downtown Los Angeles , California , for the actress who died at the age of 62 from cancer . With her famously thick blond hair , red swimsuit , and smile as big and bright as the California sun , the actress was the epitome of the wholesome , all-American girl . `` She was full of life and so happy with that blond hair and that huge smile , '' said Tucker , who is n't sure if he still has the poster in his attic . `` Without that poster , I do n't think she would have become what she was . '' That freshness and beauty is what landed her poster on Tucker 's , and countless others ' , bedroom walls . Maria Elena Buszek , the author of `` Pin-up Grrrls : Feminism , Sexuality , Popular Culture , '' said pinups `` straddled the line between portraiture and pornography '' and included early stage actresses , the famed models of Alberto Vargas and the most famous pinup of all , Bettie Page . Fawcett has her place in pinup history , said Buszek , an assistant professor of art history at Kansas City
-LRB- CNN -RRB- -- The picture says it all . Curtis D. Tucker was thrilled to receive a Farrah Fawcett poster for his 14th birthday in 1976 . The shot of 14-year-old Curtis D. Tucker shows him unrolling one of his birthday treasures in 1976 , mouth slightly agape and eyes intensely focused on the gift . The present was one he had fervently requested from his parents and a hot item for many a young , red-blooded male during that bicentennial year : a poster of Farrah Fawcett -LRB- then known as Farrah Fawcett-Majors -RRB- . `` I was a huge Farrah fan , '' said Tucker , now a cartoonist and entrepreneur living in Enid , Oklahoma . `` I had started collecting all of the magazines and pictures and I was basically pinning up every picture that came out of every magazine . Then along came that poster . '' `` That poster '' reportedly became the best-selling of all time -- with more than 12 million copies sold -- and helped make Fawcett one of the last great pinups . A private funeral is scheduled Tuesday at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in