In the final days of Farrah Fawcett’s life, she was so heavily sedated that she sometimes failed to recognise even Ryan O’Neal, her lover of 30 years and father of her only child.

In pictures: Farrah Fawcett

"When I got to the hospital last night, I said, 'Who am I?' She had that thousand-mile stare and she said, 'Steve'," Ryan told me.

"I turned to the nurse and said, 'Who's Steve?' The nurse said, 'He supplies her medications'."

For nearly three years, she had waged a valiant battle against anal cancer that spread to her liver, but in June 2009, she was hospitalised to treat an infection in the port that had been installed because the veins in her delicate arms had collapsed from the brutal months of injections and IV lines.

As Ryan and I discussed the situation in the Beverly Hills living room of Alana Stewart – ex-wife of actor George Hamilton and rocker Rod Stewart – Farrah’s best friend busied herself in the kitchen, bak ing ginger cookies. Day after day, Ryan and Alana took Farrah’s favourite treats to the hospital, trying to tempt her to eat: green corn tamales, fried chicken, macaroni and cheese. When she was conscious, she thanked them in her soft whispery voice – "That's so beautiful!" she murmured, lovingly stroking a cookie – and handed it back without taking a bite. She was conscious less and less often.

In pictures: Stars we farewelled in 2009

Her intimates were coping in different ways. "When she turned 60, we had this celebratory birthday where I shot my son," Ryan said, his tone as casual as if there had been nothing conversation-stopping about such a remark. "I could have hit him, but I missed. Farrah was in bed and she could hear it all – fights, swinging, gunshots. 'Welcome to the O'Neals'!" Baring his teeth in a faux-cheery grin, he launched into an energetic rendition of Happy Birthday To You.

Ryan had four children by three different women; the son he shot at was Griffin, but Redmond, the deeply troubled child of Farrah and Ryan, was also fair game for mordant remarks.

"I was thinking I'll get a motorcycle because I'll get killed and then I can join her," Ryan said. "But then I thought, No, I can't because my son's in jail again!"

He even made black jokes about trying to get his hands on Farrah's estate. "She has lots of money; we're trying to find out how much," he said. "I think she’s got about $25million in the bank and in properties." He leaned over, staring intently at the empty chair next to him and raised his voice as if shouting to his comatose lover: "What is the pass word? What's the combination of the safe? Yet then his eyes welled up. "She was supposed to go into hospital for a couple of days, but I don’t know if we’ll ever get her home," he said, his voice cracking.

Meanwhile, Alana, who had loyally supported Farrah’s fierce belief that she would triumph over her disease, still clung to hope. "I think I’m in some kind of denial," Alana said, her face wan and tired. "I haven't faced what you might say is reality. I just keep putting one foot in front of another. Okay, today I’m going to bake cookies." Yet the stricken look in Alana's eyes betrayed her recognition of impending loss.

Farrah's ordeal wasn’t supposed to end like this. "This is so not the way she thought it was going to go," said Doug Vaughan, the NBC senior vice-president who worked with her on Farrah's Story, the video diary she made about her battle with cancer. "Farrah was certain that she was going to beat this."

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Read more from this interview in the January issue of The Australian Women's Weekly out now with our bumper celebrity cover.