“There comes a point when a dream becomes reality and reality becomes a dream.” – Frances Farmer

Frances Farmer was victimized by many events in her life, and, even in death, she is the victim of many more. 

Books, films and TV movies have all tried to capture the “real story” behind the spirited actress’ deterioration; but so far her story remains elusive. 

Frances was a rebel when it wasn’t fashionable – a free-thinking woman of the 30’s and 40’s whose outspoken nature, shocking language and anti-social behavior landed her in jails and mental institutions.  She flirted with Communism, denounced Hollywood despite a successful career, had a crudely executed abortion and sought escape through alcohol. 

In a contemporary situation, such antics would barely turn heads.  The Jane Fondas and Vanessa Redgraves of today upset only a select few, and while such women may be considered extremists, their ideas would not be challenged as being medically insane.   Frances Farmer’s radicalism triggered three commitments to insane asylums over an eight-year period, yet it never was proved that she was crazy. 

Although she played many roles in her 15-film career, none of them came close to the real-life drama experienced by the actress.

Now, 12 years after her death in Indianapolis and 10 years after her posthumous autobiography hit the bookstands, the tragic life of Frances Farmer is resurfacing in films and plays.  A full-length Universal movie, “Frances,” starring Jessica Lange, will open soon in area theaters. 

A CBS-TV mini-series, “Will There Really be a Morning,” based on the autobiography and with Susan Blakely as Frances, is tentatively scheduled Feb. 22.  Two New York plays have bowed – “Golden Girl” and “The Frances Farmer Story” – and a Broadway musical is seeking a backer. 

Years here ignored

The colorful life of Frances Farmer lends itself to an exciting storyline.  In contrast, her 1970 death was not a media event.  After surviving rapes, electro-insulin and hydro-shock therapies in the asylums, public ridicule for her unorthodox lifestyle and various forms of abuse by family and friends, Frances died of throat cancer six weeks before her 57^th birthday.   

She spent six years here as hostess of the afternoon movie on the NBC affiliate, WFMB-TV, before being fired in 1964.  The remainder of her years in Indianapolis were spent on abortive business ventures and recording information for her autobiography.   

Despite the stage and screen’s attention to Frances’ career and personal life, her Indianapolis years virtually are ignored.  While her tumultuous existence before age 44 makes a good copy, her dozen relatively peaceful years here deserve examination. 

They weren’t uneventful years – her Hoosier friends and co-workers found her to be just as enigmatic and controversial as had others at Hollywood, New York and her hometown of Seattle.  But they view her in a more sympathetic light, and talk about a Frances that the rest of the world did not see: 

She was not an alcoholic, they say, alluding to the fact that she did have a “drinking problem.”

Her vocabulary had lost some of its saltiness, although she was known to shout vulgarities in extreme anger and duress.  One friend says, “I never heard Frances say one swear word, not even off-handedly.”

Many of her friends and co-workers were unaware of much of her past because she “never talked about it.”

Those who knew her well – and even some who didn’t – most frequently use the term “misunderstood” in describing Frances.  They also say she was intelligent and talented, and agree if she had continued her acting career she would have rivaled the best of them.  At the height of her popularity in the late ‘30s and early ‘40s, the pretty blonde actress was compared to Garbo and Hepburn.   

The lobotomy issue

Probably the most controversial event in her past occurred during her five-year stay in Washington’s Western State Hospital at Steilacoom, which she entered in 1945 at the age of 31.  It has been suggested that she underwent a trans-orbital lobotomy, an excision of the nerves which control aggressive behavior.  At that time, one of the country’s leading psycho-surgeons had developed a new procedure:  Inserting an icepick-like instrument under the eyelid and into the brain.  He could modify the behavior of any “maniac” at the rate of 10 per hour. 

The “Frances” film takes the stand that she did undergo the operation. 

Was Frances lobotomized?   “Absolutely not!” say those who knew her.  If she had, they suggested, how could she have functioned normally – indeed at a higher level than most – with a daily television show and lines to learn for productions at the old Avondale Playhouse here and Purdue University? 

One woman interviewed by The Star said, “Frances told me she did not have a lobotomy.” 

A friend who was close to Frances says she knows a lobotomized woman who is docile and unemotional.  Frances, she notes, was “definitely emotional.”  Asked if Frances had ever discussed the lobotomy issue with her, the friend laughed and said, “What for?  It never came up until people started writing books and movies.”   

One person she did discuss the operation with was New York writer Lois Kibbee, who previously had done a biography on Christine Jorgensen, the famous sex-change study, and was collaborating with Frances on her life story.   

In a tape provided by Frances’ close friend Jeanira (Jean) Ratcliffe of Indianapolis, who took over the book-writing after Frances’ death, Frances said:  “I heard girls in the violent ward who were pleading for lobotomies.   They’d say, ‘I want a lobotomy!’ and ‘Give me this operation!’  They had been told the operation would sever the little nerve that controls one’s sense of grief.”   

She went on to say many of the women in Western State played like they had adjusted to the hospital’s conception of normalcy in order to be released.  “Normal,” Frances observed, “meant adjusting to situations you find yourself in.” 

She also said that during her incarceration she was never given anything to read because “they said it would disturb me… I thought, ‘I’ll survive this – hang on – this will pass – something will happen’… I didn’t believe this was really happening.  It was not real:  It was not about me, of me, not then and not now… There comes a point when a dream becomes reality and reality becomes a dream.” 

Autobiography disputed  

Three books chronicle the life of Frances Farmer, each distinctly different from the others. All three contain either half-truths, speculation, misleading information or a combination thereof. 

“Will There Really be a Morning” – the title taken from Frances’ favorite poem by Emily Dickinson – was published by Putnam in 1972, two years after her death.  Although the book is called an autobiography, the consensus among insiders is that it was written entirely by Jean Ratcliffe.  Miss Ratcliffe says she wrote only the last chapter, describing how Frances died of a hemorrhage.   But a friend of Frances’ says emphatically, “Frances didn’t write a word of it!” 

Speaking through her attorney, Miss Ratcliffe declined to be interviewed by The Star. 

William Arnold, author of another Farmer book, “Shadowland,” says in his book that “Immediately after Frances’ death, Lois Kibbee withdrew from the book project and Jean Ratcliffe picked it up … she glorified the character of Jean Ratcliffe excessively in the last few chapters, and finally – as a curious closing touch – dedicated the book to herself.” 

While her Indianapolis years are covered extensively in “Will There Really be a Morning,” other aspects of Frances’ life are altered in the book and only vague references are made to persons who figured heavily in her life, including her three husbands.  Parts of the book are lurid, obviously written with an eventual movie in mind.  In 1974, Miss Ratcliffe announced she was writing the screenplay for an all woman production to be filmed in Indianapolis and star British actress Glenda Jackson.  The project was dropped, however, when she couldn’t obtain financial backing.  

A friend of Miss Ratcliffe’s, Moselle Schaffer of Zionsville, explained that in all fairness to the writer, she was working with a demanding editor in Putnam’s John Dodds. 

“I read Lois Kibbee’s book (on Frances) and it was absolutely blah, so the publisher wouldn’t accept it,” Mrs. Schaffer recalled.   “Fortunately, he was kind enough to hold that decision until after Frances died.  Jean told Dodds she would write the book, and he said, ‘I offer you no encouragement whatsoever.’ 

“There was one part that was left out … when Frances first was released from the asylum, how she wandered into a bar… Dodds cut that part saying he thought it established Frances as a prostitute.  “I thought Jean did a spectacular job in terms of tackling a hostile publisher.   When they publish an autobiography they rely heavily on the person who wrote the book to promote it on television shows and such; and with that possibility gone it was more of a challenge for Jean to meet the publisher’s requirements.” 

Another friend, Betty Whitaker of Indianapolis, concurred.  “When Frances knew she was dying, she told Jean, ‘Don’t let this stop the book project.’  That was her final wish,” said Mrs. Whitaker.   

At that time, of course, Frances thought the Kibbee book had been accepted.  She never knew Miss Ratcliffe would be involved except as a consultant. 

‘Offsetting the lies’ 

William Arnold, a reporter for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, researched the life of the hometown girl for “Shadowland” (McGraw-Hill, 1978).  This book views Frances from a distance and leans heavily on exposing medical malpractice in sanitariums of that era.  Arnold believes the lobotomy theory and says Frances was raped “hundreds of times” by soldiers who sneaked in to the asylum from nearby Ft. Lewis. 

Both instances are disputed by family and friends.  They say she was sexually abused by hospital orderlies and other inmates, but that the soldier story is “a lie.”  

In an attempt to set the record straight, Frances’ sister, Edith Farmer Elliot, now 70 and living near Seattle, wrote “Look Back In Love” (1978), a privately published paperback with virtually no national distribution.  Consisting mainly of letters between family members (including many from Frances), Mrs. Elliot’s book was written “to offset the awful salacious lies” in “Will There Really be a Morning.” 

With heavy trimming and less editorializing, this volume might have been a major publication.  It’s accurate in terms of times, dates, names and places.  But as it stands, it reads like a desperate attempt to clear the family name and serve comeuppance on Jean Ratcliffe.  

Three books, each with a different theory on why Frances Farmer became a tragic heroine – indeed, a legend – are there to titillate, confuse, offend and perhaps even to inform the reader. 

“Morning” blames her downfall on Frances’ parents, particularly her mother, Lillian Farmer, portrayed as an eccentric, publicity-hungry woman who was responsible for admitting her to the asylums.  “Shadowland” pursues the medical angle and barely touches on the reasons which led up to her breakdowns.  “Love” blames Communist influence in both her college days and later, when she joined the left-wing Group Theatre in 1937 at New York City. 

In a letter to her sister dated April 14, 1962, Frances wrote of her contentment in Indianapolis:  “I have enjoyed the last few weeks so much in a quiet and settled way, and I do think I’ve never felt better in my life.” 

Sister vs. friend 

But during her peaceful years here, Frances’ life was marred by two warring factors:  Her sister, Edith, and her closest friend, Jean Ratcliffe.  That the two women battled for an important spot in Frances’ life is well-known in private circles. 

This especially became evident when Mrs. Elliot’s book came out eight years after her sister’s death to refute Frances’ “alleged autobiography.”  Although she never mentions Miss Ratcliffe’s full name in the book, Mrs. Elliot is not subtle about her feelings for the woman she calls Frances’ “writer friend.”   

In 1974, in a letter written by Mrs. Elliot and published in The Indianapolis News, she denounces “Will There Really be a Morning” as “lesbian pornography fiction (full of) filthy lies,” written to make a fast buck. 

Miss Ratcliffe’s reaction to Mrs. Elliot’s allegations has been to ignore them, although she admits to friends that she has never read “Look Back In Love,” which contains similar attacks.   

In a telephone interview, Mrs. Elliot confided her family has “gone through 10 years of hell” since “Morning” was published.  “I was outraged,” she said in a weary but determined voice.  “I felt it was an invasion of our family’s privacy.  Gloria Vanderbilt called me right after the TV movie of her life was shown and said she sympathized with me.” 

Mrs. Elliot blames Frances’ involvement in left-wing politics while at the University of Washington, plus her affiliation with the Group Theatre (an experimental group dedicated to the principals of the artistic Russian master, Stanislavsky) for breaking up her first marriage to actor Leif Erickson. 

Asked if her sister had had a “secret lobotomy,” she said, “Definitely not!  They (the hospital) wanted my parents to sign a release to have it done, but my father and Uncle Frank put the pressure on and got her released.” 

Mrs. Elliot said she paid $5,000 to have 1,500 copies of her book printed, and that she has given away more than she has sold.  “But now I can die happy knowing I’ve set the record straight,” she concluded. 

Events questioned 

One observer asserts that Miss Ratcliffe “tried to drive a wedge between Edith and Frances” by usurping Frances’ time and money on two failed business ventures:  a decorating firm and a cosmetics company.  Mrs. Whitaker, however, said Frances had put her family out of her life years before and that her correspondence with Mrs. Elliot was mainly to settle their late mother’s estate. 

Also in dispute are the following events:

           During a visit to Indianapolis, Mrs. Elliot was told by Frances that Miss Ratcliffe had destroyed a family scrapbook containing important information on Frances’ career, which was to be used in writing her autobiography.  Miss Ratcliffe’s friends say Mrs. Elliot took possession of the scrapbook following Frances’ funeral.

            “Morning” points out that Frances’ parents rarely visited their daughter in the asylum because it upset her too much, while “Love” indicates one or both parents visited her every weekend until her mother suffered a series of strokes.

            “Love” mentions a will drawn by Frances in 1963 leaving everything to Mrs. Elliot and naming her executrix of her estate.  Upon Frances’ death, the book says, “The writer produced a signed will of stationery-store form leaving everything to her (Miss Ratcliffe) and making her executrix… to give her legal access to Frances’ personal items and freedom to publish a rewriting” of an earlier manuscript Frances had allegedly turned down as “too trashy to print.”  An earlier manuscript never existed, Miss Ratcliffe’s friends insist. 

Sorting out the fact from fiction is an arduous challenge, but should anyone care to try, copies of “Will There Really be a Morning” (in a Dell paperback) and “Look Back In Love” are available in all Indianapolis Waldenbooks, B. Dalton’s and Ober bookstores. 

Frances’ life has inspired other spin-off stories such as Peter Occhiogrosso’s “Golden Girl,” an off-Broadway play which is a fictionalized account of her romance with playwright Clifford Odets, in which the characters of Frances and her mother are completely altered. 

Why should any author or screenwriter feel the need to fictionalize or sensationalize that which already is sensational?  Just as an artist’s eyes frequently are “all-seeing” in a self-portrait, does a writer feel the need to put his all-seeing stamp on a story before presenting it to the public? 

Frances Farmer was reared in a household which encouraged sticking up for one’s convictions and it was her outspokenness that made her a victim of her own honesty.  She left us only fragments of what she saw, thought and felt. 

Reality, as Frances Farmer knew it, has become a media-manufactured “dream.”  If there’s a true story about her life, it hasn’t yet been told. 

This article appeared in The Indianapolis Star – January 23, 1983

Provided by Jack Randall Earles

Index