LOS ANGELES — Farrah Fawcett expected that a video diary chronicling her fight against cancer would have a happy ending, friends Ryan O’Neal and Alana Stewart said Wednesday.
But even as her disease has progressed, they said, the former Charlie’s Angels star is keeping hold of hope.
“I know that Farrah hasn’t given up,” said Stewart, who met Fawcett in the 1970s in Los Angeles when they were young actresses from Texas looking for commercial work.
Stewart was part of the making of Farrah’s Story, airing Friday at 7 p.m. on NBC, holding the camera as her longtime friend underwent treatment.
The diary will make clear to Fawcett’s fans that there’s more to her than glamorous good looks, O’Neal said.
“They’ll think they made the right choice years ago when they fell for her,” he said. “She’s a doll. She’s a beauty inside and out.”
O’Neal, who has a son with Fawcett and remained close to her after their long romantic relationship ended in the late 1990s, said he plans to watch Farrah’s Story with her at her Los Angeles home Friday.
Fawcett, 62, was diagnosed with anal cancer in 2006. It has spread to her liver.
“She’s heavily medicated,” O’Neal said. “We’re going to take some of these medications down so she’s lucid and sharp to watch herself. I think she’ll take great pride in this,” he said.