The Charlie's Angel With A Winning Smile

US actress Farrah Fawcett, who has died aged 62, was one of the most iconic celebrity figures of the 1970s.

Her red swimsuit poster sold more than 12 million copies; to date, a record that is unsurpassed.

The poster was her ticket to achieve the fame she craved; the desire to switch from being an unknown shampoo model to a Hollywood star.

Just a few months after the poster was first released, she was receiving the calls she wanted and in 1976 she won the part of Jill Munroe in Charlie's Angels.

"She was so glamorous and fabulous," showbiz writer Ashley Pearson told Sky News.

"Producers ended up calling her which lead to her getting an agent, which led to her of course getting Charlie's Angels."

As one third of a private detective team working for a mysterious man named Charlie, Fawcett became an immediate hit.

Quickly though, she became far more than just a pin-up. She set the trend.

Her hairstyle became a must-have at hair salon's across the US and beyond. She had as many female fans as male.

"She had beautiful hair, a beautiful figure. She was this sunshine California girl. And that was what people fell in love with. Every girl wanted to look like Farrah," Pearson said.

Fawcett was born in Texas in February 1947. She married actor Lee Major, the Six Million Dollar Man, in 1973. His name helped her launch her career.

But he was reportedly unhappy with her success in her own right. The couple split in 1979.

Her big screen success came in 1981, staring alongside Burt Reynolds and Roger Moore in The Canonball Run.

In 1984 she proved her ability as a serious actor. She was nominated for an Emmy in The Burning Bed, in which she played an abused wife who eventually murders her husband by setting his bed alight.

"It was something completely different from anything we'd seen from Farrah before," Pearson said. "It demonstrated that she was actually a much better actress than most of us thought she was."

But she never fully got her Hollywood break. Instead her success was on the small screen and elsewhere.

In 1995, she posed for Playboy at the age of 48. While causing some considerable controversy, it became the magazine's best-selling issue of that decade and put her right back in the spotlight.

Two years later she stared alongside Robert Duvall in The Apostle. The film was nominated for an Oscar. More recently, she played Richard Gere's wife in Dr T and the Women.

Since 1982 her on-off partner has been actor Ryan O'Neal. The couple had a son called Redmond in 1985. But their private lives have not been without controversy.

Last year Redmond was arrested with his father for drug offences. Ryan O'Neal pleaded guilty to possession of crystal meth.

And Fawcett herself caused some controversy in 1997. There was speculation that she was using drugs when she appeared on The David Letterman Show in a dazed and confused state. She later claimed that she was simply playing up to the host.

Three years ago, it was announced that Fawcett was suffering from anal cancer. Just a year later though, on her 60th Birthday, doctors told her that it had gone.

Sadly, in May 2007, her agent announced that it had returned. She chose to travel to Germany to undergo controversial and experimental stem cell treatment not available in the United States.

She died in a Los Angeles hospital.

"She'll be remembered as a great combination of wholesomeness and sex appeal," Ashley Pearson told Sky News. "She had a winning smile, a bubbly outgoing personality and she charmed everyone when she became a star in Charlie's Angels."