Farrah Fawcett died Thursday morning in Santa Monica, Calif. She was 62. Her death, at a Santa Monica hospital, was announced by her spokesman, Paul Bloch, The Associated Press reported. Ms. Fawcett had been battling intestinal cancer since late 2006, and to an extraordinary degree that fight was played out in public, generating enormous interest worldwide. Her face, often showing the ravages of cancer, became a tabloid fixture, and updates on her health became staples of television entertainment news.

Fawcett died at 9:28 a.m. PST on Thursday at St. John’s Heath Center in Santa Monica, Calif. She was with longtime partner Ryan O’Neal, friend Alana Stewart, friend and hairdresser Mela Murphy and her doctor Lawrence Piro. She had recently returned to St. John’s for treatment of complications from anal cancer, which was diagnosed three years ago.

“She’s gone. She now belongs to the ages,” O’Neal told People magazine, also confirming that she received last rites. “She’s now with he mother and sister and her God. I loved her with all my heart. I will miss her so very, very much. She was in and out of consciousness. I talked to her all through the night. I told her how very much I loved her. She’s in a better place now.”  Added O’Neal: “She was with her team when she passed … Her eyes were open, but she didn’t say anything. But you could see in her eyes that she recognized us.”

Though O’Neal recently said that he and Fawcett had planned to wed, they did not tie the knot. “There just wasn’t time, and Farrah wasn’t in any condition to do it,” says O’Neal. Friends and family plan to honor Fawcett with a funeral service at a Catholic cathedral in Los Angeles in the next few days.

Fawcett is survived by her son with O’Neal, Redmond, 24, who is currently serving a jail term in California after repeated drug offenses. Redmond was not there at Fawcett’s side when she died, but spoke to his mother on the phone and told her “how much he loved her and asked her to please forgive him that he was so very, very sorry,” O’Neal told PEOPLE.