Farrah Fawcett has always been a fighter. She faced cancer in 2006 and beat it down only to see it return recently. And when conventional treatments were no longer working, she went to Germany to pursue alternative therapies. While she remains hospitalized Monday suffering from the effects of a hematoma and dehydration, hopes are high in Hollywood that this TV icon will battle back from her latest health scare.

Farrah Fawcett came to fame in 1976 as one of the three beauties with brains on "Charlie's Angels." At the time she was married to TV star Lee Majors ("The Six Million Dollar Man") and this golden couple seemed to have it all. While she was the People's Choice as favorite new TV actress, Fawcett wanted to try her luck on the big screen.

She first proved her mettle by going up against ABC and powerful producer Aaron Spelling to leave the smash hit show after just one season. After the settlement that required her to appear on only a handful of episodes in subsequent years, she was free to pursue all those movie offers.

When Fawcett failed to translate her TV stardom into a flourishing film career, she wisely returned to the small screen and fought to be cast in a series of roles that showed Hollywood she was more than just a pretty face. Playing real-life women battling adversity proved to be her forte.

As an abused wife who fights back in the 1984 telefilm "The Burning Bed," Fawcett landed her first Emmy nod. Though she lost the award to Oscar-winner Joanne Woodward for "Do You Remember Love," Fawcett was rewarded when critics were convinced that she could act.

In 1989, she starred opposite her longtime partner Ryan O'Neal in the miniseries "Small Sacrifices." For her work as a murderous mother, she picked up a second Emmy nod, losing to Barbara Hershey for "A Killing in a Small Town." Fawcett worked steadily throughout the 1990s, even trying her hand at a short-lived sitcom with O'Neal ("Good Sports") as well as several more feature films. When not acting, she devoted much of her time to her passion for art.

In the first half of this decade, Farrah Fawcett appeared on multi-episode arcs on both "Spin City" and "The Guardian" and earned her third Emmy nod for her acclaimed turn on the latter in 2003. She lost that race to Emmy darling Alfre Woodard, who played a defendant on "The Practice." In more recent times, Fawcett appeared in her own reality show, "Chasing Farrah," on TV Land.