Afterlives of the Rich and Famous (20 page)

It’s also very much worth mentioning that John and Lucille Ball, kindred souls on earth and on the Other Side, had an ecstatic reunion when John emerged from his time at the Scanning Machine to resume his busy life.
They often socialize and perform together, and it hasn’t escaped their notice that the causes of their respective deaths were very similar: John’s was a tear in his aortic wall, Lucy’s was a ruptured aorta.
As a result, the two of them have begun taking courses in cardiovascular genetic disorders and imaging toward the goal of becoming part of our vast network of coronary researchers.
John sends the message, “Please thank everyone involved in publishing the rules,” and adds, “They’ll know who and what I mean.”
[From Sylvia: My staff checked the Internet and found “Ritter Rules,” which are described as “life-saving reminders to recognize, treat and prevent thoracic aortic dissection.” You can find a discussion of Ritter Rules at http://cbs
2
.com/local/john.ritter.heart.
2
.
1565915
.html.]

John has also returned to his work as an Orientator in the oxygen chambers, where he’s treasured for his unique blend of faith, comfort, and humor among the new arrivals who need Orientation care.
He and his father live in a modest house near their old friends Jesse and Patrick Swayze, the four of them sharing the idyllic, fenceless horse ranch they’ve always loved.

He doesn’t plan to reincarnate, believing that from now on he can accomplish more on the Other Side and be of greater service than he ever could on earth.
And, he adds, “With the exception of being here, I could never ask for more than I was blessed with that last time around.”

Farrah Fawcett

O
ne of the true iconic “poster girls” of the baby boom generation, actress Farrah Leni Fawcett was born in Corpus Christi, Texas, on February 2, 1947, to oil-field contractor James Fawcett and his wife, Pauline, a homemaker. She was educated in Catholic school, at W. B. Ray High School, and then at the University of Texas at Austin, where her photograph as one of the school’s “Ten Most Beautiful Coeds” caught the attention of a Hollywood publicist. He encouraged her to move to Los Angeles to pursue a modeling career, and after some initial hesitation, her parents accompanied her to the West Coast at the end of her junior year. Within two weeks she was under contract as a model and in overwhelming demand for commercials and print ads.

She also caught the eye of a handsome young actor named Lee Majors, who was starring in a series called
The Big Valley,
and they had their first date on July
28, 1968
. They celebrated the five-year anniversary of their first date by getting married, on July
28, 1973
, in a garden wedding at the elegant Bel Air Hotel. Farrah made several appearances on her husband’s subsequent series
The Six Million Dollar Man,
and the “supercouple” was a staple of the tabloids through the
1970
s and early
1980
s, where their separation in
1979
and divorce in
1982
often got as much press attention as their respective careers.

After a number of guest spots on a variety of television series starting in 1969, Farrah costarred in the ABC Movie of the Week
Charlie’s Angels
in
1976
, which became a series that same year. It was also in
1976
that the classic poster featuring Farrah, with her signature mane of blonde hair, wearing a relatively conservative red one-piece bathing suit, hit the market and became one of the bestselling posters of all time, with sales figures reaching well over ten million copies.

Thanks to
Charlie’s Angels,
Farrah Fawcett was a fan sensation by the end of
1976
and was named Favorite Performer in a New TV Program at the People’s Choice Awards. She left the show after its first season, was sued by Aaron Spelling for breach of contract, and eventually settled out of court by agreeing to make six guest appearances in upcoming seasons. She promptly turned her professional attention to feature films and television miniseries, and in
1979
she turned her personal attention to actor Ryan O’Neal. While they were never married, they were together until
1997
and again, off and on, from
2001
until her death. Their son, Redmond, was born in
1985
.

Farrah’s next professional success came in 1983, when she replaced Susan Sarandon as an intended rape victim who takes revenge on her attacker in an off-Broadway production of the play
Extremities.
She received equal praise from the critics, not to mention an Emmy nomination, for her portrayal of an abused wife in the highest rated television movie of
1984,
The Burning Bed
. And her
1986
appearance in the film version of
Extremities
earned her a Best Actress Golden Globe nomination. Two more Golden Globe nominations followed as well as another Emmy nomination in
1989
for the disturbing fact-based miniseries
Small Sacrifices
. Her career as a respected dramatic actress continued until
2004
with a variety of film and television roles and a third Emmy nomination.

Life seemed to imitate art during Farrah’s relationship in 1997 with producer-director James Orr. After playing several noteworthy, highly acclaimed roles as an abused, battered, or victimized woman, she herself experienced an incidence of domestic abuse by Orr when she told him she wanted to end their relationship. He was convicted of assault and sentenced to three years’ probation.

Despite her turbulent personal life and rumors of a drug problem after her peculiar behavior during a 1997
David Letterman Show
interview, Farrah’s beauty hadn’t diminished by the mid-
1990
s, and her
Playboy
photo spreads were prominent features of the magazine’s two bestselling issues of the decade.

In 2006, less than a year after the devastating death of her mother, Farrah was diagnosed with anal cancer. She began a long, aggressive, highly publicized fight against her illness, with Ryan O’Neal by her side. She filmed even the most difficult moments of her battle for what would become a two-hour documentary called
Farrah’s Story,
which she coproduced with her friend Alana Stewart. The documentary aired on May
15, 2009
, was watched by approximately nine million viewers on its network debut, and was presented with an Emmy for Outstanding Nonfiction Special.

On June 25, 2009, less than three months before her Emmy victory was announced to a worldwide audience, Farrah Fawcett died in St. John’s Health Center in Santa Monica, California. Ryan O’Neal and Alana Stewart were with her when she took her last breath, and her troubled son, Redmond, who was convicted in 2009 of felony drug possession and was serving time in a detention center when his mother died, was allowed to attend her funeral.

From Francine

Sadly, Farrah arrived Home depressed and disappointed.
Although she’d grown very weary of fighting her battle against cancer and her spirit knew her chosen Exit Point had arrived, her strong-willed conscious mind was clinging until the end to the hope that she would win that war, provide a happy ending to her documentary, and inspire others not to give up, no matter what challenge they might be facing.
Her mother, grandparents, and countless friends from her nineteen past lives were there to embrace and comfort her the instant she emerged from the tunnel.
But not until she was cocooned was she able to experience the sacred bliss of the Other Side and appreciate that her fierce, courageous battle alone was inspiring enough, and the death of her body was to be celebrated rather than mourned.

Like so many who return Home as the result of earthly diseases with high mortality rates, Farrah emerged from cocooning ready and eager to participate with medical researchers who are hard at work on a cure.
She and all other cancer victims are invaluable to the process of someday eradicating the disease entirely, as they’re studied and tested before God’s promised healing takes place, and she has dedicated herself to classes in biomedical sciences so that she can become a core member of a cancer biology research team.

Otherwise, Farrah’s life is very much as it was before her latest brief incarnation.
She prefers living alone, surrounded by what we’ve always referred to as “her cats,” a beautiful pride of lions who adore her and, like all of our jungle cats, are as gentle and playful as kittens.
She’s a gifted, prolific impressionistic artist, and her gallery showings are among the few social events she attends.
She’s considering another incarnation in which she says she would aspire “to be famous for something that matters” and not repeat her most recent life themes of Follower and Temperance, which she feels she handled poorly.

Patrick Swayze

G
ifted, charismatic actor and dancer Patrick Wayne Swayze was born in Houston, Texas, on August 18, 1952. His mother, Patsy, was a choreographer, dance instructor, and the director of the Houston Jazz Ballet Company, and dance was a part of Patrick’s life virtually since he took his first baby steps. His father, Jesse, who died in 1982, was a champion rodeo rider and an engineering draftsman. Patrick, his two sisters, and his two brothers were raised in the Houston suburb of Oak Forest, and from elementary school through high school he put his exceptional skills to a wide variety of uses, excelling in everything from ballet and gymnastics to football, swimming, and ice skating to performing in school plays.

After two years at Houston’s San Jacinto College, Patrick was hired as a dancer and ice skater, playing Prince Charming on a national tour of “Disney on Parade.” When the tour ended and he returned to Houston, he met Lisa Niemi, a sixteen-year-old student in his mother’s dance classes. He moved to New York in
1972
to pursue his dance career, and Lisa joined him there when she graduated from high school. They were married in
1975
, a marriage that lasted for the rest of his life.

Complications from knee surgery forced Patrick to shift his focus from a promising ballet career to acting, and in 1976 he debuted on Broadway in a production of
Goodtime Charley,
followed by a revival of the classic
West Side Story
. But it was his starring role in
Grease
in
1978
that attracted the attention of Hollywood.

His television and film work on the West Coast was steady since its beginning in 1979’s
Skatetown U.S.A.,
including a prestigious nod from Francis Ford Coppola for a film called
The Outsiders
. There’s no question, though, that it was in
1987
that he officially became a star thanks to his versatile, multitextured performance in
Dirty Dancing
. His confident physicality made him an obvious choice for the action films that followed, but his next real “star” vehicle came in
1990
with the paranormal love story
Ghost
. Both
Dirty Dancing
and
Ghost
earned Patrick lead actor Golden Globe nominations.

People
magazine’s
1991
“Sexiest Man Alive” had been battling an alcohol problem since the death of his father in
1982
, and in
1994
, after his sister’s suicide, he voluntarily checked into a rehab clinic and then recuperated with his wife, Lisa, out of the spotlight, at the two ranches where they bred Arabian horses. He returned to the screen in
1995
as a drag queen in
To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar
and was rewarded with his third Golden Globe nomination.

The next few years brought a combination of film work and physical injuries, including a broken leg from a horseback-riding accident and carbon monoxide exposure while flying his private plane. But it was in January 2008 that real tragedy struck—Patrick Swayze was diagnosed with stage IV (inoperable) pancreatic cancer. He immediately began treatment at the Stanford University Medical Center, while the tabloids began offering an endless barrage of photographs and updates, only some of which were accurate, but which made his battle intensely public whether he wanted it to be or not. His appearance on a rare network simulcast of the television special
Stand Up to Cancer
in September
2008
helped raise money and awareness on behalf of cancer patients around the world.

The finale of Patrick’s career was the lead in an A&E Network series called
The Beast
. It premiered in January
2009
, the same month in which he was hospitalized with pneumonia and in which he revealed during a Barbara Walters interview that doctors had found a “tiny little mass” in his liver. His deteriorating health made it impossible for him to promote
The Beast,
and it was cancelled in June
2009
, while the tabloids continued to feature photos of him, painfully and increasingly gaunt, with his wife, Lisa, by his side, as she’d been for almost forty years. On September
14, 2009
, Patrick Swayze lost his battle with pancreatic cancer at the age of fifty-seven. His ashes were scattered at his beloved horse ranch in New Mexico.