From Hollywood brilliance to the darkness of madness: the story of Frances Farmer (13 photos)

These ideal features are associated with the beauty of a porcelain doll. After all, a living person cannot have such an appearance. However girl She also had an acclaimed talent. Although neither one nor the other brought her happiness.





Francis Farmer is not just a character, one of. This cultural phenomenon of the United States of the last century. Psychologically, childhood is the youngest of four children, who was born in 1913, was difficult. Parents sometimes converged, then diverged. As a result, Ernest and Lillian made the final decision to leave. The family settled in Bremerton. The girl plunged into her studies, demonstrating the ability to journalism and art.



After completing her studies, Frances decided to become an actress. Moved to New York and signed a seven-year contract with Paramount pictures. The first film - "Too Many Parents" was successful and was favorably received by both the public and critics.



"Too Many Parents"



"Rhythm on the Steeps"

Then there were "Rhythm on the steeps", "Come and own". At the same time with with this, Francis arranges her personal life and marries a colleague in the shop Leif Erickson.



"Come and Own"

Everything seems to be perfect in life. But whether the woman was struck star disease, or other factors affected, but she began scandal with directors and colleagues, believing that her intentionally push, slipping the same type of role, so as not to give completely open up.



In an effort to change the picture, she moves to the eastern coast of the United States and meets the popular playwright Clifford Odets. They have a hot romance, and the man contributes promotion Francis is already on the stage. But both were married the relationship quickly fizzled out. And when the theater administration replaced Farmer on another actress, she plunged into the abyss of depression. She has nervous breakdowns began. And if at first after the return of the film studio assigned her the main roles, then already in 1940 this practice was abandoned regarding the woman's condition. And then they completely terminated the contract with her. At the same time, the marriage with Leif collapses.



A woman seeks solace in a bottle. A couple of years later, Francis receives a suspended sentence for drunk driving. It is already followed real for the fight. An influential relative pulls a woman out of prison, insisting on a psychiatric examination.



And for good reason: the examination revealed bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. And the methods of treating mental illness at that time were far away from humanity. For almost a year, she was periodically introduced into the medical to whom. During a brief enlightenment of consciousness, the patient escapes.



The mother of the actress filed a lawsuit against the hospital and filed a lawsuit over her daughter guardianship. But Farmer soon began to show aggression again, to climb into fight, rush at Lillian herself. As a result, she puts Francis in capital clinic. Where no less wild methods were used on patients: shock electrotherapy, straitjackets, many hours of ice baths.



As a result, she was discharged, declaring healthy. Home to people doomed her to torture, the woman did not return. wandered through the cities, clinging to street musicians. As a result, in California, the former star arrested for vagrancy. And again a psychiatric clinic. Methods which divided the life of a celebrity into before and after. They applied to her transorbital lobotomy, which did not cure, but finally crippled the mind and consciousness of a woman.

The attacks of aggression have stopped. And 5 years later Francis left the mournful walls. I got a job as a laundress in a hotel. And then I could return to acting, having received several roles in the theater.



In 1958, the TV show Farmer was released, which the public received from the eastrgm, still remembering the girl of dazzling beauty. But, apparently, stress from work had an effect, and outbreaks of aggression returned. Because of bouts of insanity, the last lover left her, and friends and relatives broke off relations.

After death at the age of 56 from oncology with one of the brightest stars of Hollywood came to say goodbye to only a few girlfriends. A few years later, with the support of one of them, a biography of the actress was published. based on the memories and recordings of "Will Morning Ever Come?" The description of the horrors of being in a psychiatric hospital made society to reconsider its attitude to the fate of women.



Jessica Lange as Frances Farmer in Frances, 1982

Two films dedicated to the history of Francis - "Francis" with Starring Jessica Lange and Will There Ever Be Morning?

Tribute to talent and difficult fate was later paid by others stars. Rock musician Kurt Cobain dedicated a song to the actress and called it honor her daughter, and the French singer Mylène Gauthier took the surname Francis in as a pseudonym, thus paying tribute to the memory of the talented a woman with a difficult fate.