I know, it's kind of shocking to hear me talking about Farrah. I'm pretty jaded and unimpressed with celebs but Farrah, well, she totally represented a big part of my youth. She passed away today after a long battle with cancer.
When I was a really blobby awkward kid, "Charlies Angels" was the hottest thing on TV. To be honest, I was totally in love with Jacklyn Smith. She was my favorite out of the three actresses in that show. I wanted to BE her. Her hair, body, face, she was just the perfect woman to my adolescent eyes. She still is. Kate Jackson was a man and Farrah was beautiful but I never liked that California all American look even though I liked Farrah herself. I remember when she was married to the "Bionic Man" Lee Majors. I never liked that guy. He was not even the slightest bit good looking. I can't imagine why he was a "sex" symbol back then. The "Angels" were all sex objects before breast implants and botox. I am thankful that I grew up during a time when women in hollywood may have been really gorgeous but I never had to compare myself to fake breasts and body parts that were humanly impossible for me ever grow or find in nature as it was intended.
At some point Farrah broke out of that sexy airhead stereotype and started playing serious roles like the battered woman vehicle "The Burning Bed" and on Broadway in "Extremities" in which she played a woman who turned the tables on her rapist. She even played a Nazi Hunter in "Nazi Hunter: The Beate Klarsfeld Story". It was pretty shocking to see her do these projects but even Cher busted a move in Silkwood and Mask that changed the way people thought of her too so those events sort of taught people not to make assumptions about female entertainers and that was pretty refreshing.
Farrah was also responsible for the extensive torture of my hair. I have very curly, difficult to manage hair. Imagine if you will, me forcing it into a Farrah "do". My head looked like I had glued two breakfast sausage links over my ears when I tried to do those "wings" that she sported. Actually, come to think of it I probably could have been mistaken for a Hasidic Jewish man. My Farrah "hair wings" looked more like peyot (those sideburn ringlets that are the mark of an orthodox Jewish man) than sexy wings. That should have been a "don't" for me but oh the pressure to look like all the other girls. Being fat and having bad hair really was quite the daily double for a pre-teen. I also lived through the "Princess D" and "Dorothy Hamill" hairdo's as well. I really wonder why on earth there were no mainstream curly hair role models for the unfortunate ones like me, but that is for another discussion and as usual I am being my tangential self again.
Anyway, the death of someone as iconic as Farrah brings back a lot of memories for this awkward kid who watched her and bikini clad her co-stars solve crimes while looking like hot shit. I will never forget that famous poster of her in the red bathing suit with that huge blindingly white smile on her face. Celebrities don't smile like that anymore. They are all too busy trying very hard to be sexy. Farrah just was.
That's all for now :)
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