Profile
Frances Farmer
Actor
Female
Born
Sep 19, 1913
Hometown
Seattle, Washington
Died
Aug 1, 1970
Death Place
Fishers, Indiana
Other Names
Farmer, Frances E...
Frances Elena Farmer was an American actress of stage and screen. She is perhaps better known for sensationalized and fictional accounts of her life, and especially her involuntary commitment to a mental hospital. Farmer was the subject of three films… Read More
Romance
Check out the latest love interests for Frances Farmer.
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Leland MikesellMarried 1958 - 1970
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Alfred LobleyDated
News + Updates
Browse recent news and stories about Frances Farmer.
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Missed The Frances Farmer Walking Tour? Special Encore Planned West Seattle Blog (Blog)Google News - Aug 19, 2011
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West Seattle History: Walking Tour Recalls Frances Farmer West Seattle Blog (Blog)Google News - Aug 18, 2011
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West Seattle Wednesday: Traffic Alert; Sleep; Veggies; Kayaking West Seattle Blog (Blog)Google News - Aug 17, 2011
Timeline
Learn about the memorable moments in the evolution of Frances Farmer.
CHILDHOOD
1913
Birth
Born on September 19, 1913.
TEENAGE
1931
17 Years Old
Farmer was born in Seattle, to Ernest Melvin Farmer and Cora Lillian (Van Ornum) Farmer. In 1931, while attending West Seattle High School, she entered and won $100 from The Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, a writing contest sponsored by Scholastic Magazine, with her controversial essay "God Dies".
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TWENTIES
She had top billing in two well-received 1936 B-movies.
However, Farmer was sympathetically described in a 1937 Colliers article as being indifferent about the clothing she wore and was said to drive an older-model "green roadster".
1938
24 Years Old
By 1938, when the production had embarked on a national tour, regional critics from Washington D.C. to Chicago gave her rave reviews.
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1939
25 Years Old
By 1939, her temperamental work habits and worsening alcoholism began to damage her reputation.
1940
26 Years Old
In 1940, after abruptly quitting a Broadway production of a play by Ernest Hemingway, she starred in two major films, both loan-outs to other studios.
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1941
27 Years Old
In mid-1941 Clifford Odets attempted to lure her back to Broadway to star in his upcoming play Clash by Night, but she refused, telling him she thought she needed to stay in Hollywood to rebuild her career.
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Despite this, though, Paramount canceled her contract in 1942, reportedly because of her alcoholism and increasingly erratic behavior during pre-production of Take a Letter, Darling.
THIRTIES
1944
30 Years Old
…
Three months later, during the summer of 1944, she was pronounced "completely cured" and released.
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1945
31 Years Old
At her mother's request, at age 31, Farmer was recommitted to Western State Hospital in May 1945 and remained there almost five years, with the exception of a brief parole in 1946.
1950
36 Years Old
On March 23, 1950, at her parents' request, Farmer was paroled back into her mother's care.
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1953
39 Years Old
In 1953, at her own request, 10 years after the arrest at the Knickerbocker Hotel, a judge legally restored Farmer's competency and full civil rights.
FORTIES
1954
40 Years Old
After a brief second marriage to utility worker Alfred H. Lobley, in 1954 Farmer moved to Eureka, California, where she worked anonymously for almost three years in a photo studio as a secretary/bookkeeper.
In 1957, Farmer met Leland C. Mikesell, an independent broadcast promoter from Indianapolis who helped her move to San Francisco.
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Through the spring of 1958, Farmer appeared in several live television dramas, some of which are preserved on kinescope.
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1963
49 Years Old
Their divorce was finalized in 1963 in Indianapolis.
FIFTIES
1965
51 Years Old
Farmer's last acting role was in The Visit at Loeb Playhouse on the Purdue University campus in West Lafayette, Indiana, which ran from October 22 to October 30, 1965.
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1968
54 Years Old
In the summer of 1968, one of the girls, nestling against her, whispered in her ear, "I love you so much, because you're good."
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In 1970, Farmer died from esophageal cancer.
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Original Authors of this text are noted on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frances_Farmer.
Text is made available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.
Text is made available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.