I know I can act. Every time someone quips “Farrah picked the wrong day to die”–meaning that she unexpectedly ended up losing headline space to Wacko Jacko–I squeal with laughter as if it were the height of wit, and the very first time I’d heard it. But how about Farrah herself? Was she brilliantly perceptive in leaving Charlie’s Angels after only a year (except for recurring appearances) to pursue a career as a serious actress in projects like the 1983 play (and 1986 movie) Extremities, in which she turned the tables on a hot rapist, and The Burning Bed, for which she was Emmy nominated as an abused wife who could have used some of Jill Munroe’s glamorously kickass gestures. (I’ll graciously leave out such cinema epics as Saturn 3, which belonged in Uranus, and Somebody Killed Her Husband, which critics rudely dubed Somebody Killed Her Career.)
To help you decide, here’s the trailer for Extremities, in which Farrah has to sweatily emote in closeups. I loved Farrah and feel she was even better in this than in the Wella Balsam commercials.