‘Charlie’s Angels’ Jaclyn Smith Remembers ‘Golden Girl’ Farrah Fawcett On Her Heavenly Birthday

The names sometimes changed, but the impact resonated for decades to come. In the early years of Charlie’s Angels, Jaclyn Smith, Farrah Fawcett and Kate Jackson were the definitive brilliant, beautiful trio to tackle any situation. What may be surprising to some is that when the cameras weren’t rolling, Smith revealed, Fawcett would be an encouraging powerhouse of support — and it is these traits that Smith is remembering as she mourns Fawcett on her heavenly birthday.

This year will mark 15 years since Fawcett died at the age of 62 after a battle with cancer. But on another significant anniversary — ten years to the day since Fawcett died – Smith remembered Fawcett’s bravery with her decision to go public with her cancer diagnosis at a time when such topics were talked about in hushed tones. Years later, celebrating what would have been Fawcett’s 77th birthday, Smith remembers a friend, a fighter, and a force of nature.

Jaclyn Smith on legacy of Farrah Fawcett on 10th anniversary of her death

Fawcett was officially diagnosed with anal cancer in 2006, back when she was 58 years old. From that moment on, she fought with every bit of her energy, supported by her longtime partner Ryan O’Neal as well as her close friend Alana Stewart throughout a grueling treatment. Her tumor was removed and she was declared cancer-free in 2007, but the cancer returned later that year. Then, stage 4 cancer metastasized to her liver.

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Together, Fawcett and Stewart took to filming Fawcett’s journey. Stewart recalled, “It was just me and a little camera and her.”

And it wasn’t the first time that Fawcett had elected to have her life — her personal life — on film. In 2004 she agreed to star in the TVland reality series Chasing Farrah, which ran for seven episodes beginning in March 2005. As her former assistant, Mike Pingel, explains it, she was looking to do something “different,” and the way he describes it, once cameras started rolling, the show in essence had a mind of its own.

“It went in a different direction than expected,” says Pingel, “because if you watched the series, Farrah was always in the middle of the eye of the storm. Craziness was always around her. It’s such a phenomenon to understand that even at that time, she’d walk in the room and everybody’s head turned regardless of who you were. And what’s what Chasing Farrah was about as well; the people around her and how crazy they were. She’s really this sweet person in the middle of the eye of the storm all the time, and it gave you a different perspective of who she was and what happened around her.”

All of which in essence may have prepared her mentally for the journey that she and Stewart had embarked on in terms of chronicling her battle with cancer. Doing so was considered revolutionary enough to be a bold, brave move, both for openly discussing a cancer diagnosis and specifically for casting a spotlight on such a rare condition as anal cancer. When Stewart was ready to pause recording at moments that Fawcett got sick or had to shave her head, Fawcett would object, “No. This is what cancer is. Film it.”

Her relentless bravery was balanced by very real vulnerability, with neither trait canceling the other out. “Farrah was relentless in her fight,” said Smith to PEOPLE. “Who would have dreamed that this girl who was known for the smile and the hair and the glamour would open up the depths of her soul to share with the world?” She got a front-row seat to Fawcett allowing very relatable emotions to creep through. Smith shared, “She said, ‘I always thought I might get breast cancer or heart disease but never this’ and she started to cry. I never saw her cry after that.”

Instead, she focused on launching The Farrah Fawcett Foundation, dedicated to raising funds for research and education. The organization was officially founded in 2007.

Jaclyn Smith remembers Farrah Fawcett as a fighter and a friend on her heavenly birthday

The two began working together on Charlie’s Angels in 1976; at the time, both Smith and Fawcett had leading role designation, shared with Jackson. Yet despite the unprecedented success of the show, Fawcett was ready to give it up following the first season. Of course, with that kind of success, the question is how the network — in this case ABC — would be willing to let her go and potentially damage what had become one of its biggest hits. The answer came down to one simple fact: she’d never signed her contract with the show, which for her was a two-fold benefit.

Explains Pingel, “At that point, Farrah was wanting to expand her acting. The progression came and at the end of the first season she wanted more as an actress. People are going to hate me for saying this, but she was done with the ‘cookie-cutter’ Jill Munroe, the beautiful girl that, episode after episode, did the same thing. Which was, admittedly, the charm of the episodes.

“Beyond that,” he adds, “her contract wasn’t signed because of the merchandising clause. The thing about Farrah was that she was a very smart businesswomen; the smartest businesswoman I’ve ever met. Even in 1977 she knew the power of her imagery and what money can come with that, and what she’s worth as far as that’s concerned.”

They were, he says, offering her a 2.5% royalty of the merchandise and it was at about the same time that she had her own poster — the famous one with her in the red swimsuit — coming out, which generated a great deal of excitement and money, and ended up on every teenage boy’s bedroom wall. “She knew she wanted much more than the percentage she was getting for her image and her rights,” he notes. “And that’s why she didn’t sign the contract. She kept saying to them, ‘Can we renegotiate this?’”

The lawyers, naturally got involved and in the end it was agreed that Fawcett could leave the show, but only if she agreed to make a total of six guest appearances on future episodes, which, of course, she did.

Yet with all of this behind-the-scenes drama, where Farrah was in essence separating herself from Smith and Jackson, one would imagine that it would have created great tension between the three of them. Nothing could have been further from the truth. Through it all, an enduring friendship was forged and while Fawcett would be missed by her fellow Angels, she received nothing but friendship from the two of them.

“When Farrah decided to leave after one season, we all supported her,” explained Smith. “She wasn’t afraid to say, ‘This is what I’m gonna do.’ Farrah wanted to be seen as a serious actress. She marched to her own drum. And once she was accepted as an actress, she went back to Playboy and posed at 50 years old. From a serious actress to a sex symbol again. There was never a boring moment.”

There also was never a lull in the friendship between Jaclyn Smith and Farrah Fawcett. Indeed, the friends continued seeing one another through the rest of Fawcett’s life, across ups and downs, wins and losses. Fawcett underwent grueling treatment to combat her cancer, including eventually a treatment that’s been categorized as “aggressive” performed all the way in Germany because it was not approved in the U.S. This tiring endeavor and the distance did not keep them apart and Smith got to see Fawcett to the end.

On one of their final visits, in which Fawcett came to Smith’s Los Angeles apartment, she recalled, “Farrah brought me a German chocolate cake she’d made. Then I found her in my closet. Her legs were swollen [due to her treatment] but she wanted to try on a pair of my shoes. She was a true girlfriend.”
“She was in pain and couldn’t stay still,” Smith recalled of their last visit. “I was rubbing her feet, trying to make her feel better. And that relaxed her. We must have talked for three hours about our lives, about our children, about growing up in Texas. The time I spent with Farrah at the end was the best because we appreciated the friendship.”

Fawcett has been gone almost 15 years now and Smith still considers her time with Fawcett the best because of that friendship. On Fawcett’s heavenly birthday, Smith took to Instagram to share a heartfelt tribute to the actress, model, friend, and warrior she adored.

What does Jaclyn Smith do now?

“Farrah was magic,” Smith posted on her birthday. “In her short time on Charlie’s we forged a friendship, and that bond lasted through so many milestones in both of our lives. Throughout everything, she never lost the glimmer in her eyes or the spring in her step, and I count myself lucky to have known her. Remembering her fondly today on her birthday. Our golden girl.”

On top of that, Smith said, “Together, we shared the ups and downs of life, of happiness and sadness. I miss her every day.”

And she’s not alone. Pingel, who worked with Fawcett for two years towards the end of her life, admits, “Her death remains very tough for all of us who were very close to her, because she had such a way about her. Such a sweetness and she was just a genuine, amazing person. She’s gone way too soon; she had so much to offer. It’s been so many years, but it’s still hard to even wrap my head around the fact that she’s no longer here. I know that’s a weird thing to say, but, believe it or not, I’ll be in a store and I’ll see something and still be, like, ‘Oh, Farrah would love that. I should call her …’”

Insofar as Jaclyn Smith is concerned, she has made her mark not just as a seasoned actress, but also as an entrepreneur. Her fashion collection, which was available at Kmart for 36 years, saw a revival through partnerships with Nordstrom Rack in 2022 and HSN in 2023. Beyond fashion, she ventured into home decoration, launching her own line, and has been designing fabrics for Trend since 2007.

Yet beyond all of that, there’s that friendship between Fawcett and Smith. There are several ways that the latter would define the former today, looking with the benefit of hindsight at the woman she knew firsthand and the actress’ overall story that began in the bustling coastal Corpus Christi, Texas in 1947, and ended in Santa Monica’s Saint John’s Health Center with Stewart and O’Neal at her bedside. “What I remember about Farrah is that as much of an eight-by-10 glossy as she was, she was the friend who cheered me on, the girl who loved her parents, the girl down the street,” said Smith.