Frances Farmer
(1913 - 1970)
Biography from Katz's Film Encyclopedia
Occupation: Actress
Born: September 19, 1913, Seattle, WA
Died: 1970
A lawyer's daughter, she excelled as a high school student and during her studies at the University of Washington won a trip to the Soviet Union as first prize for an essay she submitted in competition to a radical magazine. She made her screen debut in 1936 and the following year began a concurrent stage career with the Group Theatre in New York, playing the female lead in Golden Boy and other Broadway productions of the late 30s. Talented as well as beautiful, she seemed to be headed for a promising career on the stage and in films, but the problem of alcoholism brought her into frequent conflict with the law and forced her retirement in 1942. She spent a good part of the 40s in various mental institutions and by the late 50s was well enough to appear in a single film and to host a local TV program in Indianapolis. She died of cancer at 57. An autobiography, Will There Really Be a Morning?, was published posthumously in 1972. The first (1934-42) of her three husbands was actor Leif Erickson.
I've read her autobiography and I've seen both movies based on it. I was appalled that someone's mother could do those things to her daughter. Frances preferred the stage to films, but her mother wanted to become famous. When Frances refused to go back to Hollywood, her mother had her committed. In the asylum, Frances was gnawed on by rats and raped by orderlies and other men who were allowed in.