Frances Farmer has a reputation for being "difficult" - but she has rendered Hollywood one valuable service.

No one can possibly accuse me of being prejudiced in favour of Frances Farmer.

She is young, she is talented, she is lovely to look at, her friends say she is delightful to know, and for all I can tell she may be Heaven to kiss. I shouldn't be a bit surprised. 

But I happen to be a fellow who has lived and worked in the theatre, among theatre people, whom I consider to be in some ways the salt of the earth, with the sharp flavour of salt as well as its preserving qualities. 

I am no upholder of tradition for its own sake; tradition can be a rank, pernicious weed that coils itself about our life and chokes it. But it can also be a means of preserving fine qualities; and the chief tradition of the theatre is one which has been its prop and mainstay and proud banner, all in one-the tradition of loyalty to the Theatre. 

You wouldn't be a picturegoer if you weren't familiar with that banal, overworked phrase "The show must go on" which has been misused as a pivotal point or tear-duct in a hundred backstage musical weepies.

Yet, in spite of all that, it represents a rare and vital principle which real theatre people (and fortunately that includes an overwhelming majority of workers in the theatre) accept and maintain - the principle of putting the welfare of the theatre before personal considerations.

This spirit has been carried into the film studios, though somehow it has never grown to mean as much there as it does in the theatre; perhaps because there's more time to spend on petty differences of opinion, more money to squander on delays, and no set time for the curtain to go up.

But an actor is an actor, whether he is "walking the boards " or working on the set, and I cannot get it into my head that these people who " throw temperaments " and go high-hat and difficult, walking-out on productions and leaving thousands of pounds of other people's money to be unproductive or to be wasted altogether (to say nothing of their fellow-artistes' efforts and livelihood) are any more admirable in the film studios than in the theatre. 

Frances Farmer, justly or unjustly, has gained a reputation for being "difficult" - especially in the often embarrassing but highly necessary matter of publicity. 

I don't suppose any ambitious rising young actress relishes the idea of posing for "leg-art," as it is quaintly termed, as if she were some half-baked chorus-girl. You can't blame her. But it's all part of the machine which has been slowly and laboriously built up in Hollywood so that little cinema usherettes with ambitions to act may become princesses of the earth and world celebrities, all in the wink of an eyelid.

I wonder if Frances Farmer has forgotten that three years ago she was a little cinema usherette with ambitions to act? Certainly she has more than mere prettiness; certainly she had more than a mere desire to act - she had a burning, implacable ambition and determination, so that every free minute was spent in the local Little Theatre Club, of which she became the moving spirit.

And she had knowledge - partly instinctive, partly gained by painstaking study when other girls were "having fun." 

Frances Farmer is lovely to look at ... and judging by this glimpse of her in bathing costume (above) it's a pity she declines to pose for "leg art"!!

She had such knowledge that she argued her way all through the production of Come and Get It, and gained victory after victory over the expert directors and producers and technicians - and proved herself right by being a bigger success in it than any girl can reasonably expect to be when the star part belongs to Edward Arnold. 

Some say that gave her swelled head; maybe it's enough to. In any case, she has a reputation of being a sharp pain in the side to publicity departments, and no friend to film-journalists either.

So now you know why I can fairly claim not to be prejudiced in her favour.

In spite of that, I applaud her heartily, and this is why. She has broken down a tradition.

Last October Frances asked for, and readily obtained, leave of absence for six months from the Paramount studios, so that she might go and play on the Broadway stage - thereby forfeiting her chance of playing in Beau Geste. 

Her reason is said to be that she was dissatisfied with parts offered to her recently. Paramount's reason for letting her go need not be inquired into too closely - though I remember the deep sigh of relief that went up on the Radio lot when Katharine Hepburn went to Broadway to play in The Lake. 

That colossal flop of Katie's started something; it began a tradition and a thoroughly bad tradition at that.

It started people saying, "It's no use for a movie-star, even with stage experience, to go to Broadway thinking she can act. She just can't, that's all." 

This was followed by Henry Fonda, Sylvia Sidney, and Gloria Dickson all going into stage plays in New York that just opened and shut like an opera-hat. 

"Ah! You see!" said the wise ones bitterly. "That proves it! These people were experienced stage players before they ever came into films, and now look! They flopped! Something happens to you in Hollywood. You forget how to act." 

And thus another tradition was born. 

This, however, was one of those traditions which want slapping down as soon as possible, being based on a lie. Certainly it's true that a good film actress is not necessarily a good stage actress; but it's utterly false to say that she can't be. 

Anyway, Frances went, and played, and conquered; that is to say, she was a success in a difficult part, and earned much praise from critics who were getting all ready to yell "Yah! Katie!" at her. 

And thus a bad young tradition is busted wide open, with Frances standing triumphantly with one neat foot resting on the carcass, and presumably more sure of herself than ever.

Well, the only excuse for a girl being invariably sure she's right is to be right - and so far Frances has been.

I'm hoping, however, that when she returns to Hollywood she will have learned something about that fine stage tradition I was talking about. It won't do her any harm as an actress, and it would certainly rid a lot of minds of the earnest wish to give her just one big, kind, improving, brotherly spank.

Written by Max Breen for Picturegoer Weekly, 1938