For the Love of Farrah Fawcett's Hair

A painful fact was revealed during the airing of Farrah's Story: 1970's icon Farrah Fawcett, after a valiant three-year battle with anal cancer, has shaved off the trademark locks that catapulted her to fame and kept her there long after her brief stint on Charlie's Angels. It's important to think about why we really care about this as the woman herself lingers near death in her Los Angeles home. Why is it that a human being has suffered through a terminal disease so painfully and publicly, and the first topic of mention is that she no longer has hair?

For a lot of Farrah fans, that's what it was always about. That hair. Even if you were a child during the time that hair made its first appearance, you probably have an impression of its ungodly popularity, and you didn't need to wonder why. While men schlepped back from Spencer's Gifts with the infamous red bathing suit poster -- a testimony to Farrah's impact in the genre of jiggle t.v. -- the female of the species was obsessed with Farrah for another reason: The hair. Thick, long and streaky blonde, it was both flippy and feathered, an ultra-feminine, patently 70's style which, like a vintage Chanel suit, managed to mutate and update itself throughout the decades. Heck, even Farrah herself wore the style up until her follicles' unfortunate demise. It was a beautiful style. It was beautiful hair. And it was entirely the result of good genes, as was the rest of Farrah.

Farrah's hair has a notable history. It was that hair, first featured in Wella Balsam commercials, that attracted photographers, poster companies, and eventually The Powers That Were behind Charlie's Angels. Men who watched the show may have ogled Farrah from the neck down, but women viewers saw only a bouncing cap of ashen gold that held its own even as Jill Munroe sprinted after burglars, drew her gun and chatted with John Forsythe after a long day of rounding up bad guys. The stuff would later be spokeshair for Faberge's Farrah Fawcett Shampoo and Conditioner. Speak the name of its owner, and the first thing that comes to mind is ...

Well, let's just say that hair has written its own biography.

I was only a child back when "Farrah Hair" (sometimes known as the "Farrah Flip") raged through the country, gracing every woman's magazine that promised precise instructions on how the illustrious 'do could be achieved, diagrams included. But I had older cousins who fell prey to the misbegotten notion that with the right amount of time, effort and stylist-hopping, they too could look just like Farrah. One of my cousins, a pretty blonde with thin, pin-straight hair, spent an unutterable amount of time during her senior high school year doing serious business with the styling products, blow-dryer, hot curlers, and curling iron. The end result was always a face framed with a back-swept uni-curl roughly the diameter of an Oscar Meyer hot dog that wimped out mere minutes after exposure to the Texas humidity. When she went to college, she had her locks chopped in a Joey Heatherton shag. Smart girl.

I convinced my poor mom to buy the Farrah Fawcett hair products for me, because even little girls want to look like the pretty woman on the bottle. My guileless belief in advertising made me the perfect target market. I was convinced that there was some sort of secret ingredient contained in those bottles that would magically change my curly, unruly locks into Farrah's fabulous feathers. Who knew? Maybe they'd even turn blonde. I washed my hair with the special potion with dispatch. There were no styling tools in our home, so I sat on the front porch waiting for my hair to reshape itself into slightly wavy swoops, feathers and curls.

Don't hate me because I wasn't beautiful ...

Every now and then, you saw a gal who got the 'do spot on. By virtue of being born with hair of the right texture and amount of wave, she was able to easily copy the Farrah Flip. The resemblance wasn't exactly uncanny. It wasn't just about wanting Farrah's hair; it was aspiring to be the whole package of what men wanted. The beaming white smile that could have launched a toothpaste campaign. The California tan that bespoke the benefits of Hawaiian Tropic tanning oils. The face and body that proved that we make 'em real purdy here in Texas. Just like sex bombs that came before her such as Jean Harlow and Marilyn Monroe, Farrah Fawcett personified the All-American dream girl -- healthy, sexy, active, and fit -- whose external accouterments were equal to the beauty of her inner being. Women's' magazine writers and advertising campaigns had women convinced that achieving the same stereotype was possible as long as they diligently applied themselves to the art of using hot styling tools.

This could be my own perception, but during the course of her long career, Farrah always seemed to be in competition with her hair. Even when she actively took on meatier roles, such as an abused wife in The Burning Bed or real-life sociopath Diane Bounds, slayer of own spawn, in Small Sacrifices, Farrah's trademark locks, dressed-down, dirtied and barely styled, had viewers commenting that her hair still had the juice. When someone mentions the name "Farrah," I have to admit it: The first word that comes to mind is "hair," followed closely by memories the unfortunate Faberge incident and an even more unfortunate, self-initiated attempt to streak my dark hair Farrah blonde. My final association is of a woman who was once married to hunky actor Lee Majors (the "bionic man"), after which Farrah Fawcett-Majors, nee Farrah Fawcett, nee Wearer of the Famous Hairstyle of the 70's, drops off my mental mapping of pop culture.

Every biography has an end: In Farrah's Story, Farrah herself shaves her hair. How many metaphors can be made and analogies drawn from this very relevant action? How loudly does this bespeak her transcendence from untouchable sex goddess of an entire generation to mortal human being, fatally wounded by a disease that targets indiscriminately. The main risk factor for anal cancer, however, is the human papilloma virus. Whether this was true in Farrah's case is irrelevant to her chance of recovery at this juncture, but it's something that should be brought to the forefront if it turns out to be true, as HPV is completely preventable and very treatable. Ah well ... even gods and goddesses have their Achilles heel (just ask Achilles).

Right after the airing of Farrah's Story, a Google search on the topic indicates that articles about Farrah's shorn locks, not about her battle with a rare type of cancer, top the list of most-accessed, and isn't that a shame? In the end, there is only this woman who strove to prove so much to the public, but whose measure of talent -- whatever that may have been -- was always eclipsed by her physical perfection. I picture Farrah's hair hitting the floor without much aplomb, this useless, heady stuff that infiltrated men's dreams and drove women to plead with their stylists to give them the "exact same haircut." There is not a woman in America who would change places with Farrah Fawcett right now.

And for that, I feel a sense of release -- and more than just a little shame.