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LOS ANGELES - Former Charlie's Angels star Farrah Fawcett celebrated her 60th birthday yesterday by declaring victory in her four-month battle with cancer.
"This is an extraordinarily happy day for me and my family," she said in a statement issued with a headline stating that recent test results had revealed that "Fawcett is cancer free."
The actress said that she had been undergoing "a tremendously aggressive treatment which doctors initially warned would be the most difficult fight of my life."
"In the face of excruciating pain and uncertainty, I never lost hope," she said, adding, "I hope that my news might offer some level of inspiration to others who unfortunately must continue to fight the disease."
Her lead physician, Dr. Gary Gitnick at the University of California, Los Angeles, medical school, said Fawcett "has had a full and complete response to treatment" and called her prognosis "excellent."
The statement did not specify what type of cancer Fawcett was diagnosed with, but actor Ryan O'Neal, with whom she lived for many years, told People magazine in October that she was being treated for anal cancer.
The blonde actress is perhaps best remembered as part of the original trio of glamorous young crime-fighters on the hit 1970s TV drama "Charlie's Angels," a part she landed after famously posing in a pinup poster in a red bathing suit.
Her marriage to "The Six Million Dollar Man" star Lee Majors ended in divorce in the early 1980s, and she spent many years in a relationship with O'Neal, with whom she had a son.
Fawcett has earned several Emmy Award nominations for her work in television, including the role of a battered wife in the 1985 TV movie "The Burning Bed" and a 2003 guest appearance on the crime series "The Guardian."
She also co-starred with Robert Duvall and Billy Bob Thornton in the 1997 film "The Apostle," and with Richard Gere and Helen Hunt in Robert Altman's 2000 film "Dr. T and the Women."
- REUTERS
