3 in a Row: The Movies That Turned Farrah Fawcett Straight Up Legit

Farrah Fawcett will forever be synonymous will a red one-piece bathing suit (now in the Smithsonian), the model and actress having donned one for a 1976 poster that, when the dust settled, sold more than 20 millions copies (and is still for sale), becoming the biggest selling poster in history. Think about that. In history. This was well before catching a glimpse of a beautiful model was instantaneous at the touch of our fingertips, back when people went out to stores and stood in line to like actually buy a poster. She broke the internet before there was even a thing to break. It made her an international celebrity and kick-started her acting career, landing roles in movies almost immediately after the image was published. Amazing what a pretty face’ll get you.

Ah, but she was so much more. Naturally, she was hired for her beauty, her blonde locks, devastating smile, and California beach body making her an easy pick to put on screen, and so it was for a long time, that this was her thing, the great looking girl in television shows, eye candy to draw in more viewers. She made hits like Charlie’s Angels (above) a sensation while appearing in dozens of roles on programs elsewhere, the woman in high demand for obvious reasons. Best part was, she was also very talented, and while her ‘look’ got her in the door, she earned her place with chart topping charms and dead to rights acting skills. However, it would be almost ten years before she would get out from under the red bathing suit and claim her rights to legitimacy, performing 3 in a Row dramas that completely flipped expectations. All at once, Farrah Fawcett was not just the knockout pin-up girl but the knockout actor.

The Burning Bed

In 1984, finally, domestic abuse against women was properly getting widespread media attention and calls for change in stopping the violence were getting heard. One television film at the time made perhaps the largest impact on the movement, called The Burning Bed, based on the 1980 book by Faith McNulty, giving account to the real life story of a brutally battered wife. Fawcett stars as Francine Hughes, a housewife in the late 70s, married with three children. Her husband is Mickey Hughes (Paul Le Mat), the two married for 13 years, though all is not well in their little homestead. Mickey is not a good man, beating and abusing Francine, and worse, she can seem to find no one to help. When he rapes her one night, it proves the last straw, and as the titles reveals, Francine takes incendiary action.

The TV movie had profound effects, the first national drama to provide a hotline number for people to call in reporting such crimes. It was the highest rated television event of the year and earned Fawcett a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress. It was the first in a fundamental shift in Fawcett’s television presence (despite earlier efforts to do so), and proved that she was well more than what she looked like. Taking her seriously, her fans grew with her, realizing that her days as a seemingly flippant sex symbol were decidedly over. And she was only just getting started.

Between Two Women

In 1986, Fawcett took to the dramatic side of things once again (after a two year absence), starting with this story from director Jon Avnet, who also co-wrote the screenplay. Premiering on television, the film stars Fawcett as Val, a new teacher who meets a nice man in Harry (Michael Nouri). They soon get married and all seems well until Harry’s mother Barbara (Colleen Dewhurst) makes it clear she’s not all that happy with their union. So much so, she makes it her singular ambition to break them up. It almost works except, uh-ho, it’s all too much for the older woman to take on and sure enough, suffers a devastating stroke.

You’d think this would be the time for Val to celebrate, free of all the bitterness and backstabbing, but that’s not the kind of woman she is, and instead, reveals she’s nothing but an angel, her compassion and determination to motivate her mother-in-law to fight as hard as she can and recover bringing the two closer together. Praised by critics again, Fawcett proves herself an actress of ever-expanding abilities, re-shaping her career into straight up acclaim. And she was about to seal any remaining doubts off for good.

Extremities

A few months after her work on Between Two Women had people talking, Fawcett hit the big screen in a filmed adaptation of William Mastrosimone‘s controversial off-Broadway production of Extremities. She plays Marjorie, a young woman working at a museum and living with two friends (Alfre Woodard and Diana Scarwid). One evening in the museum parking lot, she is attacked by man who sexually assaults her and steals her bag. Her attempts with police to get some justice go nowhere, fearing she is in danger since the man now has her address. It’s not a week later that sure enough, ‘Joe’ (James Russo) arrives when she is alone and again tries to rape her. Fighting back, Marjorie subdoes him with a spray to the face of bug repellent and once down, ties him up. Now she’s in control.

Fawcett wasn’t actually new to the part. A few years earlier, she’d played Marjorie on stage, replacing Susan Sarandon, earning wide critical praise for her work in the play. She was a natural fit when it came time to put it on film and sure enough, she made the role her own again, getting another Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress. Like her work in The Burning Bed, she gives a harrowing performance that is not easy to forget, ranked with some of the best of her contemporaries. You might think you know Farrah Fawcett, but if you haven’t seen this movie, you don’t know her at all.

The Aftermath

Despite a few lesser roles in films beyond Extremities, Fawcett stuck mostly to television in the years following. She earned another Golden Globe nomination for 1989’s Small Sacrifices, starring as a mother in a crime thriller opposite her real-life husband Ryan O’Neal. Many might remember her run on Good Sports and then Spin City, but for the most part, stayed sort of in the mainstream due to her appearances in Playboy magazine, one in 1997 at age 50, giving the publication a best seller, though it would be three years later in the Richard Gere  film Dr. T and the Women that she finally appeared fully nude. She was also notable for a few appearances on talk and radio shows that earned her some odd reviews, mostly for her peculiar behavior.

Of course, then came 2006 and the news Fawcett had cancer, and despite a brief remission, eventually took her in 2009 … the same day as Michael Jackson. And icon be any definition, Farrah Fawcett will always be remembered for her singular beauty, but there was much more to the woman, as evidenced by her towering work in television and film.