and it's really heartbreaking

I watched, "Frances", a 1982 film about a 1930s American actress from Seattle named Frances Farmer. Not that I ever was interested in taking part in acting but saw that in the synopsis FF was involuntarily placed in a mental institution by her mother for many years and being there there at the Western State Hospital several times surviving rape, electrocution therapy, and basically being a guinea pig for different kinds of drugs as well as lobotomy. I wondered what kind of horrible monster would do that to their own daughter and decided to watch this film.

Frances Farmer lived an unhappy life. She was used by the people around her. As an actress, she was intelligent and a great writer, but got the "glamour" roles that she didn't want. FF reached success and fame but there were down periods where she had to make desperate attempts restart her career. She turned to alcoholism and drugs (although the drugs not seemingly so in the movie) which destroyed her. The film doesn't really let on if she was really mentally ill or not. I really don't think she was. Jessica Lange and Kim Stanley are both great actresses and their performances in the film were amazing.

I hope to read her autobiography, "Will There Really Be a Morning (1972)," although it is said that Jean Ratcliffe, friend and housemate, wrote some parts of it and some of the material is fictional. Farmer's sister wrote a rebuttal book, "Look Back in Love (1988)", stating that the autobiography was full of lies. Ugh. Regardless, Francis Farmer is truly an amazing woman to have survived all of the horribly tragic events that no human should go through. Always remembered and never forgotten.