Farrah Fawcett hasn't won an Emmy for acting in hit TV series like "Charlie's Angels" or critically hailed telefilms like "The Burning Bed," but she may ultimately claim TV's top award for telling her own personal drama in boldly honest terms. In "Farrah's Story," a documentary airing on NBC on May, she shares intimate details of her ongoing battle with cancer..

Her longtime friend Alana Stewart  produced this intimate, two-hour special. As Stewart told People,   "It was never meant to be a documentary. Farrah just took her little hand-held camera to the doctor one day."

In a twist of fate, it was during that 2007 doctor's visit when Fawcett was told her cancer had come back. She had been diagnosed with anal cancer the previous year and thought she had beaten the disease. With conventional treatments no longer working, Fawcett went to Germany to pursue alternative therapies.

Her longtime love Ryan O'Neal told People, "At about the halfway point in our trips, the news started to get darker and darker and darker. 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."

Fawcett became an outspoken advocate for early detection and treatment of colo-rectal cancer, She worked tirelessly to raise the profile of this disease. And by documenting her own struggles, she will make viewers aware of the need for testing and research. She narrates the documentary, which includes footage of a recent visit from her son, Redmond O'Neal, who is once again in legal custody on drug-related charges.

"Farrah's Story" could compete at the Emmy Awards as either outstanding nonfiction special or for the juried award for exceptional merit in nonfiction filmmaking. Fawcett received her first Emmy nomination for bringing attention to another important issue — domestic violence — in "The Burning Bed."

Though she lost that race to Oscar-winner Joanne Woodward for "Do You Remember Love," Fawcett was rewarded when TV critics became convinced that she could act. In 1989, she starred opposite 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,  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."

Below, Fawcett and her two "Charlie's Angels" co-stars -- Kate Jackson and Jaclyn Smith -- pay tribute to the show's producer, the late Aaron Spelling, at the 2006 Emmy Awards.

Photo: ABC

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