MEN COME AND GO—GOD KNOWS THEY CERTAINLY have in my life—but girlfriends are forever. I have a lot of girlfriends, but only a few very, very close ones. And in the middle of that select circle, I considered Farrah Fawcett to be my soul-sister. We would have done anything for each other. But I never anticipated that our lives would become intertwined in the way that they did. I never imagined I would walk this path with her.
The first time I laid eyes on Farrah was in the 1970s. We hadn’t formally met yet, but I spotted her on a commercial audition and thought she was absolutely beautiful (she later told me she thought the same about me). We both arrived in L.A. around the same time. She came straight from Corpus Christi, Texas, and I had been modeling in New York and Paris. We kept bumping into each other at these casting calls, and at first our friendship was casual: a smile, a nod, a quick “How’s it going?”
A few years later, we were no longer just girls hustling for work in Hollywood. By then I was separated from my first husband, George Hamilton, and had been acting in a few TV series, while Farrah was a huge star, an icon, thanks to Charlie’s Angels. I went to Palm Springs to play in a celebrity tennis tournament with my friend Valerie Perrine, and when we arrived, there were young kids lined up outside the tennis club, screaming Farrah’s name. Truth be told, Valerie and I had no business being there. We couldn’t even play tennis! We’d bought the shortest tennis shorts we could find, hoping they would distract people from how bad we were. Each of us had a pro partner, and I pity the poor guy who got me. When a ball came sailing at me, I dove for the ground, narrowly missing getting smacked in the head. Farrah, on the other hand, was a powerful and graceful tennis player, a natural athlete, and, of course, she won the tournament while barely breaking a sweat. How easy it would have been to hate someone so seemingly perfect, but all you could do was love her. She was so warm, so approachable, so down-to-earth. People were just naturally drawn to her like moths to a bright flame.
We met again and really bonded in 1979, when I was pregnant with my daughter, Kimberly, and married to my second husband, Rod Stewart. Rod and I were at Countess Marina Cicogna’s house for a dinner, and she sat Farrah, Ryan, Rod, and me together. Farrah and I hit it off immediately, and quickly discovered that we had a lot in common, especially our Texas roots. We also discovered another interesting connection: we were both part American Indian. I’m a one-quarter Cherokee-Choctaw mix, and Farrah was part Choctaw. Farrah’s mother always said the Choctaw were the lazy Indians! I’ve heard that if you’re from the same tribe, you have a blood tie; maybe that’s why we eventually became so spiritually connected.
Ultimately, what I loved about Farrah from day one was that there was no BS. What you saw was what you got, and I found that refreshing—an actual down-home girl in Hollywood.
After that dinner, we started up a real friendship. She was working so much in those days that we couldn’t spend a lot of time together, but when we did, we had a ball. Being around her felt like being home in Texas. We used to joke that all we needed were the big pink rollers in our hair. We’d go down to Ryan’s beach house, get massages, manicures, and pedicures, and lie in the sun reading fashion magazines—just two friends forgetting about life for twenty-four hours. We hung out, we ate Tex-Mex, we baked homemade pies. Farrah was always such fun. She embraced life more than anyone I’ve ever known.
Over the years, there was rarely a birthday party or a New Year’s that we didn’t celebrate together. As time went on, Farrah and I became even closer, even as our lives took very different paths. I got married and was busy having babies (Kimberly, Sean, and Ashley), while she had the kind of thriving acting career I had always dreamed about. In 1984 when Rod and I broke up, Farrah and Ryan were there to comfort and support me. In 1986, before her son, Redmond, was born, I threw her baby shower. But through it all, she stayed the same Farrah. She raised her son without a nanny, helping him with his homework and cooking dinner almost every night. As we got older, and Redmond and my sons all struggled with drug and alcohol problems, she and I bonded even more in our pain and concern over our boys. In the beginning of our relationship, Farrah was private and guarded with her emotions; eventually we could talk about anything.
Farrah was the last person I ever thought would get cancer. It never remotely crossed my mind that such a thing would happen. She was always too strong, too healthy, too full of life. I always thought she was one of the most fortunate women I knew.
She had it all—or so it seemed. Life is fragile; it changes in a heartbeat. One day Farrah was fine, the next she was not. Yet through it all, I never heard her question “Why me?” I never saw her act like a victim. She made the decision to fight her cancer and never wavered. It was very hard—sometimes unbearable—to watch my friend suffer, but I was in awe of her ferocious determination. Sometimes I thought it was her stubbornness and sheer willpower that got her through it. Other times I marveled at her heroism in waging war with an enemy who gave no hint as to where it might attack next—or how much it would destroy in its path. We went to Germany together to try to find a cure, a miracle, some hope in the face of hopelessness. And it was there that my friend handed me her camera and asked me to video what she was going through. I had no idea how to use a camera, and she showed me how to press the little RECORD button. So it began.
Over the next two years, there were more trips to Germany for treatments. My life took a backseat to Farrah’s battle with cancer. I would drop everything, leave my family and my dogs and my home, and hop a plane at a moment’s notice if she needed me. I felt like she was also my family, that it was something I had to do and wanted to do, and that I would worry about myself later. We tried, us tough Texas girls, to keep it together, to laugh and retain our sense of humor.
In the beginning, we truly thought there would be a happy ending; she’d find a cure, she’d be healthy again. It seemed not just plausible but probable. But life took an unforeseen turn. As her disease progressed, Farrah could have given up. Truthfully, I might have if I were in her shoes. Instead, she found a greater purpose. The video that I started filming that day in Germany turned into something bigger—a documentary that would shed light on cancer and encourage others who were suffering, as well as show the world that there were alternative forms of treatment. Farrah felt very committed to speaking up and saying that we needed more studies and more research. She wanted to bring awareness to her type of cancer, and she wanted to give people hope. Above all, she wanted to say, “Don’t give up—no matter what anyone tells you—keep on fighting.”
I also found a greater calling in this experience, and through it learned some invaluable life lessons. One of the most important is the basic foundation of all spiritual teachings: the power of giving. When you unselfishly do something for someone else, when you get beyond yourself, out of your head, and out of your own way, God solves your problems for you. Many people ask me how I could have put my life on hold for three years to be with Farrah all that time. I don’t see it as a sacrifice. I see it as simply being there for my friend, and it’s ended up being a blessing and a gift for me. Farrah had been an inspiration to so many people, not just those who have cancer but people in other challenging situations. The letters of gratitude poured in by the thousands every week. I feel privileged to have been part of all this. I am a different person, a better person, because of it. As sad and painful as the journey was, it gave me a new perspective on who I am and what is really important in life. And this perspective has turned my life around in ways I could never have envisioned.
I have kept journals since I was nine years old, and I would sometimes read Farrah what I had written in them. She loved my writing. “You’re such a good writer,” she’d say encouragingly. “You must keep doing this.” I did. I would diligently pour out my feelings, fears, and frustrations in my journal, and I soon realized how much the most recent volumes, just like my life these past three years, were about Farrah and her courageous battle with cancer. Paging through the frantically scribbled entries—some written in the wee hours of the morning when I was too stressed to sleep—I found that book which Farrah had suggested about two friends and their journey together. I suspect Farrah knew it was in there all along.
What follows is my journal of these past three years—what I saw, what I felt, what I was going through with Farrah, and how it was affecting my own life. Sometimes I wrote every day. Other times life was too hectic and the weeks flew by without my writing. But put them all together, and what you have is a celebration of our friendship as much as it is a chronicle of cancer treatment. Our relationship grew and deepened because of this experience we went through together. It was the bright spot in the midst of all the darkness. I don’t know what my life will be like without Farrah in it. I can’t imagine it. I can’t go there. But I do know I won’t have anyone to make pecan pies with me on Christmas. What I do have, and what I want to share, is the memory of a friendship of thirty years—and this, the greatest and the last adventure that we went on together.
A happier time.
This was Farrah’s favorite picture of us. She kept it in a frame by her bedside, as I do. She liked the way we look in it…suntanned and rested. It was such a quiet, peaceful trip. We were able to get away from the world and lie in the sun. It was New Year’s Eve and everyone else went out, but we stayed in and celebrated with each other…and the cook. I made this drink that turned out to be our favorite, a Yellowbird: it was coconut rum and pineapple juice. We had that in lieu of champagne. At midnight we toasted each other. Just looking at this photo evokes such happy memories: two best friends toasting each other, our friendship, and the promise of what a new year would bring. It’s how I like to think of Farrah: happy, healthy, hopeful. It was before all of this happened to us, before her cancer, before our journey. If I close my eyes, I can see us back in the Bahamas, lying out in the warm sun, gazing at the clear turquoise waters, and walking barefoot along the pink sand beaches.
Whenever I was caught up in the stress and strain and agony of watching my friend go through this horrific battle, and I started to forget, all I needed to do was look at this photo…and I was back in the Bahamas with Farrah again.