You see, not only did Farrah Fawcett-Majors mesmerize us with her stunning good looks, she also had three names! And there was a dash between them! Until Farrah, I’d never known anyone who had a dash between their maiden and married names. Trust me when I say the hyphenated name was a big deal.
And while we’re on the subject, who’d ever heard of the name Farrah before? Nobody. “So unique and pretty, just like her,” thought 11-year-old me.
Wow.
When Farrah burst onto the scene, I was a tube-sock wearing middle schooler attending Girl Scouts, singing “silly little love songs,” begging my mom to let me shave my legs (hence the tube socks), and faithfully watching “Donny and Marie.”
And then suddenly, along came Farrah. She was all over the TV when there were just three channels.
In commercials, she swapped Noxzema shaving cream with Joe Namath, shampooed her hair with Wella Balsam, brushed her teeth with Ultra-Brite, and got behind the wheel of a Mercury with a cougar in hot pursuit..
She was there every week on “Charlie’s Angels.” She was on variety shows and TV specials. Remember “Battle of the Network Stars?” She and her co-stars were touted as “TV’s Super Women” on the cover of Time.
Her mega-watt smile beamed from every newsstand and magazine rack. Those impossibly straight, white teeth and that gorgeous mane of flowing, golden tresses.
Farrah was the most famous woman on the planet. There was no escaping her. And why would we want to?
We girls tried sporting the “Farrah” hairstyle. I never saw anyone come close to pulling it off. And even our teachers and moms liked Farrah and tried to emulate her. Hairdressers the world over must still hear the word “feathered” in their sleep.
The boys in middle school coveted her iconic pin-up poster in which she wore a red swimsuit that left little to the imagination. According to rumors at the time, if you looked closely, you could see the letters S-E-X formed by her cascading curls. Of course, the boys couldn’t know the poster would someday hang in the Smithsonian Museum. They just knew how she made them feel. Sigh.
You remember, don’t you?
Farrah became pop culture’s ultimate icon. She was glamour personified and even women were captivated by her.
The joke went like this: “The boys want to be Lee Majors so they can be married to Farrah Fawcett-Majors, and the girls want to be Farrah Fawcett-Majors so they can be … Farrah-Fawcett Majors!”
And the 11-year-old me wanted desperately, oh so desperately, to be Farrah Fawcett-Majors too.
Farrah represented all-American beauty at its best. Beauty that she wore so casually. But you know something? Even Farrah’s stunning good looks can’t explain the depth of her appeal at the height of her popularity. She also had a sweet, approachable persona and possessed a healthy, energetic vitality. She was shiny and magic. She didn’t just radiate beauty, she radiated life.
And that, I believe, is what many of us were really responding to in her.
Farrah’s fame didn’t involve bad behavior. She didn’t sport tattoos, or fall down drunk in the street, or flash photographers while pumping gas, or yell the F-word in public.
She never did any of those things to gain fame or perpetuate fame. Although it may seem mundane by today’s celebrity standards, she simply embraced her wholesome sex appeal and celebrated it right along with the rest of us.
English romance novelist Elinor Glyn helped coin the term “It girl” and described it thus: “That quality possessed by some which draws all others with its magnetic force.”
There’s no doubt Farrah Fawcett was the “It girl” of the 1970s.
She had it. She looked it. She lived it.
Farrah Fawcett was “It.”
Felicia Dionisio is an assistant news editor for WorldNetDaily.
