Cancer-sufferer Farrah Fawcett ‘unconscious’ in LA hospital

The Charlie's Angels actress Farrah Fawcett, one of the most famous sex symbols in the world when she was known as Farrah Fawcett-Majors in the 1970s, is unconscious in a Los Angeles hospital after fighting cancer for the past three years, according to reports.
 
Since Thursday the 62-year-old actress has been in an unidentified hospital, where she is said to be stable, according to People magazine. The actress's publicist would not comment on her condition.
 
Fawcett was diagnosed with anal cancer in September 2006 but declared herself cancer-free four months later. In May 2007 the cancer returned and the actress underwent alternative treatment in Germany.
 
Originally from Texas, Fawcett used her mane of blond hair to get work doing Wella Balsam shampoo commercials. The wife of actor Lee Majors, star of The Six Million Dollar Man, she rose to fame as a pin-up after posing in a red bathing suit in 1976 for photographer Bruce McBroom at Majors' Bel Air home. The iconic poster remains one of the best-selling ever: it sold 12m copies worldwide and spawned the 'Farrah-Do' hairstyle as millions of women tried to copy her tousled look.
 
The same year saw Fawcett (pictured centre) play Jill Munroe in the first episode of Charlie's Angels, in which the legendary Aaron Spelling had cast her alongside Jaclyn Smith (left) and Kate Jackson (right). Despite being the show's top attraction, Fawcett left after the first season but made several guest appearances in subsequent years after being sued for breach of contract.

Despite her fame as a sex symbol, she resisted appearing naked in films or magazines until 1995 when, aged 48, she posed nude for the Christmas issue of Playboy: it became the best-selling issue of the 1990s.  
 
Fawcett's marriage to Majors ended in 1982 and she became the girlfriend of actor Ryan O’Neal, star of Love Story and Barry Lyndon. After Charlie's Angels, Fawcett went on prove herself an actress of substance. Her role as a battered wife in the 1984 TV movie The Burning Bed won her the first of three Emmy award nominations and she was also nominated five times for Golden Globes.

O'Neal, now 67, has been looking after her since she was diagnosed with cancer. The couple had a son, Redmond O'Neal, in 1985 and he too was visiting his mother regularly in hospital until he was arrested on Sunday for trying to smuggle drugs into a California jail. The arrest came just months after he and his father were charged with possession of methamphetamine. ·