Los Angeles, America - Actor Ryan O'Neal told People magazine that his companion Farrah Fawcett, who has battled cancer for nearly three years, is now bedridden, bereft of her famous blonde hair and near the end of medical treatment.
'She stays in bed now. The doctors see that she is comfortable. Farrah is on IVs but some of that is for nourishment. The treatment has pretty much ended,' he said in an interview on the magazine's website on Thursday.
He said the former Charlie's Angels star, who has anal cancer, has lost the tousled hair that made her one of the 1970s' biggest pin-ups. He keeps her locks at his home. 'I rub her head. It's kind of fun, actually, this great, tiny little head. How she carried all that hair I'll never know. She doesn't have a vanity about it,' he said.
He said his on-off partner believed she had beaten the cancer after chemotherapy but found it had returned in 2007. 'The hope started to fade. But not for Farrah. She continued fighting. There was always a courage there and a quiet dignity... I fell in love with her all over again because of how she handled this,' he said.
The interview came a week ahead of a TV special, Farrah's Story, to air next Friday on NBC, in which she chronicles her private struggles and medical treatments.
Fawcett, 62, looks 'hauntingly gaunt' in the documentary, People's print edition said in its latest issue. Her son with O'Neal, Redmond, 24, is seen climbing into her bed to curl up beside her while she sleeps. He is in a Los Angeles jail for violating probation on drug charges.
O'Neal, 68, said Fawcett 'hasn't had last rites yet. We're not there'.
In fact, he said she still hopes for a 'miracle' cure. He said: 'It's a love story. I just don't know how to play this one. I won't know this world without her. A week ago, Farrah said to me, 'Am I going to make it?' I said, 'Yes, you'll make it. And if you don't, I'll go with you'.'
Hollywood tearjerker Love Story propelled O'Neal to fame in 1970 as a newlywed lawyer whose wife, played by Ali MacGraw, dies from cancer. Fawcett herself had supported O'Neal through his battle with leukaemia in 2001. -Reuters
