Overshadowed

In college, this was on my dorm room wall, though I was never one to hang pictures like this. More likely it was something about stopping a war, fighting the system, rock and roll, bringing down Nixon (long after he had fallen), or a political candidate who had caught my attention. Years later this is the only famous woman I can remember honoring with a spot on my wall.

There was something about her at that age and this picture. Perfect hair, teeth, eyes, everything. Even the name, Farrah Fawcett. Not before or since have I known a Farrah. It must have been hard to be a teenage girl in the 70's knowing you had to compete with this image and with the magical name that rolled off the tongue so easily.

Over the years whenever dinner conversation turned to movies or famous people, this poster was always mentioned when her name came up. There was Charlie's Angels and the poster. She continued to act into the eighties and nineties, but despite great performances, such as in "The Apostle", it always came back to the poster and "Angels". In a way very similar to the Betty Grable picture of WWII, this was the image of her burned into our minds. I can not name anything Betty Grable ever did or said or any movie she was in, but I know she showed off those legs for the troops in that famous picture of the 40's.

Farrah was overshadowed this week by the funeral of the guy who was not Billie Jean's lover. It happens often. Denied that final spotlight. Perhaps it is fitting. Her passing was more common, more normal. The painful agony of a long illness. We've all had loved ones go through it. Her death was the type most adults can relate to and pray they do not experience themselves. His was a little out of the ordinary.

When I think about college, I always think of my dorm room. Accounting textbooks, ragged jeans, coffee urn, overflowing ashtrays, can of tennis balls, Uriah Heep and Pink Floyd albums, a few quarters for laundry..... and that smile.