Celebrity Mound

Ryan O’Neal has spoken for the first time about Farrah Fawcett’s battle with cancer, comparing his relationship with her over the past two years to his role in the film Love Story.

‘I just don’t know how to play this one. I won’t know this world without her,’ he said. ‘It’s a love story.’

He added: ‘I can’t hear a song, I can’t pass places that we were together, without being stabbed in the heart.

‘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’. ‘

Still remembered as one of Hollywood’s biggest tearjerkers, Love Story propelled O’Neal to fame in 1970 as a newlywed lawyer whose wife, played by Ali MacGraw, dies from cancer

O’Neal, 68, said Miss Fawcett has lost all the blonde hair that made her one of the 1970s’ biggest pin-ups

‘The hair is gone,’ said O’Neal. ‘Her famous hair. I have it at home. She didn’t care. 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.’

Former Charlie’s Angels star Miss Fawcett, 62, is now so weak she is bedridden and is fed intravenously through a drip but O’Neal says she is ‘comfortable’, spending most of her time resting or watching TV.

Ryan said: ‘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.’

The actress was diagnosed with rectal cancer in 2006 and had surgery to remove a tumour.

O’Neal said his long- time – although on/off – partner believed she had beaten the ‘insidious’ illness following chemotherapy, only to find out it had returned in 2007.

‘The news started to get darker and darker and darker,’ said O’Neal. ‘The hope started to fade. But not for Farrah. She continued fighting. There was always a courage there, and a quiet dignity. Farrah never changed.

‘I fell in love with her all over again because of how she handled this.

Miss Fawcett began dating O’Neal in 1982 after her marriage to actor Lee Majors broke down.

Miss Fawcett’s son with O’Neal, Redmond, 24, is in jail after a parole violation for being in possession of drugs but was allowed out for three hours recently to visit his mother.

In the interview with U.S. magazine People, O’Neal said Miss Fawcett doesn’t know her son is in trouble, adding: ‘Redmond is terrified for his mother. ‘I don’t want to be in jail and have some guard tell me she is gone,’ he said to me.

‘I told him, ‘She’s rebounding.’ I lied to him. I lie to her. It’s the best thing.’

Farrah is now confined to her bed at her Malibu home as the disease takes further hold of her body.

Farrah supported Ryan through his battle with leukaemia in 2001 and he has been inseparable from her during her fight.

After initially going through successful treatment in 2006, Farrah was devastated to learn the cancer had come back the following year and started filming her plight with a hand-held video camera.

Her emotional battle with the disease will be seen in the documentary Farrah’s Story, which will be broadcast on U.S. TV channel NBC on May 15.

In moving scenes from the documentary, Redmond is seen breaking down in tears and saying ‘oh my gosh, oh my gosh’ when he sees her lying frail in bed on his visit from prison.

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Farrah Fawcett’s wayward son Redmond O’ Neal was told he must stay in jail at a court hearing as family and friends gather at his ailing mother’s bedside.

The actress’s son appeared in a Los Angeles court to face drug charges days after being allowed a mercy visit to his ailing mother.

But court officials ruled he must remain in custody until his next hearing which is scheduled for May 22.

Yesterday while his mother reportedly clung to life, he appeared behind bars and in handcuffs in a courtroom in Santa Clarita, California wearing a brown prison jumpsuit and chains to answer charges that he brought heroin onto prison grounds while visiting a friend on April 5.

In move which fuelled speculation about Farrah’s condition, Redmond, 24, was allowed to leave jail earlier this week where he is being held on remand to visit his mother at the weekend.

Prison officials said such visits are highly unusual and usually reserved only for funerals and to see gravely ill relatives.

The 24-year-old appeared
Redmond is the son of cancer-stricken actress Farrah Fawcett, 62, and actor Ryan O’Neal, 68.

On off partner Ryan O’Neal and the 62-year-old actress’s friends and family are keeping a vigil by the star’s bedside as her health suddenly took a turn for the worse.

However, the TV icon’s publicist denied a claim made by one US website that she was given the last rites at her Los Angeles home.

But Fawcett’s weight has reportedly plunged to 86lb and her family doctor revealed recently that the anal cancer she has been fighting since 2006 had spread to her liver.

The actress has not been seen in public for months.

According to US celebrity website RadarOnline, Fawcett’s health deteriorated on Monday while she was with 68-year-old Love Story actor O’Neal at his home in Malibu.

‘Ryan had to take her back to her home, where she has more facilities to deal with her tumour,’ a source told the site.

‘Right now, Ryan and other close friends are staying by her side,’ it added.

But a spokesman said Fawcett’s condition is unchanged.

Earlier this month, she was treated in hospital for internal bleeding that her doctor said wasn’t directly related to cancer.

It was thought to have been caused by an experimental treatment she underwent in Germany.

The actress has been working on a documentary, titled A Wing And A Prayer, about her health battle.

Fawcett ‘has challenges every day from her fight with cancer. So as long as she’s able to fight, she’ll keep fighting,’ said her doctor Dr Lawrence Piro.

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Farrah Fawcett is being treated for anal cancer that has spread to her liver and has been hospitalized for a complication from a routine treatment, a producer who worked with the actress and her doctor said Monday.

In separate phone interviews with The Associated Press, Fawcett’s producer and her doctor said that Fawcett is in a Los Angeles hospital, recovering from complications from a medical procedure in Germany, and is “not on death’s door,” as the producer put it.

“She had a minor procedure. That procedure led to a small amount of bleeding into a muscle in her abdominal wall,” which created a hematoma – a sac of blood that caused pressure and pain, said her Los Angeles cancer specialist, Dr. Lawrence Piro. It was “a simple procedure” and a standard one, although Fawcett has also pursued experimental treatments in Germany, he added.

“She’s on the mend and will be going home very shortly,” said her producer, Craig Nevius. “She’s doing fantastic. Her fight goes on. … She’s not going anywhere anytime soon.”

However, confirmation that the cancer had spread to such a distant site was dire news. The 62-year-old “Charlie’s Angels” star was diagnosed with anal cancer in 2006, and originally was treated at The Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center with chemotherapy and radiation – not surgery as some have reported, Nevius said.

She was declared in remission on Feb 2, 2007, but three months later, scans showed “not only had it recurred, it metastasized to her liver,” Nevius said.

The latest treatment in Germany tried to address the cancer’s spread to that organ, he said.

Nevius would not say where in Germany she was being treated, just that it was a clinic affiliated with some hospitals. He also would not give details on her treatments there, but said media reports that she was getting stem cell treatments were false.

“It’s never had anything to do with stem cells,” or alternative treatments such as shark cartilage, coffee enemas or unproven “detoxification” diets, Nevius said.

“It’s much more scientific than that. It’s not a fringe treatment,” he said, and the doctors have “multiple, multiple degrees.”

An upcoming documentary on which Fawcett has worked for several years, “A Wing and a Prayer,” co-produced with Nevius and others, will air on NBC soon and give details, he said.

After the procedure in Germany, Piro said Fawcett flew back to Los Angeles because she was eager to go home. In a statement released earlier, Piro said Fawcett was using a wheelchair because it was painful for her to walk. “That pain, which was coming from the hematoma, had nothing directly to do with the cancer,” Piro said.

“She remains in good spirits with her usual sense of humor,” he added. “She’s been in great shape her whole life and has an incredible resolve and an incredible resilience.”

Nevius said Fawcett is expected to leave the hospital in a few days. He said her support system includes former partner Ryan O’Neal, her father and “Charlie’s Angels” co-stars Kate Jackson and Jaclyn Smith.

“Let me tell you what she’s not,” Nevius said. “As previously reported by everybody, she’s not unconscious. She is not on death’s door. The family has not gathered to say goodbye.”

Anal cancer is relatively uncommon, but occurs a little more often in women than men. An estimated 5,070 cases were diagnosed in the United States last year, leading to about 680 deaths, according to the American Cancer Society.

Meanwhile, Redmond O’Neal, Fawcett’s son with Ryan O’Neal, was arrested Sunday on suspicion of bringing narcotics into a jail facility and was being held on $25,000 bail.

A deputy at a jail in Castaic, north of Los Angeles, was doing a security sweep of the jail’s parking lot when he stopped the 24-year-old, who acknowledged he was carrying drugs and was apparently at the jail giving a ride to a friend, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department spokesman Steve Whitmore said.

A phone message left for O’Neal’s attorney wasn’t immediately returned.

O’Neal was arrested along with his father last year at the actor’s Malibu home on suspicion of having methamphetamine while on probation for a previous drug conviction. He has pleaded not guilty in that case.