Ryan O’Neal Reveals Farrah’s Final Struggle

By Michael Inbar
TODAYShow.com contributor
updated 10:16 a.m. ET July 21, 2009

Cancer took its final, ultimate toll on beloved American actress and sex symbol Farrah Fawcett, but the spark of life never left her eyes until the moment of death. In an exclusive interview on TODAY Tuesday with Meredith Vieira, Farrah’s romantic companion of 30 years Ryan O’Neal described in heart-wrenching detail the end of his beloved’s life.

“She never closed her eyes; her eyes were open for the last three weeks of her life,” a still emotional O’Neal told Vieira. “She was watching us. She didn’t speak much, but she watched us. And then, finally, she closed her eyes.”

Final fight

Fawcett, a 1970s pop icon through the TV series “Charlie’s Angels” and her best-selling swimsuit pinup poster, passed away June 25 at age 62, the final, sad chapter in a 2½-year battle with cancer. Fawcett remained brave throughout her battle, allowing pal Alana Stewart to document both her trips to the doctor and her private moments at home in a TV documentary, “Farrah’s Story,” which aired May 15 on NBC. The show netted Fawcett a posthumous Emmy nod as executive producer when the nominations were announced July 16.

O’Neal noted to Vieira Farrah’s spotty track record with Emmy voters — she had been previously nominated for three Emmys, including for best actress in her groundbreaking TV movie “The Burning Bed” — but always came up empty-handed.

“Oh boy, she always wanted one,” O’Neal said. “She worked very hard to get one, thought she’d win for ‘The Burning Bed’ and even had a speech. So it comes a little late. But I’m sure she knows.”

Still, O’Neal did not suggest that Farrah could have held on until the Emmy announcements. He described in vivid detail the final weeks of Farrah’s life, when she was in considerable pain but continued to battle.



“I think she was holding on,” O’Neal told Vieira. “I didn’t think she wanted to go. She had things left on her plate to finish, to accomplish.”

O’Neal also described the anguish of watching Farrah pass from this world in a long-drawn-out process he called “horrible.”

O’Neal and Stewart had gathered at her bedside at St. John’s Health Center in Santa Monica at the urging of Fawcett’s doctor, Lawrence Piro.

“[Dr. Piro] thought she would live just another couple of hours — she lived a couple of days,” O’Neal told Vieira. “I had a bed put in the room for me. And I just lay by her side. And she wouldn’t ... move on. She wouldn’t pass. She just, she just looked at us with a slight smile. It was awful. And then, all of a sudden, the machines flatlined. After about 16 hours she was gone.”

Son’s farewell

Foremost on Fawcett’s mind after she learned her cancer was going to eventually take her life was the welfare of her troubled son by O’Neal, Redmond. Redheaded Redmond, 24, has battled drug addiction for years, and has been arrested three times for possession since 2008. He is currently serving time for a probation violation stemming from his last conviction.

While he wasn’t able to be with his mother in her final hours, Redmond was allowed to phone her — and made a vow to straighten out his life, O’Neal told Vieira.



O’Neal said Redmond made “a promise — a promise of a good life. Of a life that she would be proud of. Because he is her legacy. Now he knows that, finally. It’s clear.”

In perhaps the most moving moment in “Farrah’s Story,” the dying Fawcett reads aloud from a letter she wrote in her journal to Redmond. She read, “For Redmond, my boy, I will always be there. When you are so very young, I will be there. When one day you wake up and realize I am gone. I will still be there.”

Now, O’Neal is forwarding the mass of condolence letters the family has received since Fawcett’s death to Redmond’s jail cell.

“I send it so he can see what people felt about his mother, and it gives him strength to carry on his fight — he’s in a dogfight,” O’Neal said.

Ryan acknowledged that Fawcett was long “the rock” in their family, and O’Neal himself is now adjusting to his new role as Redmond’s sole family mentor. He’s doing that as he himself learns to cope with the loss — and keep Farrah close to his heart.

While O’Neal was visibly shaken through much of his interview with Vieira, he noticeably brightened when Vieira mentioned Farrah’s friend and “Charlie’s Angels” co-star Kate Jackson’s comment that she will always remember most the pearly smile that was Farrah’s trademark. Vieira asked O’Neal what he would remember most about Fawcett.



“So, so much, Meredith,” he said. “But her smile wasn’t bad! It was beautiful. I’ll take that.”

Resource : MSNBC

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Michael Jackson’s Life Cut Shockingly Short

LOS ANGELES - Michael Jackson, defined in equal parts as the world’s greatest entertainer and perhaps its most enigmatic figure, was about to attempt one of the greatest comebacks of all time. Then his life was cut shockingly — and so far, mysteriously — short.

The 50-year-old musical superstar died Thursday, just as he was preparing for what would be a series of 50 concerts starting July 13 at London’s famed 02 arena. Jackson had been spending hours and hours toiling with a team of dancers for a performance he and his fans hoped would restore his tarnished legacy to its proper place in pop.

An autopsy was planned for Friday, though results were not likely to be final until toxicology tests could be completed, a process that could take several days and sometimes weeks. However, if a cause can be determined by the autopsy, they will announce the results, said Los Angeles County Coroner Investigator Jerry McKibben.

Jackson died at UCLA Medical Center after being stricken at his rented home in the posh Los Angeles neighborhood of Holmby Hills. Paramedics tried to resuscitate him at his home for nearly three-quarters of an hour, then rushed him to the hospital where doctors continued to work on him.

“It is believed he suffered cardiac arrest in his home. However, the cause of his death is unknown until results of the autopsy are known,” his brother Jermaine said.

Cardiac arrest is an abnormal heart rhythm that stops the heart from pumping blood to the body. It can occur after a heart attack or be caused by other heart problems.

Jackson’s death brought a tragic end to a long, bizarre, sometimes farcical decline from his peak in the 1980s, when he was popular music’s premier all-around performer, a uniter of black and white music who shattered the race barrier on MTV, dominated the charts and dazzled even more on stage.



His 1982 album “Thriller” — which included the blockbuster hits “Beat It,” “Billie Jean” and “Thriller” — is the best-selling album of all time, with an estimated 50 million copies sold worldwide.

As word of his death spread, MTV switched its programming to play videos from Jackson’s heyday. Radio stations began playing marathons of his hits. Hundreds of people gathered outside the hospital. In New York’s Times Square, a low groan went up in the crowd when a screen flashed that Jackson had died, and people began relaying the news to friends by cell phone.

“No joke. King of Pop is no more. Wow,” Michael Harris, 36, of New York City, read from a text message a friend had sent him. “It’s like when Kennedy was assassinated. I will always remember being in Times Square when Michael Jackson died.”

The public first knew him as a boy in the late 1960s, when he was the precocious, spinning lead singer of the Jackson 5, the singing group he formed with his four older brothers out of Gary, Ind. Among their No. 1 hits were “I Want You Back,” “ABC” and “I’ll Be There.”



He was perhaps the most exciting performer of his generation, known for his backward-gliding moonwalk, his feverish, crotch-grabbing dance moves and his high-pitched singing, punctuated with squeals and titters. His single sequined glove, tight, military-style jacket and aviator sunglasses were trademarks, as was his ever-changing, surgically altered appearance.

“For Michael to be taken away from us so suddenly at such a young age, I just don’t have the words,” said Quincy Jones, who produced “Thriller.” “He was the consummate entertainer and his contributions and legacy will be felt upon the world forever. I’ve lost my little brother today, and part of my soul has gone with him.”

Jackson ranked alongside Elvis Presley and the Beatles as the biggest pop sensations of all time. He united two of music’s biggest names when he was briefly married to Presley’s daughter, Lisa Marie. Jackson’s sudden death immediately evoked comparisons to that of Presley himself, who died at age 42 in 1977.

“I am so very sad and confused with every emotion possible,” Lisa Marie Presley said in a statement. “I am heartbroken for his children who I know were everything to him and for his family. This is such a massive loss on so many levels, words fail me.”

As years went by, Jackson became an increasingly freakish figure — a middle-aged man-child weirdly out of touch with grown-up life. His skin became lighter, his nose narrower, and he spoke in a breathy, girlish voice. He often wore a germ mask while traveling, kept a pet chimpanzee named Bubbles as one of his closest companions and surrounded himself with children at his Neverland ranch, a storybook playland filled with toys, rides and animals. The tabloids dubbed him “Wacko Jacko.”

“It seemed to me that his internal essence was at war with the norms of the world. It’s as if he was trying to defy gravity,” said Michael Levine, a Hollywood publicist who represented Jackson in the early 1990s. He called Jackson a “disciple of P.T. Barnum” and said the star appeared fragile at the time but was “much more cunning and shrewd about the industry than anyone knew.”

Jackson caused a furor in 2002 when he playfully dangled his infant son, Prince Michael II, over a hotel balcony in Berlin while a throng of fans watched from below.

In 2005, he was cleared of charges that he molested a 13-year-old cancer survivor at Neverland in 2003. He had been accused of plying the boy with alcohol and groping him, and of engaging in strange and inappropriate behavior with other children.

The case followed years of rumors about Jackson and young boys. In a TV documentary, he acknowledged sharing his bed with children, a practice he described as sweet and not at all sexual.

Despite the acquittal, the lurid allegations that came out in court took a fearsome toll on his career and image, and he fell into serious financial trouble.

Michael Joseph Jackson was born Aug. 29, 1958, in Gary. He was 4 years old when he began singing with his brothers — Marlon, Jermaine, Jackie and Tito — in the Jackson 5. After his early success with bubblegum soul, he struck out on his own, generating innovative, explosive, unstoppable music.

The album “Thriller” alone mixed the dark, serpentine bass and drums and synthesizer approach of “Billie Jean,” the grinding Eddie Van Halen guitar solo on “Beat It,” and the hiccups and falsettos on “Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’.”

The peak may have come in 1983, when Motown celebrated its 25th anniversary with an all-star televised concert and Jackson moonwalked off with the show, joining his brothers for a medley of old hits and then leaving them behind with a pointing, crouching, high-kicking, splay-footed, crotch-grabbing run through “Billie Jean.”

The audience stood and roared. Jackson raised his fist.

During production of a 1984 Pepsi commercial, Jackson’s scalp sustains burns when an explosion sets his hair on fire.

He had strong follow-up albums with 1987’s “Bad” and 1991’s “Dangerous,” but his career began to collapse in 1993 after he was accused of molesting a boy who often stayed at his home. The singer denied any wrongdoing, reached a settlement with the boy’s family, reported to be $20 million, and criminal charges were never filed.

Jackson’s expressed anger over the allegations on the 1995 album “HIStory,” which sold more than 2.4 million copies, but by then, the popularity of Jackson’s music was clearly waning even as public fascination with his increasingly erratic behavior was growing.



Jackson married Lisa Marie Presley in 1994, and they divorced in 1996. Later that year, Jackson married Deborah Rowe, a former nurse for his dermatologist. They had two children together: Michael Joseph Jackson Jr., known as Prince Michael, now 12; and Paris Michael Katherine Jackson, 11. Rowe filed for divorce in 1999.



Jackson also had a third child, Prince Michael II. Now 7, Jackson said the boy nicknamed Blanket as a baby was his biological child born from a surrogate mother.



Billboard magazine editorial director Bill Werde said Jackson’s star power was unmatched. “The world just lost the biggest pop star in history, no matter how you cut it,” Werde said. “He’s literally the king of pop.”

Jackson’s 13 No. 1 one hits on the Billboard charts put him behind only Presley, the Beatles and Mariah Carey, Werde said.

“He was on the eve of potentially redeeming his career a little bit,” he said. “People might have started to think of him again in a different light.”

resource: MSNBC

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