LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Frances Farmer
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As played by Jessica Lange, Frances Farmer is a rebel from the word go, winning a high school essay award by writing a piece in defense of Communism. Determining to become an actress, Frances is equally determined not to play the Hollywood game: she refuses to acquiesce to idiotic publicity stunts, and insists upon appearing on screen sans makeup. Her defiance attracts the attention of Broadway playwright Clifford Odets, who convinces Frances that her future rests with the Group Theatre. But once she leaves Hollywood for New York, Frances learns to her chagrin that the Group intends to exploit her movie fame in order to draw in customers. Her desperate attempts to restart her movie career, combined with her increasing dependence on alcohol and the pressures brought to bear by her monster mother (Kim Stanley), result in a complete mental breakdown. Even while institutionalized, Frances is abused by the powers-that-be; she is forced to undergo an injurious brain operation, is treated like a mad animal, and periodically raped by the inmates.
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William Arnold was the first person to allege Frances Farmer was lobotomized. He provides absolutely no supporting evidence, either documentary or otherwise, in his book. Conversely, many people intimately connected with the case are on record, using their names, saying no lobotomy ever was performed on Farmer. The Farmer family has always insisted no operation took place. Nurses who were there at the time insisted no operation took place. Definitive archival records clearly show that Frances was not operated on. Western State was excited about their lobotomy program and certainly would not have kept an operation on Farmer secret for any reason; Keller and Freeman were both eagerly seeking press coverage of the lobotomies, and were in fact successful in garnering copious press for the program at Western State.
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Born in Seattle, Frances Farmer studied journalism and drama at the University of Washington, Seattle. In 1935, after winning a trip to Russia to see the Moscow Art Theater, she went to Hollywood where she secured a seven-year contract with Paramount. By the end of 1936, she was one of Paramount's most talked-about new stars, largely by virtue of her loan-out to Goldwyn for the dual role of mother and daughter in Come and Get It (1936). Late 1937 saw her achieve her long-held theatrical aspirations when she starred in the Group Theatre Broadway production of Clifford Odets' "Golden Boy", a play in which she continued to tour for most of the second half of 1938 after its original Broadway run ended. However, starting in 1939, her erratic behavior and increased drinking started to make her less reliable and sought after. Though she starred in two big budget 1940 films after walking out of a Broadway-bound play by Hemingway, by 1941 her star had fallen considerably at Paramount and she was consigned mostly to co-starring appearances.
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Some 50 years after her best work, Frances Farmer remains contemporary. A screen actress whose performances transcend her own time is rare; Farmer had that quality. No one seeing her on-screen will forget her deep voice and lovely eyes and no one learning of her life can dismiss her tragic story easily. Yet renewed interest in the actress's life has drawn attention from her remarkable talent.
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Frances Farmer is sentenced to six months in the L.A. County Jail for violating probation. Farmer reacts poorly to the news, punching a cop in the jaw as he was trying to take her away.
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The mother orchestrated a series of hospitalizations in bizarre mental institutions, where Frances Farmer was brutally mistreated and finally, horrifyingly, lobotomized. She ended her days as a vague, pleasant middle-age woman who did a talk show in Indianapolis and finally died of alcoholism.
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Frances Farmer