Farrah Fawcett: Strength and Hope

While she watched the television documentary that chronicled her uphill battle against cancer Farrah Fawcett cried, but managed to slip back in to her usual personality by making an old showbiz jokes, says close friends who watched the video with her.

"She cried a few times. It was very emotional for her," her friend Alana Stewart, the former wife of rocker Rod Stewart, told NBC's "Today" program in an interview on Monday. "It's been a very, very long journey, you know, and going back through it was probably a bit painful."

NBC reported almost 9 million supporters and empathizers tuned in on Friday to watch the video diary, “Farrah’s Story”, which has shown her struggle against a particularly aggressive type of cancer.

The hour and a half long documentary was helped along at times by Farrah’s own narration and made clear that the actress is nearing the end of her life; it shows Farrah undergoing a plethora of medical treatments over the past two years and recent weeks when she was bedridden, heavily medicated and barely able to recognize her own son who had to visit her from prison.
Ryan O’neal told “Today” that Farrah had a “very low pulse” when she began watching the film that “kept going up and up” while she watched.

Farrah even made a joke to a friend questioning whether or not the ratings were any good, showing that through all of her trials and tribulations her spirit cannot be broken.

"I said, 'We did very well last night,' And she said, "What were the numbers?' ... and it made me laugh that she would still have those terms in her head," O'Neal said.

Fawcett, now 62 years old is the former star of hit TV show “Charlie’s Angels” – she was diagnosed with anal cancer in 2006 and took a turn for the worse when it spread to her liver two years ago.

The film includes saddening video that is at times fascinating, and others shocking. The New York Times described it as “awful” and “exploitative”. Entertainment Weekly said it was "sometimes almost unbearable, sometimes.

Ryan O’Neal, Farrah’s boyfriend of 30 years, has spoken tearfully about what life would be like without Farrah. “I'm different. I'm stubbornly insistent there can be a miracle. He says.

Farrah spoke on the subject during an interview with Entertainment Tonight, saying, “We talked about [death] once. We didn't allow any outcome into our minds except getting well,”.