ALTHOUGH Frances Farmer is a very young lady, she's had quite a bit of experience hanging around this Old World. Before she found herself in the movies and famous, she served as a waitress, an usher, a tutor and a radio player by turns.

However, if there is anyone who should believe in predestination or sumpthin', it is probably F r a n c e s Farmer. First of all she won a contest. Well, lots of girls have done that. But the prizes most girls have received were not trips to Russia. That, however, was what F. F. walked off with. She visited Leningrad, Moscow, Kiev, etc., and when she thought that just about everything thrilling that could happen to a girl had happened to her, she met someone on the boat returning to the United States who gave her a letter of introduction to a picture producer.

Well, many people have had such in- troductions and they led to just about nowhere, but again Frances' lucky star stepped in. Her letter led right to the Paramount School, where she was coached, tested and given a long-term contract. Though the Powers That Be at the studio didn't realize it, it was in the nature of a birthday present, for it all happened one September nineteenth!

Many a young actress gets a contract and then sits around a studio waiting to be called for work. She sometimes even becomes the Forgotten Woman on her own lot, but again, not Frances! From the day she set foot in the Cinema City, there were jobs for her. She was cast in one picture after another, among them being "Too Many Parents," "Border Flight" and "Rhythm on the Range." After "The Toast of New York" with Edward Arnold and Cary Grant. she will start work with Fred MacMurray on "Exclusive." So, let it never be said, that the Farmer has a single idle moment.

Non-professionally she is Mrs. Leif Erikson. Yes, that handsome young Paramount actor is Frances' hubby. He, too, is destined to go places cinematically and it is their ambition to play in a picture together.