Ryan O'Neal is ready to marry Farrah Fawcett on her deathbed, before cancer takes her life.

68-year-old O'Neal said: "I've asked her to marry me again, and she's agreed." O'Neal added that the 62-year-old Charlie's Angels starlet is now "fighting for her life".

Fawcett had been originally diagnosed with rectal cancer in 2006, and believed she had been cured after surgery and a course of chemotherapy.

However, she was diagnosed again the following year, and despite experimental treatment in Germany, spread to her liver.

The actress completed her treatment last month, and returned home to the Malibu mansion she shares with O'Neal.

"I used to ask her to marry me all the time. But it just got to be a joke, you know. We just joked about it," O'Neal told U.S. chat show host Barbara Walters.

The couple had first began dating in 1982, after her divorce to actor Lee Majors. They had a son together - a now 24-year-old Redmond O'Neal, who is currently undergoing drug rehab. Fawcett and O'Neal split in 1997.

Four years later, they reignited their relationship, when O'Neal was diagnosed with leukemia. Since Fawcett's battle with cancer, the couple have been inseparable.

"I just don't know how to play this one. I won't know this world without her," O'Neal said. He added: "I can't head a song, I can't pass places that we were together, without being stabbed in the heart."

In sickness and in health [DailyMail]