Fawcett dies of cancer

US actress Farrah Fawcett died today aged 62 following a long-running battle with cancer.

In a statement, a spokesman said Farrah had “passed to a better place and left the pain and confines of her bed behind”.

The former 'Charlie’s Angels' star’s battle against illness had been the focus of a moving documentary released just weeks before her death.

The actress was given the last rites yesterday at her hospital bed in Los Angeles.

Her publicist, Allen Miller, wrote today on the actress’s official website: “I am sorry to say our Farrah has passed to a better place and left the pain and confines of her bed behind.”

He added: “She is free to be the woman we all knew and loved. So few have touched so many.”

Her long-time partner, Ryan O’Neal, was said to have been at her bedside when she died.

The Texas-born actress rose to fame in the 1970s through the highly successful 'Charlie’s Angels'. Fawcett played the role of Jill Munroe in the detective series, winning a People’s Choice Award in the process.

Her fame was confirmed through the sales of posters depicting the actress in a one-piece red swimming costume, a picture which adorned the walls of many teenage boys’ bedrooms in the late 1970s.

She also won female fans as a result of her hairstyle, with the “Fawcett do” a popular request at hairdressers of the time.

Her career post-Charlie’s Angels included a performance as a battered wife in the TV movie 'The Burning Bed', a role for which she received an Emmy Award nomination.

She also received a Golden Globe nomination for the movie version of the controversial off-Broadway play 'Extremities'.