I wasn't intending to blog this early in the day but the news this morning has compelled me to do so.
I had barely got to work at 7.30 when I heard that two icons of my childhood - Farrah Fawcett, and Michael Jackson - had both died on the same day. I can still vividly remember sitting in a friend's living room listening to "Beat It" and "Billie Jean" for the first time, and of course, how can I forget Farrah from her days in "Charlie's Angels", which, despite it's cheesiness, is still a show I'll watch to this day on DVD. I am not usually one to wallow in nostalgia, given that I am very much a man who, while he values his past, relishes the present, and eagerly anticipates the future, but in this instance I am going to wallow and reflect just for a moment.
RIP Both of you - your lives on earth may have been tumultuous, and in Michael's case just plain weird and off putting, but you entered the popular zeitgeist like few others of your time, and that is the yardstick by which I mark your passing. Let us all hope that you both find the peace in the hereafter that eluded you while you were alive.
Farrah Fawcett's Obituary
Actress Farrah Fawcett, the Charlie's Angels television star whose big smile and feathered blond mane made her one of the reigning sex symbols of the 1970s, has died of cancer. She was 62.
Fawcett, first vaulted to stardom by an alluring poster of her in a red swimsuit, was diagnosed with anal cancer in late 2006.
It spread to her liver in 2007, proving resistant to numerous medical treatments in Germany and California.
"After a long and brave battle with cancer, our beloved Farrah has passed away," Fawcett's long time companion, actor Ryan O'Neal, said in a statement.
"Although this is an extremely difficult time for her family and friends, we take comfort in the beautiful times that we shared with Farrah over the years and the knowledge that her life brought joy to so many people around the world."
Fawcett's death in a Los Angeles hospital came just six weeks after the TV broadcast in May of a video diary she made chronicling her battle with cancer and her final months.
Called Farrah's Story, the documentary was effectively a self-penned obituary by the actress, who was bedridden and had lost her famous hair by the time it was shown.
O'Neal said she had wanted to tell her story on her own terms.
Fawcett's close friend Alana Stewart, ex-wife of rocker Rod Stewart, told Entertainment Tonight after leaving the hospital on Thursday; "I just lost my best friend. Her death was very peaceful."
Fawcett, born February 2, 1947, in Corpus Christi, Texas, was an art student in college before she began modeling, appearing in shampoo ads.
She started guest-starring on TV in the late 1960s and appeared on the television hit The Six Million Dollar Man after marrying the show's star, Lee Majors, in 1974. The couple divorced in the early 1980s.
Angel culture
Fawcett's career took off thanks to a poster of her posing flirtatiously with a brilliant smile in a red one-piece bathing suit.
It sold millions of copies and led to her being cast in 1976 in Charlie's Angels, an action show about three beautiful, strong women private detectives.
As the tanned and glamorous Jill Munroe - part of a trio that included Jaclyn Smith and Kate Jackson - Fawcett was the hit show's most talked-about star.
She left Charlie's Angels after only one season but lawsuit settlements brought her back to guest-star in subsequent years.
Fawcett's face appeared on T-shirts, posters and dolls. She came to epitomise the glamorous California lifestyle and inspired a worldwide craze for blown-out, feathered-back hair.
The New York Times once described that hair as "a work of art ... emblematic of women in the first stage of liberation -- strong, confident and joyous".
"Her hair needed its own phone line," Charlie's Angels co-star Smith recalled later.
In late 2008, Fawcett shaved her own hair when it began falling out because of her cancer treatments.
Serious roles
While Fawcett's early career was marked by lightweight roles, the actress sought to play down her sex symbol image in more challenging dramas in the '80s.
She earned critical acclaim for her performance as a battered wife in 1984's The Burning Bed, for which she received the first of three Emmy nominations.
The off-Broadway play and subsequent film Extremities, in which Fawcett played a woman who takes revenge on a would-be attacker, earned one of her six Golden Globe nominations.
Fawcett posed for Playboy magazine in 1995, the same year she received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
She had one son, Redmond, with O'Neal. Redmond O'Neal, now 24, was arrested on several occasions in 2008 and 2009 for heroin and methamphetamine offenses leading to time in jail.
In the last few years, Fawcett appeared frequently on entertainment TV, where she shared details of her battle with cancer.
But she was outraged when news of her deteriorating condition was leaked to tabloid newspapers.
A Los Angeles hospital employee was charged in 2008 with stealing and selling Fawcett's medical records, leading to a new California law imposing tighter controls on medical files and stiffer penalties for privacy breaches.
- Reuters
MICHAEL JACKSON
Pop legend Michael Jackson is reported to have died of a heart attack after he was rushed to hospital in Los Angeles.
Jackson suffered a cardiac arrest earlier today, according to CNN and entertainment news website TMZ.com.
TMZ is now reporting he has died.
"We've just learned Michael Jackson has died," TMZ said.
"Michael suffered a cardiac arrest earlier this afternoon and paramedics were unable to revive him.
"We're told when paramedics arrived Jackson had no pulse and they never got a pulse back," the entertainment website said.
There has been no official confirmation of the reported death and spokespersons for Jackson could not be reached for comment.
Earlier, The LA Times reported paramedics went to the singer's home and found him not breathing.
The newspaper said paramedics performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation at the scene before taking him to the UCLA Medical Centre hospital.
Jackson had been due to start a series of comeback concerts in London on July 13 running until March 2010.
He had been rehearsing in the Los Angeles area for the past two months.
The shows for the 50 London concerts sold out within hours of going on sale earlier this year.
Jackson started out as a child star in the band The Jackson 5 more than 40 years ago.
He has lived as a virtual recluse since his acquittal in 2005 on charges of child molestation.
There have been concerns about Jackson's health in recent years but the promoters of the London concerts, AEG Live, said in March that Jackson had passed a four-and-a-half hour physical examination with independent doctors.
- ABC/AFP/Reuters
So unlike the mullahs of Iran, who like all good dictators have raised the lust for power to a hideously dark artform, I listened to my feet and spent the day looking like an absent-minded man with one shoe missing. Like I had much of a choice. I prefer to think of myself as less a wimp, than an enlightened man who listens to my body parts when they cry out in anger and pain.
Oh and all day long it rained....and rained.... and rained, only stopping at night because Peter & I chose to carry our umbrellas all the way up into Newtown and all the way back. Now that's one way to stop insanely inclement weather. Carry an umbrella!!
