Farrah Fawcett ‘Fought’ To Detach Herself From Glamorous Hollywood Persona

Farrah Fawcett was, for many years, the symbol of glamorous Hollywood, but even with her pristine reputation in the business, she knew she wanted more.

The star had a good run three-month run as an off-Broadway actress, but after breaking her wrist in a fight scene, she was forced to quit. The impact her theater experience had on her career, however, was everlasting.

“Her role in Extremities changed the perception of her,” Extremities director Robert Allan Ackerman says in REELZ’s new docuseries, Farrah Fawcett: Behind Closed Doors.

“The very fact that she wanted to do that movie, to me, spoke an enormous amount about her interests, and her commitment to break out of any kind of narrow definition of who she was and what she could do,” Extremities director Robert Greenwald says.

Fawcett embraced the gritty role and, for the first time, appeared on screen looking raw rather than glamorous.

“It was a role that no one would have ever read that script probably and said ‘Oh, Farrah Fawcett for that role.’ But she fought for that role, she wanted it,” Fawcett’s friend Alana Stewart recalls.