1. Frances Farmer appeared in over a dozen feature films over the course of her career, though she garnered notoriety for sensationalized accounts of her life, especially her involuntary commitment to psychiatric hospitals and subsequent mental health struggles.
Frances Farmer made her film debut in the B film Too Many Parents, followed by another B picture, Border Flight, before being given the lead role opposite Bing Crosby in the musical Western Rhythm on the Range.
Unhappy with the opportunities the studio gave her, Frances Farmer returned to stock theater in 1937 before being cast in the original Broadway production of Clifford Odets's Golden Boy, staged by New York City's Group Theatre.
Frances Farmer followed this with two Broadway productions directed by Elia Kazan in 1939, but a battle with depression and binge drinking caused her to drop out of a subsequent Ernest Hemingway stage adaptation.
Frances Farmer returned to Los Angeles, earning supporting roles in the comedy World Premiere and the film noir Among the Living.
In 1942, publicity of her reportedly erratic behavior began to surface, and after several arrests and committals to psychiatric institutions, Frances Farmer was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia.
Frances Farmer has been the subject of two feature films and several books focusing on her time spent institutionalized, during which she claimed to have been subjected to systematic abuse.
Frances Elena Farmer was born on September 19,1913, in Seattle, Washington, the daughter of Cora Lillian, a boardinghouse operator and dietician and Ernest Melvin Farmer, a lawyer.
Frances Farmer's father was originally from Spring Valley, Minnesota, while her mother was from Oregon and a descendant of pioneers.
Frances Farmer had an older sister, Edith; an older brother, Wesley; and an older half-sister, Rita, conceived during her mother's first marriage.
When she was four years old, Frances Farmer's parents separated, and her mother moved with the children to Los Angeles, where her sister Zella lived.
Frances Farmer worked various jobs to pay her tuition, including as an usherette in a cinema, a waitress, a tutor, a laborer in a soap factory, and a singing waitress at Mount Rainier National Park.
Frances Farmer starred in numerous UW plays, including Helen of Troy, Everyman, and Uncle Vanya.
Frances Farmer accepted the prize, despite her mother's strong objections, so that she could see the pioneering Moscow Art Theatre.
Paramount offered her a seven-year contract, which Frances Farmer signed in New York City on her 22nd birthday.
Frances Farmer was then cast in a lead role in the drama Border Flight.
Later that year, Frances Farmer was cast in her first "A" feature, Rhythm on the Range, a Western starring Bing Crosby.
Howard Hawks was originally signed to direct, but was replaced by William Wyler midway through production; Frances Farmer was indignant and clashed with Wyler during filming.
At the premiere, Frances Farmer was notably quiet and spoke little to reporters, which resulted in news reports that she was cold and aloof.
Unsatisfied with her career direction after The Toast of New York, Frances Farmer resisted the studio's control and every attempt it made to glamorize her private life.
Unsatisfied with the expectations of the studio system and wanting to enhance her reputation as a serious actress, Frances Farmer left Hollywood in mid-1937 to do summer stock on the East Coast, performing in Westchester, New York, and Westport, Connecticut.
Disheartened, Frances Farmer returned to Los Angeles to star opposite husband Erickson in Ride a Crooked Mile.
The play was not well received, and Frances Farmer was profoundly unhappy after its closing in December 1939.
Frances Farmer subsequently accepted a role in a Broadway adaptation of Ernest Hemingway's The Fifth Column, for which she was scheduled to begin rehearsing in early 1940.
Frances Farmer ultimately chose to withdraw from the production, resulting in a $1,500 fine from the Theater Guild, for "unprofessionalism".
Frances Farmer returned to Paramount, which assigned her a role in South of Pago Pago, in which she portrayed Ruby, a woman traveling with a group of adventurers searching for pearls on an island.
Frances Farmer followed this with a supporting part in the film noir Among the Living, co-starring with Susan Hayward and Albert Dekker.
Frances Farmer again fought with the studio over the role, which she felt was over-glamorized, further damaging her reputation with studio executives.
Frances Farmer next appeared opposite Tyrone Power and Roddy McDowall in the film Son of Fury, portraying the scheming daughter of a British aristocrat.
On October 19,1942, Frances Farmer was stopped by Santa Monica police for driving with her headlights on high beam in the wartime blackout zone that affected most of the West Coast.
Frances Farmer was fined $500 and given a 180-day suspended sentence.
Frances Farmer immediately paid $250 and was put on probation.
Frances Farmer later contended that her mother and sister-in-law had stripped the house and stored her belongings while she was gone.
Frances Farmer's mother rented her a room at the Knickerbocker Hotel in Hollywood, where she temporarily took residence.
At almost the same time, a studio hairdresser filed an assault charge alleging that Frances Farmer had hit her in the face and dislocated her jaw on set.
Frances Farmer claimed the police had violated her rights; demanded an attorney; and threw an inkwell at the judge.
Frances Farmer was administered insulin shock therapy, then a standard psychiatric procedure, whose side effects included intense nausea.
Frances Farmer moved in with her parents in West Seattle, but her mother and she fought bitterly.
In January 1945, Frances Farmer's father took her to stay at her aunt's ranch in Yerington, Nevada.
Frances Farmer was discovered several days later at a movie theater in Reno, and returned by police to her aunt's home.
Frances Farmer remained an inmate of the hospital for the next five years, with the exception of a brief parole in 1946.
On March 23,1950, at her parents' request, Frances Farmer was paroled back into her mother's care.
In June 1953, upon discovering her discharge, Frances Farmer requested that her mother's conservatorship be lifted, which the Superior Court did.
Frances Farmer remained estranged from her sister until Lillian's death from a stroke in March 1955.
Edith claimed that on one occasion, Frances Farmer visited her in Portland, where the two spent an afternoon at The Grotto, a Catholic sanctuary they had once visited with their father.
In late 1957, Frances Farmer separated from Lobley and relocated to Eureka, California, where she found work as a bookkeeper and secretary at a commercial photo studio.
Frances Farmer appeared on This Is Your Life in an attempt to clarify the veracity of the publicity she had received throughout her career.
Frances Farmer explained to This is Your Life's host, Ralph Edwards:.
In 1959, Frances Farmer moved in with Jeanira "Jean" Ratcliffe, a widow with whom she became good friends in Indianapolis.
In 1962, Frances Farmer appeared in a Purdue University production of Anton Chekhov's The Seagull.
Frances Farmer continued her stage work and accepted a role in a Purdue Summer Theatre production of Ketti Frings's Look Homeward, Angel.
Frances Farmer had a great affection for the Saint Joan of Arc church and attended Mass there regularly in her last years.
Frances Farmer negotiated a collaboration with Lois Kibbee, who encouraged her to tape-record her life story.
Frances Farmer was hospitalized for three weeks before being sent home for a brief period.
Frances Farmer died of the cancer at Indianapolis Community Hospital on August 1,1970.
Frances Farmer is interred at Oaklawn Memorial Gardens Cemetery in Fishers, Indiana.
In 1978, Seattle film reviewer William Arnold published Shadowland, which for the first time alleged that Frances Farmer had been the subject of a transorbital lobotomy.
Scenes of Farmer being subjected to this lobotomy procedure were featured in the 1982 film Frances, which initially been planned as an adaptation of Shadowland, though its producers ultimately reneged on their agreement with Arnold.
Charles Jones, a psychiatric resident at Western State during Frances Farmer's stays, said that Frances Farmer never had a lobotomy.
French singer-songwriter Mylene Frances Farmer chose her stage name in homage to the actress.
Frances Farmer is mentioned in "Lobotomy Gets Them Home" on The Men They Couldn't Hang's album Silvertown.
Frances Farmer was the subject of a stage play by Sally Clark, Saint Frances of Hollywood.