John Farrow had seven children by his wife, actress Maureen O'Sullivan, including actress Mia Farrow.
56 Facts About John Farrow
2.
John Farrow was educated at Newtown Public School and Fort Street Boys' High School and then started a career in accountancy.
3.
John Farrow claimed to have run away to sea in an American barquentine, sailed "all over the Pacific," and fought in revolts in Nicaragua and Mexico.
4.
John Farrow traveled throughout the Pacific, including Fiji, Hawaii and Guam.
5.
John Farrow had already earned minor recognition as a poet and writer of short stories.
6.
John Farrow worked for DeMille Productions, doing titles for White Gold and The Wreck of the Hesperus.
7.
John Farrow adapted Richard Connell's 1923 short story "A Friend of Napoleon" but it does not appear to have been made.
8.
John Farrow wrote the original story for The Blue Danube and the script for The Bride of the Colorado.
9.
At Paramount John Farrow worked a series of "woman's pictures" Three Weekends, with Clara Bow; The Woman from Moscow for Pola Negri; The First Kiss, with Fay Wray and Gary Cooper, and Ladies of the Mob with Bow.
10.
John Farrow wrote The Bad One for United Artists.
11.
John Farrow began to work increasingly at RKO: Inside the Lines ; The Common Law, with Constance Bennett, and a big hit; A Woman of Experience with Helen Twelvetrees.
12.
John Farrow compiled an English-French-Tahitian dictionary and wrote a novel, Laughter Ends.
13.
John Farrow returned to Hollywood and re-established himself as a screenwriter.
14.
John Farrow was charged with making a false statement while entering the US, having claimed he was Romanian.
15.
At MGM John Farrow wrote Last of the Pagans, partly set in Tahiti, and directed a short, The Spectacle Maker.
16.
John Farrow received a plum appointment to work on Tarzan Escapes but the film was rewritten and reshot.
17.
John Farrow finally made his directorial debut in 1937 with Men in Exile, a remake of Safe in Hell.
18.
On his return to Hollywood, John Farrow resumed working as a B-picture director for Warner Bros.
19.
John Farrow was reunited with Karloff in The Invisible Menace then made Little Miss Thoroughbred with John Litel and Sheridan, the first film for Peggy Ann Garner.
20.
John Farrow followed this with Broadway Musketeers with Margaret Lindsay and Sheridan, and My Bill with Kay Francis, the first of Francis' B movies for Warner Bros.
21.
John Farrow did some uncredited work on Comet Over Broadway, starring Francis, when director Busby Berkeley fell ill.
22.
John Farrow left his contract for a number of months, ostensibly to finish a book he was writing on the history of the papacy, and due to disputes over the script for his next film, another starring Kay Francis, Women in the Wind.
23.
John Farrow re-emerged as a contract director for RKO; directing the highly profitable The Saint Strikes Back, the second in the "Saint" series and the first to star George Sanders in the lead.
24.
John Farrow followed it with Sorority House, from a script by Dalton Trumbo and produced by Robert Sisk.
25.
John Farrow went on to direct Full Confession, with Victor McLaglen; Reno ; Married and in Love ; and A Bill of Divorcement, a remake of the 1932 Katharine Hepburn film, with Maureen O'Hara in the lead.
26.
John Farrow went to Vancouver in November 1939 and enlisted in the Canadian Navy.
27.
John Farrow went back to RKO to finish Bill of Divorcement then joined the navy.
28.
John Farrow was appointed lieutenant in March 1940 and assigned to Naval History and the Controller of Information Unit.
29.
John Farrow worked on anti-submarine patrols and in April 1941 was loaned to the Royal Navy and appointed to HMS Goshawk naval base in Trinidad, and served as assistant to the Senior British Naval Officer, Curacao.
30.
John Farrow contracted typhus fever and returned to Naval Headquarters, Ottawa, in late 1941.
31.
John Farrow was invalided out of the Canadian Navy with typhus in January 1942 at the rank of Commander but remained in the naval reserve.
32.
John Farrow was gravely ill when he returned but was nursed back to health by his wife.
33.
John Farrow's illness meant he was unable to return to active service.
34.
John Farrow resumed his directing career at Paramount, whose then-head of production, Buddy de Sylva, had been impressed by Five Came Back and offered John Farrow a contract.
35.
John Farrow followed it with another war film, Commandos Strike at Dawn, which proved popular.
36.
In February 1943, John Farrow signed a long-term contract with Paramount.
37.
John Farrow directed The Hitler Gang ; Two Years Before the Mast, with Ladd; and You Came Along, from a script co-written by Ayn Rand.
38.
In May 1945, John Farrow was briefly recalled to active duty, travelling to Britain for work in connection with the director of special services.
39.
In 1946 John Farrow was reportedly writing a biography of Junipero Serra but it appears to have never been made.
40.
In 1947, John Farrow made one of his most highly regarded films, the noir The Big Clock with Ray Milland and O'Sullivan.
41.
John Farrow was reunited with Ladd for a military drama, Beyond Glory, then returned to noir with Night Has a Thousand Eyes, starring Edward G Robinson from a Cornell Woolrich novel, and Alias Nick Beal, with Milland.
42.
John Farrow did some uncredited work on the Alan Ladd Western, Red Mountain, when William Dieterle fell ill.
43.
John Farrow published a history of the papacy, Pageant of the Popes.
44.
John Farrow made two produced by John Wayne for Wayne's company, Batjac: Plunder of the Sun, an adventure story with Glenn Ford, and Hondo with Wayne, from a story by Louis L'Amour; the latter especially was popular at the box office.
45.
John Farrow made A Bullet Is Waiting at Columbia, then he had another big hit with Wayne, The Sea Chase, where Wayne played a German sea captain in World War II.
46.
John Farrow was the original director of Around the World in 80 Days but was fired by producer Michael Todd shortly after filming commenced.
47.
However John Farrow remained credited for his contribution to the screenplay, which won an Oscar in 1956.
48.
John Farrow published a collection of poetry and a biography of Sir Thomas More.
49.
John Farrow only made two of them, neither successful: Back from Eternity, a remake of Five Came Back, and The Unholy Wife, a failed attempt to launch Diana Dors to US audiences.
50.
John Farrow received an offer from Samuel Bronston to make two films, a biography of John Paul Jones and a story of the life of Jesus Christ, which Farrow had been trying to make for years.
51.
John Farrow was a notorious playboy in his youth, being linked to Dolores del Rio and Diana Churchill among others.
52.
John Farrow began a relationship with Lila Lee in 1928, and they became engaged.
53.
However, they never married and their relationship ended in 1933 after Lee discovered John Farrow was being unfaithful to her.
54.
John Farrow would later deny he was a convert to Catholicism, as he was baptized as an infant by his Irish nurse.
55.
John Farrow died of a heart attack in Beverly Hills, California on 27 January 1963 at the age of 58 and was buried in the Holy Cross Cemetery, Culver City.
56.
John Farrow often expressed a desire to make a film back in Australia and later made two films with Australian connections, Botany Bay and The Sea Chase, despite having ceased to be a British subject in 1947 and thus never acquiring Australian citizenship when it was created in 1949.