Photography biography frances farmer

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She turned to the stage and joined the Group Theatre in New York, where she starred in Clifford Odets’ Golden Boy. They thought "marital difficulty" might have been "a pre-disposing cause of the insanity" (Seattle Times, March 24, 1944). A woman who worried constantly about her weight, Farmer began using amphetamines (marketed as Benzedrine) soon after she arrived in Hollywood.

photography biography frances farmer

By May 1945, she was back at Steilacoom, recommitted -- at her mother's request -- on the grounds that it was not safe for her to be at large. Eventually the couple divorced.

Frances grew up a somewhat lonely, bookish child. At the time, the drug was widely available and often recommended by doctors as an appetite suppressant.

That same unflinching voice followed her into college at the University of Washington, where she studied journalism and drama.

Farmer’s beauty and intelligence did not go unnoticed. Her essay, provocatively titled "God Dies," caused an uproar. "I was eaten alive with ambition," she wrote. She married actor Leif Erickson in 1936, though the union was short-lived.

Released in 1950, she spent the rest of her life in relative obscurity. He moved out of the house when Frances was a teenager, returning only for regular weekend visits. The last of these was what many critics regard as her best film, Come and Get It. The movie, based on a book by Edna Ferber and directed by Howard Hawks, featured Farmer in a dual role as a world-weary cabaret singer and her virginal daughter.

But it was an uneasy interlude. Gossip columnist Louella Parsons predicted that she would be the next Greta Garbo.

One and a half years after leaving Seattle, an outcast on a bus, Frances Farmer came back a star, flown in by the studio for the world premiere of Come and Get It. She was greeted with roses and flash bulbs at the airport. She was fired twice for erratic behavior and drunkenness.

Her mother died in 1955, followed by her father the next year. After her are Hermann Joseph Muller (1890), Frank Miller (1957), Joseph McCarthy (1908), Mel Ferrer (1917), Pat Morita (1932), and Jean Harlow (1911).

Others born in United States

Go to all Rankings

  • Arthur Ashkin

    PHYSICIST

    1922 - 2020

    HPI: 70.17

    Rank: 996

  • John Mott

    RELIGIOUS FIGURE

    1865 - 1955

    HPI: 70.17

    Rank: 997

  • Andre Agassi

    TENNIS PLAYER

    1970 - Present

    HPI: 70.16

    Rank: 998

  • Douglas Fairbanks

    ACTOR

    1883 - 1939

    HPI: 70.16

    Rank: 999

  • Greg Abbott

    POLITICIAN

    1957 - Present

    HPI: 70.16

    Rank: 1,000

  • William H.

    Macy

    ACTOR

    1950 - Present

    HPI: 70.16

    Rank: 1,001

  • Frances Farmer

    ACTOR

    1913 - 1970

    HPI: 70.15

    Rank: 1,002

  • Hermann Joseph Muller

    BIOLOGIST

    1890 - 1967

    HPI: 70.15

    Rank: 1,003

  • Frank Miller

    COMIC ARTIST

    1957 - Present

    HPI: 70.15

    Rank: 1,004

  • Joseph McCarthy

    POLITICIAN

    1908 - 1957

    HPI: 70.14

    Rank: 1,005

  • Mel Ferrer

    ACTOR

    1917 - 2008

    HPI: 70.14

    Rank: 1,006

  • Pat Morita

    ACTOR

    1932 - 2005

    HPI: 70.12

    Rank: 1,007

  • Jean Harlow

    ACTOR

    1911 - 1937

    HPI: 70.12

    Rank: 1,008

Among ACTORS In United States

Among actors born in United States, Frances Farmer ranks 242.

Although Farmer finally left the show in 1964, she remained in Indianapolis at her home on Park Avenue.

During the next five years, Farmer acted in several productions of the Purdue University Drama Department, joined St. Joan of Arc Catholic Church, and opened a home decorating business with her friend Jean Ratcliffe. In a Seattle Times article titled "Why I Am Going to Russia," she wrote that the chance to see "one of the ten most important theatrical centers" in the world was "the best thing that could happen to me." However, she admitted later that her real objective had been simply to get to New York -- the trip to Russia was "nothing more than a convenient step up a dedicated and ambitious ladder" (Farmer, 69).

She left Seattle on March 30, 1935, with a gift of $20 from her father tucked into her purse.

The prize included a round-trip bus ticket from Seattle to New York, with passage by steamer to Moscow from there.

The news made Farmer a subject of national controversy once again. Ernest Farmer's law practice had faltered. Ironically, she played a woman who was trying to pick up the pieces of a shattered life after 15 years of exile.

Over the next year, Farmer appeared in several TV dramas and summer theaters and one movie (her fifteenth and last, a teen exploitation film called The Party Crashers).